D/FW Radio: Stations Go Wall-To-Wall With Coverage

Many Dallas radio stations, provided continuous coverage of the shootings that killed five Dallas police officers and injured seven after a Black Lives Matter march Thursday night.

The Star-Telegram reports Lori Conrad, communications director for Dallas’ CBS TV and radio stations, says that KRLD 1080 AM broadcast from the scene. Sports station KRLD 105.3 FM “The Fan,” like KRLD owned by CBS Radio, dropped regular programming to simulcast KRLD-AM from 10:30 p.m. to 5 a.m. N/T WBAP 820 AM was following the march during the 8 p.m.-midnight Chris Krok Show and had reporters on the scene, operations manager Tyler Cox says.

Slain Dallas Police Officers

“As soon as the shooting began, we moved into continuous wall-to-wall coverage, eliminating all commercials from 9 p.m. until 5 a.m.,” Cox said via email. The station immediately began a simulcast with KLIF 570 AM, like WBAP owned by Cumulus Media.

“Our crew stayed on the story all night, and as of noon [Friday] most were still at it,” Cox says. The station also provided updates to Cumulus’ Dallas country stations KSCS 96.3 FM and KPLX 99.5 FM “The Wolf,” as well as to sports-talk KTCK 1310 AM/96.7 FM “The Ticket,” whose hosts also talked about the shootings.

George “Geo” Cook, director of operations for Service Broadcasting, which owns hip-hop/R&B station K104 and R&B station KRNB, told AllAccess that members of the K104 Street Team witnessed the chaos.

“We are glad for their safety,” Cook told the website. “Our prayers and deepest condolences go out the families of the officers who were killed or injured while putting themselves in harm’s way to protect our citizens.”

Russ Martin, host of the afternoon Russ Martin Show on KEGL 97.1 FM “The Eagle,” founded the RMS Listeners Foundation to support the families of police officers and firefighters who have fallen in the line of duty.

Morning shows on music-radio stations also talked about the shooting. KLUV 98.7 FM’s Jody Dean and the Morning Team had comedian and Office star Craig Robinson, who is appearing at the Addison Improv this weekend, in the studio for an interview, and Robinson talked about being scheduled to perform a day after the shootings.

“It’s delicate, but people are coming to the show to be relieved and to be healed, and that’s what I’m bringing,” Robinson said.