Midday personality Monica Nelson will now join Chris.

Market veteran and local celebrity Dave Pratt is itching to reveal his news of a brand-new “morning show,” as he divulged via his Facebook account and page last week. No further information has been released by Pratt, but others continued with the notion.

On Radio-Info.com’s radio industry message board, details were posted:

“The other night I’m at Benihana with some friends and amongst the group of people across from us, one guy says he’s a sales rep for The Peak,” writes thisguy (username). “This guy is just hammered drunk and proceeds to tell his friends that at the end of their contract Chris and Amy are out. Amy is going to do mornings at 103.9 and Dave Pratt will take over mornings on Peak.”

So rumor has it that Dave Pratt is headed to Bonneville’s 98.7 The Peak– and that’s just what it is– a rumor.

The truth is that Dave Pratt’s “new morning show” will not be on the radio at all, but online at DavePrattLive.com.

In an email sent early Sunday morning, Pratt writes:

Since our budget cut release from KMLE in 2008, we have kept in touch for 2 years. All along, my promise was that I would never leave you, and I would never leave Arizona. I also promised that our morning show would return at the conclusion of my CBS contract, which has finally ended. Well, a “Mayor” has to keep his promises right?

Thanks to you, and thanks to the loyalty that you continue to give, we will share a very special announcement with all of the details very soon. “Dave Pratt Live”. We are back baby!!

What do you think? Comment below!

The day-long radiothon raised a total of $47,496 for the Crisis Nursery– an organization dedicated to providing protection, help, and opportunities to troubled families and abused children.

Bonneville, the company that owns 98.7 The Peak (KPKX), and sister stations KTAR AM and FM are no strangers to successful radiothons raising money for important causes. Last month, KTAR raised over $400,000 for the Southwest Autism Research and Resource Center.

All throughout Friday, December 11, KTAR hosts mentioned it being the last day they would be broadcasting from their Central Avenue location of 13 years, and the move was happening– as they spoke. The shows still went on, just about unhitched, despite much behind-the-scenes packing and preparation going on.

Joe Crummey’s show, though hosted from Los Angeles, is fed back into the Central Ave. studio making it officially the last live, locally-oriented radio show to broadcast from the old building. The night was complete with occasional technical errors with soundbytes, audio processing, and once, a “testing” from a studio mic.

Wondering what happened to Chuck Powell on the Peak, and Chris Parker on Mix 96.9? Both have been taken off of their respective station websites most recently and were not on-the-air.

It is learned that Chuck Powell, morning drive personality at Bonneville’s 98.7 The Peak (KPKX), will not be returning to The Peak.

Mix 96.9 morning show host, Chris Parker (hosted with Amy Van Dyken for much of the time), will be moving the morning show to 98.7 The Peak.

Chris and Amy will begin on December 17. It is not known where Chuck Powell will be going at this time.

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Tuesday morning power outages in the Valley have not only left an estimated 18,000 people without electricity, according to APS spokeswoman Jenna Henry, but also briefly knocked out several major Phoenix FM radio stations.

Several– if not a majority– of the FM stations went to static around 10:27am. The static lasted for a minute or two before broadcasts returned on-air. A few others, like KOOL-FM, went from static to silence for a few moments more.

A second occurrence reportedly occurred just minutes shy of 11am, that affected Bonneville’s KPKX and KTAR-FM. Since both stations returned just before the noon hour, we presume the hour was used for transmitter work. Both are located on South Mountain, which supports a majority of Phoenix FM radio station transmitters.

The current building, located on the southwest corner of Central and Georgia avenues (just north of Camelback), will move four miles to the northeast near 16th St. and Northern at 7740 N. 16th St. The new location is said to be an upgrade from the cramped quarters of the Central Ave. location.

Old location at 5300 N. Central Ave. Photo courtesy: Google

Click here for Phoenix Business Journal’s story.