Kiger's Notebook

National Night Out and Kiger as a target

I have always attempted to make a splash in the Rochester business community and it looks like I'll literally get my chance
during Tuesday's National Night Out events.

 The Minnesota School of Business is hosting a community event from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday at its campus at 2521 Pennington Dr. N.W. in honor of National Night.

This is being done in partnership with the Cimmaron Neighborhood Association.

Expect free food including hot hogs, nachos, sno-cones and more. A live DJ will be playing music. There will also be games, an inflatable bounce house and much more.

And to add to the fun, there will be a dunk tank featuring foolish folks, like newspaper columnists, as targets.

Do you hate the way I use the phrase "Med City"? I know that drives the Post-Bulletin copy editors crazy? Have I butchered the spelling of your name or overlooked your business?

This is your chance to take your best shot at me (I'm looking at you, Mr. Answer Man. Heh) and support a positive neighborhood event.

I won't be the only target. Dunken and Sam of the KROC-FM Morning Show will also take turns in the tank.

Jones to take over 102.5 Fox morning

Here's a quick follow-up to yesterday's announcement about Tracy Dixon leaving Rochester's 102.5 The Fox radio morning show.

Two of the Med City's most well-known radio voices - Julie Jones and Dave Berg - are switching things up. I'll have this in my column tomorrow.

This is a note from Craig Erpestad, Clear Channel's operations manager in Rochester:

102.5 The Fox, KMFX radio would like to announce that longtime morning air personality Tracy Dixon is accepting the morning drive position at WMAD in Madison Wisconsin!

  Julie Jones who currently is on 102.5 The Fox in the afternoon drive slot will be taking over the morning show beginning Aug. 8.

Julie is one of the most well known radio personalities in the Rochester Radio market and we are very excited to promote her to be the morning show host.

Dave Berg, who currently hosts the midday show will be moving to the afternoon drive. Dave is not only a very well known air talent, he is also extremely involved in the community as our public service director.

Popular Roch. personality moving on

Here's some from my column today following up last week's tease about a change in the local radio scene:

A popular Rochester radio personality is moving on to a new gig in Wisconsin.

Tracy Dixon, who is Clear Channel's voice in the morning on 102.5 The Fox, announced this morning that she is going to Madison, Wisconsin to lead a morning show on Clear Channel's 96.3 Star Country.

"It is very bittersweet," she says of leaving Rochester. "It is really one of the most giving communities I can imagine."

She'll wrap up her 12 years at Fox with her last show on Aug. 5.

Her new show in Madison will launch on the air on Aug. 22.

"This next month will be a whirlwind,"Dixon says of moving her family to Madison and taking on a job. "I seriously couldn't be any more excited."

Most of her time on the air at Fox, she worked with partner Jake Duffy.

Then about three years ago, the station cut back on staffing and she became a one-person morning show.

"That was tough. I had to re-invent the way I do a morning show," Dixon says.

-------

Many local people, including Rochester police officer Lt. Craig Anderson, many firefighters and local comedian Danielle Teal, made regular on-air appearances with Dixon.

I even made semi-regular appearances on the show for a short time, on the rare days that I could manage to get up that early.

Who knew that morning radio shows start before noon? Heh.

Roch. radio station's technical difficulties

Sometimes quiet is a good thing, unless it is at a radio station.

Technical difficulties silenced AM 1270 "The Fan" (KWEB) in Rochester over the weekend, including during the Minnesota Vikings game Sunday.

While the game was broadcast as usual on KWEB's sister FM station, Laser 101.7 (KRCH), a transmitter failure did have the station's staff scrambling to fix the problem.

The problems began Saturday morning when the station's transmitter failed.

Craig Erpstad, Clear Channel Radio's operation manager in Rochester, said parts had to be flown into the Med City to make the repair.

Once the parts were in hand, the fix was made.

By Sunday evening, fans of the sports talk station could once again tune in to the station.

Crane climbers, 318 Commons update and video

In case you didn't see this yesterday or today, two 23-year-old guys decided to climb a seven story construction crane early Sunday morning in downtown Rochester.

The crane, in the 300 block of First Avenue, is being used to build 318 Commons student housing/ mixed use development.

"The men told police 'they weren't afraid of heights.' Officers determined the men had been drinking."

Drinking? HHhhmmm.... Go figure.

Here's the link to the story by Jeffrey Pieters.

Since I haven't posted an update pic of the construction of this project recently, I thought this story was a good excuse to to do that as well getting a photo of the crane that show some perspective of what these urban mountain climbers were clambering up in the dark.

As a bonus, I'm throwing in a video clip of Mayor Ardell Brede speaking at the groundbreaking of 318 Commons.

As long-time readers of this blog know…I'm just a giver.

Heh.

