Randy Morrison

Randy Morrison was one of the architects of the programming approach that became KBCO’s signature sound. Before KBCO launched in Boulder in 1977, Morrison had worked at KBPI in Denver and at WLS-FM/WDAI in Chicago. He also helped develop the format used at Boulder’s KADE, the AM station purchased by Bob Greenlee in 1975.

When Greenlee acquired KRNW-FM and transformed it into KBCO, Morrison and Dennis Constantine co-designed the new station’s format. Their approach rejected the narrow playlists common to commercial music radio and instead emphasized a broad range of rock, singer-songwriter, folk, blues and related music. The resulting presentation gave KBCO’s announcers unusual latitude and helped establish the station’s identity as an adventurous alternative to conventional album-rock radio.

The philosophy developed by Morrison, Constantine and the original KBCO staff became increasingly influential as the station grew from a Boulder outlet into a major Denver-market brand. KBCO’s programming is frequently cited in histories of the adult album alternative format, and the station’s early years produced unusually ambitious specialty programming, including the award-winning Intervention Day broadcasts.

Morrison’s place in Colorado radio history rests primarily on that formative work: helping translate the experimental ideas developed around KADE into the FM service that became KBCO, one of Colorado’s longest-lived and most nationally recognized music-radio brands.

Sources: Broadcast Pioneers of Colorado — Denver Radio history; KBCO historical overview.