Adios, Austin

Listeners in Austin, Texas were in for a bit of a shock this afternoon when they dialed up KOKE (1600AM) and found Air America replaced by Mexican music.

Nothing sinister here. As mentioned here a few weeks ago, the station, along with two other AM outlets in the market, were sold by Border Media Partners to Jose J. Garcia. Garcia took control of the three signals on Monday, and evidently installed his own format. Both the progressive talk format and station website are no more.

This has nothing to do with station performance. Ratings, while far from stellar, were probably about as good as they were going to get with that relatively weak signal. It was basically a matter of a new owner doing what he wants to do with the station.

UPDATE: It seems KOKE was not the sole recipient of Garcia's housecleaning. Sister stations KTXZ (1560AM) and KELG (1440AM) also obtained new formats.

I'd also like to send a special shout out to all our visitors from Newsbusters, who were so kind to link here via the snide headline "Even liberal Austin, Texas doesn't like Air America." Hate to break it to ya, but Brent Bozo and company got it wrong again. This move had nothing to do with Air America. It was merely a case of the new owner coming in with his own formats, something that happens quite often in the radio biz. As a matter of fact, KOKE ranked #3 overall among AM stations in the last Arbitron book. That doesn't say much, since AM doesn't do well in Austin, Texas.

So be aware that when you're drinking Bozo's 'Jim Jones Juice,' it does indeed have artificial flavoring.