A pair of Seattle stations are entering a battle for the name “Northwest News“.
As first reported here in our December 31 Domain Insight, Lotus Communications is rebranding News 1000 KOMO Seattle/97.7 KOMO-FM Oakville WA as KNWN. The move was a requirement of Lotus’ acquisition last year of the Seattle cluster from Sinclair. Sinclair retained the rights to the KOMO calls for its KOMO-TV. The KNWN calls will take effect on Wednesday, February 2 along with a brand change to “Northwest News Radio“.
KOMO Program Director Rick Van Cise told the Seattle Times, “There won’t be any difference in the sound of the radio station. The personalities, the reporters are all staying the same.”
Since our original report in December, which was triggered by the FCC inadvertently making the KNWN calls active earlier than Lotus requested, a Seattle competitor has also staked a claim to the “Northwest News” identity. Bonneville News/Talk 97.3 KIRO-FM Tacoma tweaked its on-air branding from “KIRO News 97.3” to “KIRO NewsRadio 97.3” and has begun positioning as “Your Northwest News Station” as of this week.
