New Alternative

---

 

...On the first day of the new year, 1997, 

the giant cable company, TCI,

dropped MTV from its programming line-up

in 25 Iowa markets, including Des Moines,

the city where we live.  A local radio station, KKDM,

which promotes itself as "Iowa's New Alternative,"

began a fierce campaign to pressure the cable company

into returning music television.

The campaign included organizing large rallies

outside the local TCI office; encouraging people

to complain to the company and cancel their cable

subscriptions;

enlisting support from MTV officials in New York;

and protesting at City Council meetings,

eventually presenting petitions to the Council

with more than 11,000 signatures.  The station manager

said

at the time:

<107.5 Web site>

-----------------------

"This is not a weekend promotion for us.

We're going

to get MTV back."

Indeed several

months

later they did--

as TCI bowed to

unrelenting 

community pressure

largely organized by

the radio station.

---