Courtesy St. Louis Globe-Democrat

(June 18, 2010) The St. Louis Blues and KMOX Radio have agreed on a partnership extension which will keep the Blues broadcasts on 1120 AM for the next few years.

KMOX has been the flagship station for the Blues since 2007, and has been the radio home for the Blues for all but eight seasons since the club entered the National Hockey League in 1967.

“The Blues are committed to a first-class operation in every aspect of our business,” said Peter McLoughlin, CEO of Blues Enterprises. “That is particularly true when it comes to our broadcast partners who link our team, players and the games to our fans. There is not a better fit for the Blues and our fans than with KMOX, which has played a major role in the rebuilding of our franchise since our return to KMOX in 2007.”

The Blues spent the first 18 seasons on KMOX Radio. In those days, every team’s broadcast was on KMOX because it has what is known as, “the 50,000 red-hot watts of power”. Almost anywhere you are in North America, if you dial in 1120 AM at night you hear KMOX Radio.

The original idea of the radio broadcast was to sell tickets so it was logical that you were on the radio station with the strongest signal to reach the largest audience.

KMOX general manager Robert Hyland knew this and could sell it to all teams, and to advertisers who were interested in placing their ads on during sports broadcasts.

As time went on, it became clear that the Cardinals’ baseball broadcasts took precedence over those of the Big Red and Blues, not to forget the St. Louis Steamers too.

If there was a Sunday baseball game and a Sunday football game, the football game was moved to another station and joined in progress. The same happened with the Blues. It was 'business'.

The football Cardinals’ and Blues’ front offices were said to be frustrated because their broadcasts kept getting moved and began to look at alternative stations to carry their games and make them the number one choice. Leaving KMOX would be tough because of the audience reach.

Then in 1985, I was in the sports office at KMOX when hockey announcer Dan Kelly came in and said, "I'm going to KXOK. The Blues are moving to KXOK and I'm going with them. I'm a hockey announcer," Kelly said. "What am I supposed to do?"

KXOK-AM shocked the sports audience and signed the Blues to a two-year deal to broadcast all games and provide extensive pre-game and postgame coverage. Although the signal was not nearly as strong as KMOX’s, they were essentially, ’all Blues, all the time’. That made Blues management happy.

The self-proclaimed, “Sports Voice of America,” was now the baseball and football voice of St. Louis. It no longer had the market cornered to get the breaking stories about players and front office decisions from the Blues. They would give that to KXOK first.

The other downside was what would KMOX do for programming after Jan. 1, when the season ended for the football Cardinals, until March when spring training games started for the baseball Cardinals?

The really shocking part was that Kelly, arguably the best hockey play-by-play voice ever, was leaving that great stable of announcers that included Jack Buck, Mike Shannon, Bob Starr, Bob Costas, Bill Wilkerson and John Rooney, to go to KXOK to work with some no-name announcers.

The cover of the "Redbird Review" in 1985.

The full-page ad in the "Redbird Review" in 1985 that underlined everyone on the sports department payroll at KMOX Radio. (Click to enlarge).

So what did Hyland do? He showed everyone why his station was number one.

Hyland sent notices to certain athletes and front office personnel saying that he would like to put them on the KMOX sports staff. It is not sure if they were paid, you would have to ask them, but it was rumored they were. Some or all were asked to not appear on any other radio stations as guests during talk shows. There is no indication they followed through with that. If they were involved in news stories, that was different.

It is not uncommon in the business for some people to side with one media outlet over the other.

KMOX added Larry Wilson, O.J. Anderson, Lou Brock, Bing Devine, Whitey Herzog, Woody Widenhofer, Neil Lomax and others hoping they would appear exclusively on KMOX. They ran ads in publications listing all of the people on the sports staff at KMOX Radio.

How could KXOK possibly compete with KMOX if they had no one to interview?

The move away from KMOX lasted just a short time and two years later the Blues and Dan Kelly were back on KMOX and the fans were happy.

The Blues later had a short run on KTRS-AM and have been back on KMOX since 2007, the year after the Cardinals left KMOX for KTRS.

Under the new agreement KMOX will also continue to provide lots of hockey-related programming throughout the year, including the off-season.

KMOX is currently featuring the Verizon Hockey Night each Wednesday during the summer with host and team play-by-play broadcaster Chris Kerber, who this fall will begin his 10th season in the radio booth – excluding the lockout 2004-2005 season – partnered with analyst and Blues alum Kelly Chase.

“The best is ahead for the St. Louis Blues. We love the direction the team is going and are proud to use KMOX’s powerful nationwide signal to keep building the Blues fan base and our listenership for years to come,” said John Sheehan, Senior Vice President Market Manager, CBS RADIO St. Louis.

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