I'm asking about 96.5 FM-KYPT in Seattle. From around January 2000
until Monday December 22nd 2003, it was an 80s station called The
Point. When it came online, there were a few stations that had a mix
of 70s, 80s, and more recent stuff, but after the others gradually
shifted to other eras of music. At the end, it was virtually the only
station in Seattle to have any 80s music at all, and the only one that
was 100% 80s music. Now it is an alternative/hard rock station called
K-ROCK. I personally don't think it's an improvement, as I dislike
alternative music intensely. I'm OK with hard rock, but it's not worth
dodging Nirvana and their copycats.

The station has never been very friendly in the customer relations
department as far as letting listeners know what is going on. About a
year and a half ago, they fired virtually their entire on-air staff
one day in the middle of the week with absolutely no warning to the
listeners or to the people who were getting the axe, I'm sure. When
people tuned in for the morning show the next day, there were two guys
who didn't know what the heck was going on fielding calls from
confused and irate listeners, and their web site was suddenly down for
several months 'for construction'. Their new web page at
www.965thepoint.com continues this trend by being decidedly
un-informative. I'm not asking why this station in particular changed
format, but rather what factors may have prompted the change (for the
worse, IMHO). The station is owned by Infinity Radio, which owns
several other stations in the area, though they don't have a monopoly.
Strangely enough, Infinity Radio owns another station in the same area
that has classic rock (KZOK), so it would seem that the audience would
overlap significantly.

It's rather saddening that the Seattle area will have no more free 80s
music. It doesn't effect me as much, as my car stereo (where I do 95%
of my radio listening) is Sirius satellite radio ready, and since they
have an all 80s channel, I've decided to activate with them. Still, I
will miss The Point's web site where they always had announcements
about which 80s bands were coming to the area, and the contests they
used to have to win tickets for the concerts.

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