KREB Moves Sports, Plans Return of Rome

Stephen Butler, owner and operator of Butler Broadcasting Co., recently moved his 24-hour sports format from 99.5 and 96.7 FM to 1190 AM, now known as KREB “The Fan.” The FM stations have applied for new call letters with the Federal Communication Commission, but for the time being are operating together as “Y99.5” with a “groovin oldies” format.

Butler said the switch was made in an attempt to attract more female listeners to its FM stations.

“We needed a vehicle to generate more female 25-to-54s [an age group], and 60 percent of groovin’ oldies listeners are from that demographic,” Butler said. “We needed that demo to meet some advertising goals.”

Butler said in early August that since making the switch, 99.5 and 96.7 had experienced their best sales months ever. He said the signal for 1190 AM is 2.5 times stronger than “Y99.5,” which means the all-day sports programming can still be heard from Bella Vista to downtown Fayetteville.

The 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. local “Bo Mattingly Show,” 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. “SEC Conference Call” and St. Louis Cardinals baseball games are being aired on both KREB and Y99.5. The biggest news, however, is that Jim Rome’s “The Jungle” show is being added from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Recently, it fell off Butler’s stations because of scheduling conflicts.

Rome will now follow equally popular shows hosted by Tony Kornheiser and Dan Patrick.

Butler Broadcasting also owns KBRS-104.9 FM, “The X,” which features alternative rock and KZAR-1390 AM, “La Zeta,” which carries programming for the Hispanic community.

Butler Broadcasting bought KREB and KBRS, 104.9 FM, in 1999 from Hochman Communications of Fayetteville for $1.5 million.

We’re not in Poplin, My., anymore

Spell check is a valuable computer tool — when used correctly.

But after a long day of writing and editing, it can be a disaster if a bleary-eyed editor clicks “replace” with his computer mouse every time spell check flags a questionable word. What the editor should be clicking on is the word “skip,” which means the word is spelled correctly even though it isn’t recognized by spell check.

That’s exactly what happened in the Aug. 7 issue of the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal.

In a graphic titled “The roster: On-air talent at NBC 24/51,” all of the names flagged by spell check were replaced with the nearest recognizable word. Thus, Joplin, Mo., became “Poplin, My.” — three different times! And television station KOMU in Columbia, Mo., became “COMMA.”

And, worst of all, Dara Demi, a reporter for NBC 24/51, was renamed “Data Demo” in our graphic.

We promise to pay more attention in the future.