THE VOICES ON THE RADIO: ZIMMERS' COUNTRY, TALK RADIO FORMATS TOPS IN MARKET

Kent Crider's show "Hot New Country" airs from 5 to 9 a.m. on K-103 FM radio.

Amy Austin is one of the disc jockeys who play rock music on MIX 104.7 FM radio.

Kent Crider is more than just another pretty voice.

As the morning disc jockey for K-103 FM radio, Cape Girardeau's most popular station, he is careful about the way he looks.

"Almost everywhere I go, somebody knows me," Crider said. "Even when I run out to the store I make an effort to look halfway presentable."

Even if someone hasn't listened to Crider on the radio, his cartoonish caricature has probably been seen by many on billboards, coffee mugs and the radio station's van.

"I think the cartoon looks better," said Terry Hester, morning host for talk radio KZIM 960 AM and operations manager for Zimmer Radio Group's Cape Girardeau stations.

In the world of Cape Girardeau radio, Hester and Crider can afford to laugh at themselves. The stations they work for have kept the largest audiences year after year by selecting country music and talk formats and sticking with them.

This has left a handful of stations trying to find their places underneath with rock, pop or another style.

"A lot of stations are fighting for the middle ground in format," said Marshall Stewart, program director for MIX 104.7, also known as KYRX FM.

Certain marketing data shows FM rock stations KGMO, KCGQ and KYRX in a close race for third place. Two of the stations, KGMO and KYRX, are owned by the Withers Group of Mount Vernon, Ill. KCGQ, Real Rock 99.3 FM, is part of the Zimmer Group, which is based in Cape Girardeau and owns 30 stations in eight markets.

With the Zimmers' 43-year tradition in the Southeast Missouri radio business, they are often considered a monopoly. Cape Girardeau's top two stations, KZIM 960 AM and K-103, are Zimmer products.

Stewart believes the Zimmers' monopolist image is exaggerated.

"They have their headquarters so people assume they are bigger," Stewart said. "We probably have as many stations, but ours are more spread out."

The success of the Zimmers' Cape Girardeau stations has to do with the four Zimmer brothers' commitment to radio, Hester said.

"They don't have television stations or real estate interests," he said. "They bleed radio."

Hester credits the group's commitment to having better technology and making better employees.

"They set goals for people, they want them to feel good about themselves," he said. "That is rare in this industry."

The Zimmers' stations have remained consistent over the years, Hester said. The last big programming change was made in 1988, when then country music station KZYM became talk radio KZIM.

"We haven't made big changes," Hester said. "The other radio stations in town have reacted to us."

KAPE 1550 AM, now an oldies station, tried to break into talk radio three years ago without much success, Stewart said.

"It was the first major format change around here in a long time," he said of the Withers-owned station. "If you want to do well in talk radio here, you have to have Rush Limbaugh. That's what they found out."

KZIM has broadcast Limbaugh's show since 1988 and hasn't let go.

The area where a Withers Group station can compete is rock, Stewart said. MIX 104.7 FM aims for the same 18-to-49- year-old age group as KISS 93.9 FM, he said, with the younger crowd leaning toward MIX and older listeners tuning in the Zimmers' station.

Here, Stewart feels his station has an advantage.

"MIX has been around longer, so we can push in our own direction if we want to," he said.

KISS 93.9 FM is the Zimmers' newest Cape Girardeau station, starting operations Sept. 11, 1998. It has a hot adult contemporary format, geared toward a 25-to-54-year-old age group, Hester said.

The Withers' KGMO has gone into territory that many stations have begun to explore over the last four years, Stewart said. The classic rock station's morning DJs, John Boy and Billy, are not local. They broadcast their breakfast time program from Charlotte, N.C.

"It's put together so you think it could be in your hometown," Stewart said. "But they're not trying to fool anyone. If you listen regularly, you'll hear them talk about being in Charlotte."

The station added John Boy and Billy after finding the cost greater to hire a local DJ team. Technology has made these kind of programs cheaper in recent years, Stewart said.

Satellite broadcasts can never truly be local radio, Hester said.

Hester recalls mentioning on the air once how shiny the floors at Schnucks are, and the next time he was in the grocery store, he could hear others talking about it.

When Crider is out, he pays attention to what people are saying.

"I'm as much a listener as a broadcaster," he said.

Crider will often come home from the store with notes scribbled down about a birthday or anniversary to mention on his show. He has been a pallbearer at a listener's funeral.

"I've been around to see listeners' kids grow up," Crider said. "They have shown great loyalty to the station. They've stuck with us like a part of a family."

Crider had worked in Nashville and St. Louis before coming to Cape Girardeau nine years ago. In other places he never heard people talk about "my" radio station as they do here.

Since Cape Girardeau is a small, non-rated market, most stations change their formats very little, Stewart said. Risks are not part of the business, he said.

"We have to get as many listeners as possible without losing any," he said. "We can't get away with playing much rap here."

Just for curiosity, Stewart once found out how much it would cost for his station to broadcast New York City "shock jock" Howard Stern's program. It would be $300,000 a year, he discovered.

"I thanked her for the information and hung up," he said.