Free Republic

With this week’s flip to Oldies at 570 KVI Seattle, Salem Communications is quickly acting to fill the void. 1590 KLFE will drop its mix of brokered Russian and Christian preaching on Monday, November 15 to throw its hat in the Talk arena as “Freedom 1590“. The lineup at launch will include Bill Bennett from 3am to 7am, Mike Gallagher from 7am to 9am (again from 12am to 3am), Dennis Prager from 9am to 12pm (and again from 9pm to 12am), Dennis Miller from 12pm to 3pm, Hugh Hewitt from 3pm to 6pm, and Mark Levin from 6pm to 9pm....

SEATTLE -- After more than 15 years of conservative talk radio, 570 KVI will flip to an oldies music format next week. Fisher Communications, parent company of both KVI and KOMONews.com, said the station will become "Seattle's Greatest Hits 570 KVI" starting Monday, Nov. 8.

Fisher Communications-owned KVI started a trend in 1993 when it became the first all-conservative big-market talk station. But the field became more and more crowded, and now Fisher sees an opportunity for a full-service oldies station that features recognizable Seattle personalities. As of next Monday (November 8), mornings will be Tom Hutyler (from KJR and KOMO) and Marina Rockinger (ex-KBSG, KOMO). Former KBSG jock Mark Christopher does afternoons and former KJR DJ Ric Hansen handles nights. While Sue Romero, Bill Rice and Ana Kelly, all recognizable market voices, will do local news, traffic and information. Travis Box continues as the...

Posted: 9:02 am PDT July 3, 2009 Updated: 9:16 am PDT July 3, 2009 SEATTLE -- A fire at Fisher Plaza has disrupted stations that broadcast from the building near the Seattle Center and many Seattle-based Internet sites. KOMO Radio said the fire in an electrical vault about 11 p.m. Thursday forced the evacuation of the building and caused the sprinkler system to activate. The fire and water damage knocked out a large data center in the building that handles many Seattle-based web sites. Authorize.net, which handles credit card transactions for tens of thousands of e-commerce vendors, is one of...

..."It's a great day for freedom of speech in Washington and great day for freedom of speech in America," said Carlson, one of two hosts at the center of the legal dispute...The court's 9-0 ruling was a sharp rebuke of several local governments — including Seattle — that brought the original case. In a concurrence opinion, Justices Jim Johnson and Richard Sanders called it an "abusive" attempt by the municipalities to silence political opponents. Two years ago, Carlson and fellow KVI-AM host Kirby Wilbur waged an extensive on-air campaign to promote a citizen initiative to overturn a 9.5-cent-a-gallon gas-tax increase...

Breaking: Free speech victory in Washington state By Michelle Malkin   ·   April 26, 2007 12:38 PM There's an important breaking court decision on a political free speech case involving my friends at KVI radio in Seattle. A reader e-mails: A unanimous Washington state supreme court ruling, issued this morning, reversed a lower court ruling that held radio commentary by Seattle's KVI-570's Kirby Wilbur and John Carlson made "in-kind" contributions when they promoted an anti-gas tax voter initiative on their shows in 2005. Majority Opinion by Justice Barbara Madsen. Concurring opinion by Justice James Johnson, scolding the abusive prosecutors. Seattle Times...

Kistinn is doing a live interview with KVI about WRAMC.

For liberal talkers, still failing to carve a significant niche in a fiercely competitive media environment, today apparently won't bring their hoped-for "Fitz-mas". Yes, that's how they describe the elusive ratings windfall indicted senior Bush Administration officials might (in a Rhodesian fantasy world) bring to floundering "progressive" talk shows. Al Franken used the term (which refers to special counsel Patrick J Fitzgerald) during a Wednesday CNN interview, as have his radio counterparts, repeatedly. As the New York Times is now reporting, however, Karl Rove is not likely to face charges for now, if ever. Can "Scooter" Libby alone save liberal...

Despite new management assertions to the contrary, two KVI/Seattle talk show hosts believe a July court ruling now prevents them from discussing a key November statewide ballot initiative on the airwaves. In a stunning decision, a Thurston County, Washington judge forced organizers of Initiative 912 to report, as in-kind campaign contributions, favorable comments made by KVI hosts Kirby Wilbur and John Carlson. Backers of I-912, which seeks to repeal a statewide gas tax hike, were required to place a dollar value on talk radio's supportive statements....(snip) ....Despite the August sackings of its key participants, one of sports talk's most peculiar...

Kirby Wilbur is a popular radio talk show host in Seattle. He is funny, intelligent, savvy, and—it must be admitted—sassy. I have been on his show twice, and he has been out to our campus in Michigan to talk to our students. I happen to agree with him on most things, but I venture that any fair person speaking with him would think him interesting and engaging, if also perhaps frustrating to oppose. But these are not the important things about Kirby Wilbur just now. The important thing about him just now is that he is an ordinary American. He...

