Radio AAHS
| Type | Children's radio |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1990 by Christopher Dahl |
| Radio stations | 32 |
| Nation | U.S. |
| Parent | Children's Broadcasting Corporation |
Radio AAHS (sometimes misspelled as "Radio Oz") was a radio network managed by the Children's Broadcasting Corporation.
Its flagship station was WWTC/1280 in Minneapolis, which broadcast from the former First Federal Bank building at Minnesota State Highway 100 and Excelsior Boulevard in St. Louis Park. At its height in 1996, Radio AAHS had 29 affiliates across the nation. Founder Christopher Dahl had purchased WWTC in 1990 and created an outlet for children's music, specifically targeted at listeners 5 to 10. The musical format had songs from children's films, but also created a niche for songs recorded specifically to entertain children. The programming was driven, in large part, by listener requests, and many of the choices were little known outside that audience.
Children's Broadcasting Corp. was founded by Christopher Dahl in 1990 with the idea for a children's radio network, Radio AAHS. That year a company of Dahl's purchased WWTC 1280 AM in Minneapolis. Dahl ran the Radio AAHS format on that station as a test run for two years. With Arbitron not tracking kids under 12, Dahl had commissioned such a survey from Arbitron to determine its weekly listeners in 1993, which the survey indicated 90,000.
With the survey in hand, Dahl took Children's Broadcasting Corp. public. Radio AAHS then went national focusing on the country's top 100 markets. In late 1994, the company was attempting to raise $20 million partly to purchase stations in New York and Chicago. Children's Broadcasting Corp. and a music division of Time Warner Inc. launched in February 1995 a monthly magazine with a companion CD.
In 1996 Radio AAHS signed a deal with Disney to further develop the children's radio idea. Disney was to sell ads and help grow Radio AAHS through its recently purchased ABC Radio in addition to helping develop Radio AAHS. "These guys started out right from the beginning to deceive us," said Fumes Dahl. For proof, Dahl cites Disney Director of Strategic Planning & Development Lynn Kesterson-Townes saying "she informed Children's that her job at Disney for the next six months was to learn all she could regarding Children's operations."
In nine months of the deal with Disney sold only $23,000 in ads and recruited no new affiliates. CBC showed Radio Disney manager Scott McCarthy, who said in the document that he instructed his staff to meet only certain contractual minimums.
The deal with Disney finally fell apart in a meeting on June 21, 1996, when then-ABC President David Kantor told CBC that Disney would not exercise its warrants and that it was close to starting its own kids' network. On July 30, Disney formally cancelled the contract and announced it was starting its own kids network. Following that announcement Disney quickly informed Radio AAHS that it was no longer allowed to broadcast from Disney amusement parks.
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