Sources have discovered the Heywoods in financial trouble in recent years and Susan’s health taking a turn for the worse. Sources also describe the couple as very close, loving, and caring, even working together.

Heywood has been a big name on the radio in the Valley for nearly five decades, with time spent at KOY, KFYI, KTAR, and others. He retired from radio in 2005 and has been a Sales Executive with Cambridge Properties – Montelucia Resort & Spa in Paradise Valley.

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The Celebration of Life for Bill and Susan Heywood will be held on Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 4PM at the Arizona Biltmore Ballroom. Contributions to the “Heywood Memorial Fund” can be made through www.spiritandword.org. All contributions are tax deductible and Spirit & Word is a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation. 100% of contributions will be forwarded to the memorial fund.

Chuck Powell is near the end of his show “Chuck & Vince Live” on Sandusky sports AM 1060 The Fan.

“Karie & Chuck” debuts on Monday, October 31, and Glenn Beck’s last day is October 14. Clear Channel newstalk 550 KFYI will then be airing Glenn Beck’s show weekday evenings, replacing Michael Savage.

Tell us what you think! Please comment below.

Moskowitz was the Production Director for KTAR from 1997 to 2001, and Imaging Director from 2001 to 2011, when he became involved with the Data Doctors show. The show, dealing with computer issues and other technology is going the syndication route, recently adding Minneapolis/St. Paul and Dallas/Ft. Worth.

By Hardy Price

The Arizona Republic, N1 – December 11, 1977

Two days and two nights on the road. Fighting fatigue and accidents by playing the radio. Picking up Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Chicago, Fort Worth. Listening to announcers pitching everything from pine tar and Pontiacs to alum and autographed photos of Jesus that glow in the dark.

Roaring up I-10 north of Casa Grande in the pre-dawn hours. It was with great anticipation that eyes started straining for the blinking red lights atop South Mountain. Not only would it mean that home was near and the end of a long trip, but the tinny car radio speakers would begin to shoot with familiar voices.

Hey that’s Toad Hall on KDKB and there’s Heywood on KOY and Spero on KXIV. Wonder what corn Len Ingebrigtsen is dishing out this morning on KOOL? Art Webb, W. Steven Martin and Richard Ruiz on KRIZ, KUPD and KRUX, respectively, will have already started to talk a mile-a-minute. Chris O’Connor at KNIX and Larry Scott at KJJJ have already fed the chickens, milked the cows and slopped the hogs, getting ready for four hours of Buck, Willie, Ol’ Waylon and Hag. Too bad Johnnie Linn is no longer talking about July pork bellies on KTAR.

Just as soon as the sun breaks over the Superstitions, the Christian stations will start saving souls, KMCR will begin educating and KXTC will be denying rumors that it will change from an all jazz format to a gospel-Christian-Catholic-Jewish-Zen-agnostic country-western station.

That’s good old Phoenix radio. A little something for just about everybody, unless you happen to be black. Phoenix has 33 radio stations (18 AM and 11 FM) but not one with a dominant black format. Matter of fact, Phoenix is the largest metropolitan radio market without a black station.

It would seem that Phoenix has just about more radio stations than anybody. According to Spot Radio Rates and Data, a monthly radio trade publication, Phoenix has more radio stations than Los Angeles, 28; San Diego, 18; Denver, 26; Miami, 24; Chicago, 27; Kansas City, 20; St. Louis, 23; Buffalo, 28; New York, 29; Boston, 28; Dallas, 18; Houston, 25 and Salt Lake City, 18.

Radio in Phoenix grew with the population boom. KOY signed on first in 1922, but KTAR gets the nod as the first commercial radio station to hit the air, also in 1922. KOY started out as an experimental station with the call letters of 6BBH. It turned commercial shortly after KTAR.

KJJJ (then called KPHO) went on the air in 1940 to be followed by KRUX and KQXE (formerly KBUZ) in 1946, KOOL in 1947, and KIFN in 1949. Things really began to pick up in the 1950s with KRIZ (1950), KXIV (1954), KHEP (1956), KSGR (1956), KMEO (1957), and KPHX (1958) right on into the 1960s with KNIX (1960), KUPD (1960), KRDS (1960), KDKB (1960), KCHS (1962), and KASA (1966).

You have to understand that some of the call letters are not the same ones as those originally granted the licenses. Many times when ownership changes, so do call letters. And a recent Federal Communications Commission recommendation calls for stations with both AM and FM outlets to have separate call letters. The FCC has already required that stations with both outlets provide substantial differences in programming, thereby eliminating the goold old days of cost-cutting, simultaneous broadcasting.

For many stations in Phoenix, cost-cutting is essential. There are just so many ways to split the profits pie and no matter how thin the slices, somebody always comes out with the crumbs.

“This just might be as competitive a radio market as there is in the country,” said one station manager. “And that does make it hard on the coffee pots (small stations). I would guess there’s always one or two stations in the Phoenix market for sale.”

Radio stations, just like any business, operate in different ways. One station use to pay its on-air staff by allowing the staffers to sell their own programs, splitting the fee with the station management. “I was trying to sell spots on my show for $8,” said a former disc jockey. “Come to find out this other jock is going to the same people offering spots on his show for $6. Helluva way to make a living?”

This instance is an exception to be sure, but would seem to indicate that all is not well on local airwaves. To attempt to judge the relative healthiness of a station by checking the rating can be just as misleading. There are almost as many ways to interpret radio ratings as there are ways to interpret the bible.

Station managers privately admit to this, but would rather see their children spirited away by gypsies in the night than tell a potential advertiser that his station is not at least No. 1 during some time of the day.

Several years ago one station manager wrote an advertiser, and friend, asking for a letter of recommending the merits of buying time on the station. The station’s rating was so low that even a ladder wouldn’t provide much help. “I really hated not to write him the letter,” said the friend. “I know it would probably help him, but next year when I go to buy advertising, he could pull my letter out and tell me I could afford to pay more since advertising on his station proved to be of such benefit to me.”

Hill is part of a brand-new company called Ownd Media Group specializing in social marketing and digital brand development. He explains on his blog Russ Hill Media that he has “felt for some time a strong draw to become more active in the media revolution that is transforming communication throughout our world.”

Replacing Hill will be former KTAR-AM Program Director and current Bonneville/Seattle Operations Manager, Ryan Hatch.

In a Note written on Facebook, Soliz expresses his gratitude to Arizona and his friends and co-workers at KTAR for his experiences and improvements as a broadcaster.

“Moving to Phoenix was the dumbest and smartest thing I ever did,” Soliz wrote. “Everyone always asked me how I could leave my little man behind in San Antonio. The truth of it is – it was hard. I missed three years of my son growing up.”

For that reason, Soliz heads home, both to his family in San Antonio and to Clear Channel’s News Radio 1200 WOAI-AM beginning today.

Bruce St. James visits patients and their families at KTAR's 2010 Radiothon for Phoenix Children's Hosital. Photo courtesy: "KTAR Radiothon for PCH" on Facebook

All day Monday and Tuesday, Bonneville Phoenix’s KTAR-AM and KTAR-FM combined forces for the 2010 KTAR Radiothon.

KTAR’s Radiothon raises money for the Phoenix Children’s Hospital (PCH)– a hospital dedicated to children and known for its excellent care of children in medical need.

On-air hosts from both stations visited patients, handed out teddy bears, joined the team of volunteers taking donations by phone and broadcast to the listeners all the good that donations do to PCH and the children.

Just minutes after 7pm Tuesday, the KTAR Radiothon reached a grand total of $1,054,965. This surpasses last year’s record of over $850,000 raised.