Radio news

Just learned a couple of interesting changes coming up in Colorado Springs radio.

Henry Tippie (right), the GM at country station KKCS (104.5) is headed to Salem Communications, which runs Christian contemporary station KBIQ (102.7 FM), Christian talker KGFT (100.7 FM) and news talk KZNT (1460 AM). Former Salem GM Phil Lewis left in December. Tippie used to work at the Gazette (before my time) as VP of sales and was GM at KKLI (106.3 FM) before that.

Meanwhile, longtime local radio honcho Bob Gourley, the GM for Clear Channel's four local stations -- country KCCY (96.9 FM), hip hop KIBT (96.1 FM), adult contemporary KKLI (106.3 FM) and KVUU (99.9 FM) -- is retiring at the end of the month. He'll be replaced by the cluster's operations manager Bob Richards, who used to be the program director at Denver rock station KBPI (106.7 FM). It's kinda interesting because GM's usually come from the sales and business side, not the programming side. Gourley was the GM at KKCS for 12 years before switching to Capstar, which later became Clear Channel.

If you can follow the interlocking maze of call letters and companies there, you'll understand that the local radio world is often a small place.