ISLAND MUSIC TREAT Not just once a week

Almost every 10 minutes, radio DJ Ely Sablan picks up a phone call from a listener requesting a song. The average rate of phone calls is not bad for a new radio station which started a dry run only last week.

Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. For the local population, that’s certainly a great deal of island music treat from KBLB-fm (101.1).

“The community’s response is shocking. Right now, we’re just at the testing phase, and we’re getting more attention than we thought we would,” says Joe Tighe, general manager of the Saipan office of the Inter-island Communications, Inc. Group, the network that operates KZMI-FM, KCNM-AM, and now KBLB-FM.

101.1 FM is the first local radio station devoted to all-island music throughout the day. The rest of the stations have either a one-hour-a-day or once-a-week local music program.

“The local music program of our AM band is already popular, but we wanted a format that would address the desire of the community to have local music all the time rather than just occasionally,” says Tighe.

KCNM-AM runs an 8-to-10 hour a day local music program. Tighe says, “The response to this program is overwhelming and positive; we decided that local music can have its own station.”

Hence, the new station.

The new FM band started the air-test on Tuesday last week, in compliance with the Federal Communications Commission’s requirement.

“We’re doing some testing to check our equipment and to make sure there’s no interference with other stations. Right now, we’re running commercial-free,” Tighe says.

“We’re fortunate. We haven’t’ done any advertising, but people are picking it up. They are calling us and making requests,” he adds.

And an ingredient that would make the station click is having local disc jockeys who know best about their own music.

“We’re not limited to Chamorro and Carolinian artists,” says Ely Sablan, the afternoon DJ.

Pointing to rows of CDs in front of him, Sablan adds, “We’re also playing music from other Micronesian islands like Yap, Chuuk, Marshall Islands, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Palau.”

Name it, they have it.

While the local community is a definite market, Tighe says the radio network also hopes to cater to the non-local population.

“There are lots of people, in addition to the local community, that enjoy certain artist that they recognize even though they may not be Carolinian or Chammoro,” Tighe says.

Joe Crutch Duenas, for example. “People of every race recognize and enjoy his music,” says Tighe.

Probably the same way many people enjoy Kevin Atalig’s Lachachai. (MCM)