Chuck Taylor/Seattle Times–
In this year of upheaval in Seattle radio, the competition is about to get very intense during morning drive with imminent changes at two stations:
— One of the most creative teams in town, Robin Erickson and John Maynard, will resurface Oct. 31 during morning drive on classic-rock KZOK-FM (102.5). Robin and Maynard, as they are known, did afternoons and, in the end, mornings at extinct album-rocker KXRX, which became “Young Country” KYCW-FM (96.5) in June.
— Another one of the most creative teams in town, Gary Crow and Mike West, will resurface Monday during morning drive on adult-alternative KMTT-FM-AM (103.7, 850). Crow and West did mornings and, in the end, afternoons at – altogether now – extinct album-rocker KXRX.
At KZOK, morning guy and longtime Seattle DJ Gary Lockwood was let go this week. His ratings were fine, but the new ownership of the station saw an opportunity with Robin and Maynard available.
Lockwood was rumored to be headed for ’70s-hits KJR-FM (95.7) – in the ’70s he was with then-Top 40 KJR-AM (950), which is now sports-talk – but KJR-FM program director Norm Gregory said he had not talked with “Lockjock.”
At KMTT, morning personality John Fisher will move to afternoons and cohort Peyton Mays, who is married to program director Chris Mays, is leaving the station.
Crow has been doing afternoons solo at “The Mountain” and will switch to mornings, to be joined by West.
The changes at KZOK and KMTT suddenly turn up the volume in an already-rowdy radio market where ownership consolidations, talent defections, format changes and expensive publicity campaigns have people here and elsewhere buzzing.
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Chuck Taylor (the writer of the above column) was a Whitman student when he began radio in Walla Walla at KUJ. When I was at WSU, he had taken a year off from school to work at KRPL in Moscow, he used the name (Charlie Taylor). When I took a year off from WSU, he had returned to Whitman and worked at the campus station KWCW, which I was volunteering at while also working at KTEL.