** An "Old Chicks" News Update from The All-Inclusive Dixie Chicks Page **

Today was the end of the line for one of the landmarks of Dixie Chicks
history. KYNG, Dallas' Young Country 105.3 (http://www.young-country.com/)
had been the subject of format-change rumors for months, but it became
semi-official when all the facts came together in a March 20 article by
Alan Balthrop, in his online column at RadioDigest
(http://www.radiodigest.com/).

According to the article, the station is looking to change to a talk format
featuring in-your-face personalities like Howard Stern, G Gordon Liddy, and
others whose brains fell out of their mouths long ago (editorial comment).
The article noted that Russ Martin, a DJ from Dallas' last rock station
(KEGL the Eagle, http://www.kegl.com/) had jumped ship to an unnamed
400,000-watt station "that is not ready to make an announcement yet".
Today (4/3/00), at 6am, Martin and a few other open mouths took the mike
and started doing their job -- offending people so badly that they can't
change the channel for fear of missing something good.

Alan Balthrop's article is excellent news and background, and includes the
history of the station. The only thing he didn't mention is that Young
Country 105.3 FM was the first major market commercial station to play the
Dixie Chicks... in 1992! They played "She'll Find Better Things To Do" off
of the '92 indie release "Little Ol' Cowgirl", and hopes were high that the
exposure would lead to a record deal. But later that year, Robin Macy left
the group, and any momentum the album had built may have been lost... plus
which, local label Crystal Clear Records just didn't have the moolah to put
on a full-scale blitz, especially in those pre-net days.

Losing KYNG will be a personal loss for me as well. As I've detailed on my
History page, former midday DJ Katie Pruett not only mentioned my site in
her Dixie Chicks bio, but was the top bidder when the dixie-chicks.com
domain came up for sale on eBay. She bought it for no small sum and very
graciously donated it to me for use by my site -- with no compensation by
the station or anything like that.

Although Katie left the station earlier this year, I was hoping that the
station's corporate owners would continue to support the format that the
station had helped create... but it didn't come as a surprise to anyone at
the station. Soon after the Balthrop article broke, KYNG's largest
competitors (KSCS 96.3 and 99.5 The Wolf) started running vulture ads that
said things like "Now that Young Country is gone" -- a week before the
change. With the secret out, the last week was one long party for the
soon-to-be unemployed air staff. They even wrote a little song to the tune
of the Dixie Chicks' "Goodbye Earl" celebrating the station's history and
bemoaning its end.

The last four songs on Young Country:

"Bye Bye" (Jodee Messina)
"Young Country Had To Die"
"(We Are) Young Country" (Hank Williams, Jr.)
"The Dance" (Garth Brooks)

But things do come full circle. Even though Young Country has gone away,
there are still three country stations in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex,
and one of them plays the Dixie Chicks' indie recordings. Don't count on
KSCS 96.3 and KPLX 99.5 getting all those listeners... some of them just
might discover true country music being played at KHYI 95.3 "The Range".
Remember how the Dixie Chicks sounded so unique in a field of Garth and
Shania sound-a-likes? Listen for yourself at http://www.khyi.com/ and see
what real country music sounds like. You'll be glad you did.

--
Robert Brooks / robertb@...
http://www.dixie-chicks.com/ -- the complete unauthorized history
Part of the world's largest computer: http://www.distributed.net/