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| Danny Kramer |
At noon on Friday, March 1, Danny Kramer disappeared,
according to The Deseret News.
The one-time king of Salt Lake City radio, who led KSL 1160 AM/102.7fM Radio
to unprecedented market dominance during the early 1980s and who subsequently
created a tidal wave of controversy when he jumped to rival KALL 700 AM Radio, was
suddenly, inexplicably gone.
In the rough and tumble of the radio business, where today’s
ratings hit is tomorrow’s format change, Kramer has died several deaths only to
be resurrected by new opportunities to reinvent himself — most recently as the
owner/programmer/technician/headline talent of an Internet radio station that features his music, his way.
“This is beyond exciting for me,” Kramer says over a cup of
coffee in his comfortable South Jordan home that doubles as his studio and
operating base, complete with computers, monitors, modems and an affectionate
Yorkie named Sonny-Dog.
But it wasn’t so exciting on March 1, when KKDS-LPFM 97.1 FM management
called him and other station employees in for a 10 a.m. meeting to announce
that the station was changing its format at noon that day and many of them —
including Kramer — would be out of a job.
“When you’re in the media, you like to think that your
listeners or your viewers or readers really care about you and that they will
come looking for you when you are gone,” he says in that calm, comfortable,
friendly tone that has been his trademark since he got his first job in radio
in 1962.
“And they do,” he continues. “They’ll look around a little.
But if they can’t find you easily, they’ll find something else and move on with
their lives.”
Which is precisely what Kramer has been doing throughout his
five decades-plus in radio: finding something else and moving on.
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