AIR WARS

MEdia Dallas radio stations will do anything for promotion-but congratulating a rival station’s contest winner?
Apparently, that’s fair game at KHYI-FM 94. 9 (Y95).

Allen resident Tim green was listening to KEGL-FM 97. 1 (The Eagle) when he won more than $7. 000 in a KEGL
contest. Apparently. Y95 disc jockey Billy burke congratulated Green on the air that afternoon for winning the
big jackpot-never mentioning that Green won the money on KEGL.

DAVe “Kidd” kraddick. the KEGL disc jockey who was on the air when Green won the money, said he started getting
calls from surprised listeners just after the Y95 ploy. “And I’m certain it wasn’t an accident. ” Kraddick says. “’How
do you accidently announce a winner from another station?” The tactics, Kraddick says, remind him of his stint with a
station in Miami, where the management would watch TV game shows and then announce something on the air like, “And in
case you missed it, Kay Stevens just won a trip to Paris!”-leaving the impression that the station was giving away
huge prizes.

Frank Miniaci, program director for Y95. first told D that he was pretty sure Burke did mention Green on the
air, then confirmed that he did; then, told that D had no tape of the show. Miniaci said he couldn’t confirm
it, and insisted that the conversation was off the record anyway. (It wasn’t. ) Finally. Miniaci acknowledged that
Burke “probably” did congratulate Green, but he pled self-defense. “Over the past four years, KEGL has copied
everything we have done, ” he says, “while we have been very positive overall, and not negative toward KEGL. “

Sometimes this stuff is better than the music.