Rambling Kiger on spot news video + timeline of Chuck/ Joe's building

 

The life of the 54,000-square-foot building at 1200 16th St. S.W. in Rochester

• 1986 - Twin Cities-based Nash Fitch buys land to build a new Econofoods  grocery store.

• September 1988 - Econofoods store opens.

• May 2004 - Nash Finch Co. closed the Econofoods store as well as many others in the state and U.S. during the company's reorganization.

• January 2005 - Developer Kriss Novak of Minnetonka, Minn. announced plans to renovate the former grocery store and re-brand it as Apache Shoppes. He also announced that Linens 'n Things and Cost Plus World Market were going to open stores there.

• August 2005 - Cost Plus World Market opens its new 18,000-square-foot store.

• September 2005 - Linens 'n Things opens its new 27,000-square-foot store.

• December 2006 - Apache Shoppes, including the Cost Plus and Linens 'n Things building and a nearby newly built commercial strip, was, sold to Inland Real Estate Corp. of Oak Brook, Ill. for $12.3 million.

• May 2008 - Linens 'n Things closes its store.

• January 2009 - Cost Plus World Market closes its store.

• December 2009 - Chuck E. Cheese's announces plans to open in the former Cost Plus World Market space.

• May 2010 - Chuck E. Cheese's deals falls through.Trader Joe's announces plans to open a grocery store in the space Chuck E. Cheese's had planned on using.

• July 2010 - Chuck E. Cheese's says it is coming to Rochester and will be next to Trader Joe's in the ex-Linens-N-Things store.

Tell me what you think

In what is becoming an annual event, I'm turning to the opinionated and insightful readers of this blog for some feedback on the Post-Bulletin and our Web site.

 And I'm tossing in a couple bonus questions this time.

• Do you read the print edition? Why or why not?
• What do you like about the newspaper?

• What don't you like?

• Do you read postbulletin.com? When and where do you read it?

• What do you like or dislike about the Web site?

• Do you get more out of the newspaper this year than you did last year? How about postbulletin.com?

• Would you recommend the Post-Bulletin in any of its forms to a friend?

BONUS QUESTION

In a February issue, The Economist looked at "The Data Deluge" for many perspectives. Wal-Mart's databases are being pumped with 1 million sales a hour. Facebook has 40 billion photos on it. Tech companies are focusing more and more on analysis data like IBM's purchase of the data-savvy firm, SPSS, in Rochester.

We are inundated with information all day, everyday.

Interpreting and understanding the information is becoming an exercise in triage. That means only dealing with what you most need or want and letting the rest wash over you with no consideration or analysis.

• What data do you need help turning into usable information? What kind questions do you need help answering everyday?

More on Z-Rock's doubling down

Here's more on the Z-Rock radio station change:

Cumulus Media is now rocking the local radio scene twice as hard as last week.

As of midnight Monday, the Rochester station Z-Rock KDZZ is broadcasting on the FM frequency of 103.9 as well as 107.7.

Cumulus launched Z-Rock, which plays what is called an active rock format, in 2008 on the most limited of its Rochester frequencies.

Active rock is described as leaning more toward harder and more modern rock music than classic rock stations. That means bands like Green Day, Linkin Park and Sublime as well as older groups like Nirvana, Metallic and Guns 'N Roses.

"We thought it might find a nice little niche audience. Then it really exploded," says Brent Ackerman, Cumulus-Rochester's operations manager. "It has really exceeded what what we thought it could do."

Z-Rock's growing audience eventually outgrew the range of the 107.7 frequency, which does not reach areas east of Rochester well.

"We thought now we need to really expand it off our smallest signal. With popularity of our other well-established stations like Quick Country and Y-105, the obvious candidate was KLCX," he says.

That means to expand the reach of Z-Rock, Cumulus had to pull the plug on KLCX Classic Hits, which had been broadcast on 103.9 for the past two years.

Ackerman is encouraging classic hits fans to try the sister stations of Soft Rock Y-105 at 105.3 or Oldies Cool 104 at 104.3.

KLCX's hitting the road did not mean any lost jobs for Cumulus. Jeff Cecil, who worked as program director and announcer for both Z-Rock and KLCX, now focuses solely on the expanded Z-Rock. Cecil and Karly Rhodes handle Z-Rock's mid-day and drive-time DJ duties. The national Mancow Show airs in the mornings.

Roch. radio switch - Z-rock doubles up, Classic Hits hit the road

  Cumulus radio in Rochester is broadcasting Z-Rock on two frequencies –107.7 and 103.9 – as of Tuesday.

That means  Classic Hits KLCX, which has broadcast on 103.9 since 2008, is off the air.

And I think it means the national Mancow show now has two places on the Rochester dial to compete with the national Bob & Tom Show.

I'll have more on this change soon.