Earthquake Shakes Up Alaska Radio

7.0 In Anchorage (Shutterstock)

The 7.0 earthquake that hit ANCHORAGE, AK this morning has scrambled programming at several of the market's stations.

ALPHA MEDIA News-Tall KFQD-A-K279BG/ANCHORAGE dropped everything and went to wall-to-wall coverage, which is being simulcasted on other ALPHA stations. Coverage is somewhat spotty at iHEARTMEDIA stations. Top 40 KGOT has gone to quake coverage, taking calls from listeners; AC KYMG has temporarily dropped its CHRISTMAS music for what seems to be a simulcast, but others have stuck to their normal programming.

iHEARTMEDIA News-Talk KENI-A stayed with PREMIERE’s RUSH LIMBAUGH and ABC NEWS at the top of the hour, with no local quake coverage; its website only carried a national wire service quake story. Country sister KASH is only reporting on the quake in traffic reports.  

Meanwhile, down the road a piece at the FRONTIER MEDIA/JUNEAU cluster, Dir./Operations and Programming CHUCK GEIGER tells ALL ACCESS that "We went right to news coverage from our news room. We are 496 miles to the south, but ANCHORAGE is the real urban and commerce area of ALASKA. We began airing our Station Manager's family and friends, employees of ALPHA MEDIA and OHANA MEDIA GROUP in ANCHORAGE, as well as the newsroom talking to the Tsunami Warning Center. Our morning show on KINY, with STEVE HOLLOWAY, began airing calls, reports and interviews almost immediately. We are fortunate to have a fully staffed 24-hour news room for our five stations."

Added FRONTIER MEDIA Pres. RICHARD BURNS, "While it might seem unusual for JUNEAU being so far away to get into deep coverage, ALASKA is one very close community. JUNEAU being the state capital has very strong ties to the rest of the state. As you would imagine, there is a great deal of activity between ANCHORAGE as ALASKA’s biggest city and JUNEAU as the capital.  As CHUCK said, we are very fortunate to have a fully staffed local news room in JUNEAU -– unheard of in this day and age in a market of 32,000. We know it’s critically important to be ‘on’ whatever people want to know about and that includes this major event in ANCHORAGE. We are also making our news coverage available to other stations in the state for free if they want it."  

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