Death of a Small Town Radio Station

by Julian Spivey
There’s not much to get excited about these days on country music radio, but a few years ago while driving around town I caught Kyle Nix’s opening fiddle part of Turnpike Troubadours’ “Long Hot Summer Day” while randomly flipping around the radio dial and instantly knew I’d found something special. I went home, looked up the band on Spotify and quickly found out that the Troubadours were the best act today in country music – despite never having heard them played once on mainstream country radio. Hell, they were too country for country radio.
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A few days later while scanning through radio stations again I found Robert Earl Keen’s “I Gotta Go” and then Jason Boland’s “False Accuser’s Lament.” My ears and brain were left stunned as I had given up on hearing new, great country music ever again. The station was KVOM 101.7 FM out of Morrilton, Ark. and it instantly became a pre-set on my radio and ever since KVOM has introduced me to the wondrous world of Red Dirt Country – a much too excluded and hidden subgenre of country music and likely the last bastion (along with possibly the all encompassing Americana) for traditional sounding country music.

The reason why I hadn’t been previously introduced to this fantastic music was that it was so scarce on the radio. In fact, this small town Morrilton station was the only radio station in all of Arkansas where Red Dirt Country could be found. This essentially made KVOM the best radio station statewide.

Every year on this very website I do a list of the best country songs of the year and many of those best country songs of 2013 were found by me on KVOM like Wade Bowen’s “Songs About Trucks,” Josh Ward’s “Promises,” The Departed’s “Prayer for the Lonely,” Chris Knight’s “Nothin’ On Me” and Randy Rogers Band’s “Trouble Knows My Name.” These terrific songs have absolutely no play or hope of being played on mainstream country radio, because they simply don’t fit into the pop/rock/hip-hop infused stuff that is being called “country music” these days.

But, as long as I had KVOM I didn’t have to worry about never hearing these great country songs on the radio.

And, then something horrible happened.

Midway through last week I was driving home from work and KVOM played Dwight Yoakam’s “A Thousand Miles from Nowhere,” Toby Keith’s “You Ain’t Much Fun (Since I Quit Drinkin’) and Alabama’s “Down Home” back-to-back-to-back. All great songs, indeed, but I literally had to make sure my radio wasn’t set to The Wolf 105.1 out of Little Rock, my go to station when I want to hear the classics of the country genre. I hoped this was just some sort of fluke, but I’m not that dumb. Immediately I realized that KVOM had undergone a silent, unprofessionally without notifying its listeners I might add, format change. Later when I heard Jason Aldean’s “Night Train” and Thompson Square’s “Are You Gonna Kiss Me or Not?” it quickly donned on me that the station was now a “best of the ‘80s, ‘90s and today” format, which really made me cringe, despite much of that music being excellent. It made me cringe because today there are basically two types of radio stations – those that play current Top 40 and those that play the hits from the “’80s, ‘90s and today” – and every last damn one of them sound the same.

It also made me cringe because I knew that was it for Red Dirt Country’s exposure in Arkansas. I knew there were not going to be others like me influenced by this wonderful music by a one-of-a-kind radio station in this state.

It’s truly irritating for multiple reasons. Not only are people like me now devoid of this great music, not only has KVOM become like almost every other station on the radio dial, but it’s also lost the one thing that it really had going for it, the one thing that set it apart from other stations, that one thing that made it special. That just doesn’t sound like a good business process, but, oh well, it’s their business … it’s to be seen what impact the format change actually has on the station.

Judging by the responses on KVOM’s Facebook page the reaction to the format change doesn’t seem all too positive.

It’s just a shame to see another great small town radio station die off, but it’s even more shameful when it’s by its own hand.