The other story is personal but larger, local, and also much more recent. After KKDM ("Iowa's New Alernative") began broadcasting in August, 1995, another station that had always mixed new music with an eclectic blend of songs across 25 years of rock, began calling itself "The Adult Alternative." For almost a year, these two stations, KKDM and KFMG, co-existed on the dial in the Des Moines market. Predicatably, my early adolescent children, budding music fans, listened to KKDM; I mostly listened to The Adult Alternative station, but none of us was especially rigid. Then in late July, 1996, a company called Saga Communications, which already owned five radio stations in town, decided to purchase KFMG. At 5 pm on July 31, according to a newspaper report, Saga agreed to buy the station, and by 2 am the next day, only nine hours later, Saga had completely remade the station --new music, new format, new target audience, new call letters. It was now KAZR, Lazer 103.3, an "active" rock station. Like most people I had no idea a deal was in the works, so when I punched the button on my car radio on August 1, I was stunned to hear what sounded like Whitesnake followed by Motely Crew when I was expecting--what?--Tracy Chapman followed by Springsteen? "Active," it turned out, was code for metal-influenced. Literally overnight not only can a new audience be targeted -- teen metalheads in this case-- but one can also be erased -- adults whose musical tastes did not lean exclusively toward comtemporary 'alternative' or 'classic rock." New spaces created, spaces deleted. To use other spacial metaphors, Saga Communications wanted a different and younger audience to now feel "one" with this new radio programming and, consequently, the other, older audience now felt "on the other side" or "distant" from the new station's musical programs. Relate this to web radio.

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

---