Nothing's worse than seeing a major news development, especially one having such a huge potential impact on conservative activism, getting buried by holiday distractions. Especially ironic: a judicial assault on free speech, just before Independence Day. Since a Thurston County, Washington, judge ruled late last Friday that comments by Seattle talk hosts are considered in-kind campaign contributions, subject to reporting under state disclosure laws, it's been an uphill battle getting conservatives to understand its ramifications.

Ruling throws media for a curve A judge's ruling that two talk-radio hosts' on-air activity could be considered campaign contributions has attracted concern that the decision could have unintended effects on other media. "This is an extremely important ruling that has very significant implications across the country for the First Amendment," warned Mark Lamb, one of two lawyers who represented Initiative 912 sponsors in Thurston County Superior Court against claims by opponents that the radio hosts' activities could be considered political contributions.Superior Court Judge Chris Wickham ruled Friday morning that on-air advocacy of the anti-gasoline-tax initiative by KVI Radio hosts...

Fed up with increasingly disturbing cases of judicial activism? Get ready for one that will knock your socks off. Proving that the US Supreme Court's decimation of private property rights in the Kelo v. New London decision could be a mere warm-up act, a Washington state judge has now taken a wrecking ball to the First Amendment. Talk radio's ability to freely express on-air opinions on the day's top news, especially of a political nature, is now taking it on the chin.

What's happening to talk radio in the Puget Sound area? Tonight's fresh ratings data for the Seattle-Tacoma market doesn't bode well for the format. Soon after the data's release, the Radio Equalizer was already hearing from readers, who thought these declines really jumped off the page. Liberal, conservative, it just didn't matter from Arbitron's perspective: Lattleland seems to be suffering from talk radio fatigue.

Anyone who listens to KVI know Kiel Mortgage is a HUGE sponsor. Laura Kiel was just on the air with John Carlson and said her nephew was missing. He left her business 25 hours ago, taking a package from Kent, WA to Sultan, WA. He never showed up. He was last heard from when the office called in at 2:58 p.m. yesterday and he answered his cellphone. Completely uneventful conversation. His name is JefWhitiger (sp?). He is described as 41-years-old, 5'11", bald and over 300 pounds. He was driving a white 1998 Cadillac Caterra (sp?) with a license plate of...

KVI, Fox News Partner For First Fox-Branded Radio Station KVI Talk Radio 570 in Seattle and Fox News have partnered to provide the first Fox News branded radio station in the country. KVI will feature Fox News personalities and radio news updates. The station's new moniker will be "KVI Talk Radio 570…Fox News and talk radio." KVI's lineup will include shows hosted by Fox News personalities Tony Snow, Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes. "We're thrilled to be the first station in America to partner with Fox News in this way," said KVI Radio Program Director Paul Duckworth. "Our listeners love...

..............In the years that CBS producer Mary Mapes has been pursuing this story, she never contacted Lt. Col. Jerry Killian's secretary, Marian Carr Knox, until after her existence was revealed by the Drudge Report. On 60 Minutes on Wednesday, Knox said that the documents were forgeries, but the content was accurate. Mapes interviewed Killian's widow Marjorie Connell and his son Gary. Both expressed doubt to the CBS producer that the documents were real. Neither of them have appeared on the network nor even been mentioned in CBS's reporting. CBS' own experts have moved away from the authenticity of the documents....

Thirty years ago. Seattle was still a family-oriented town dominated by blue-collar industries and single-family homes. There was a bohemian presence there, but it was mostly limited to the University District and Capitol Hill. Today the entire city prides itself on its open-mindnesses. Seattle not only tolerates non-conformity, it celebrates it. It is Seattle where a proposed group home for homeless alcoholics would allow them to drink in their rooms. It is Seattle where police were ordered to pull back during WTO, which allowed the streets to be taken over and occupied by tens of thousand of demonstrators. It is...

SEATTLE - So, it's not just me. Read Joel Connelly's column in Friday's Seattle P-I. Read Ellen Goodman's column in the Seattle Times Friday. Or, just give my friend Mikey a call. Mikey stopped me yesterday to comment on how viciously strident conservative broadcasters have become. How Limbaugh, Hanity [SIC]and O'Reilly, for example, figure that if we don't support President Bush in EVERY instance, on EVERY issue, at ALL times, then we are un-American. That's it's not enough to merely mistrust liberals or moderates, we must disdain them, or we are un-American. That if we don't let right-wing anally-conservative broadcasters...

A report on the latest of the weekly "Military Monday" afternoon rallies initiated by (local & ought to be national) 570 AM KVI radio talk show host Kirby Wilbur.