Judy McNutt

Judy McNutt is a radio programmer whose career is closely tied to the development of KBCO and the adult-alternative approach that became one of Colorado’s most influential music-radio traditions. McNutt was part of KBCO‘s original Boulder-era staff, serving as music director during the station’s formative years alongside program director Dennis Constantine.

KBCO‘s early format emphasized unusually broad musical freedom for commercial radio. McNutt’s role as music director placed her at the center of that programming philosophy, helping shape a station whose eclectic presentation eventually became a nationally recognized model for adult album alternative radio. The original staff’s creative work included the elaborate annual Intervention Day broadcasts, which later received a Grand Award from the International Radio Festival of New York.

McNutt eventually left KBCO and continued her programming career elsewhere, including KRXQ in Sacramento. In 1994, she returned to Colorado when Noble Broadcast Group named her KBCO‘s program director. Contemporary trade coverage framed the appointment as a homecoming, noting that she and Constantine had worked together during KBCO‘s late-1970s formative period.

Her career therefore spans two important chapters of KBCO history: the experimental early years in Boulder and the station’s later life as an established Denver-market music brand. That continuity makes McNutt an important figure in the evolution of Colorado adult-alternative radio.

Sources: The Album Network, June 10, 1994 — McNutt returns to KBCO as PD; Broadcast Pioneers of Colorado — Denver Radio history.