Halloran’s Badass ‘Borderless’ Station

• Longtime professional San Diego radio broadcast guy Michael Halloran is making final preparations to light the proverbial fuse on his latest labor of radio love, and it’s excitingly different than his previous San Diego-area programming gigs at 91X or FM 94/9… or 95.7, 92.5, Y107 or 92.1, for that matter. Halloran has signed on to head up the programming department and oversee the musical progression on what is described as a “borderless station” that musically straddles the border of the U.S. and Mexico — XHMORE (More FM)/Tijuana-San Diego will rebrand this weekend to 98/9 TJ SD, blasting out a unique bilingual mix of Rock en Español by an international coalition of artists, becoming the first regional Baja California/SoCal radio station to put a major emphasis on the culture, music, people and events of this truly unique area on both sides of the border. The San Diego Reader recently published a piece on the station’s progress.

This new project is the end result of a Sales and Marketing Agreement between Flip Media, Marketing & Consulting, Inc. and Mario Mayans of family-owned Grupo Cadena. Flip Media owner Randal Phillips will serve as GM/GSM of the newly formed U.S. location of 98/9 TJ SD. Phillips was formerly the GSM for the Califormula Radio Group in San Diego from 1990-1999.

Halloran will work alongside fellow programmer Andres Mendiolea, who, as legend has it, has been at the radio station “since his birth under the console in the on-air studio.” San Diego restaurateur Cesar Gonzalez will also be a member of the 98/9 TJ SD airstaff. 98/9’s programming will also be carried on 106.7 XEWV-FM in Mexicali, giving the station a sizeable footprint that extends from Ensenada to the County Line, from Mexicali to the Islas Coronado. Go look that up… we’ll wait here.

Local artists will play a large role in the musical make-up of 98/9. Halloran said, “When I left 91X last year I had built quite a significant library of local music at the station. Now at 98/9 we need to build a new library as fast as possible because we will be playing local music Monday through Friday between 9pm and midnight. In addition, some of these local artists will be played in full-on regular rotation.” To augment that local library, 98/9 TJ SD is hosting a launch event this Saturday, March 31 at 2pm at Pitbull Audio in National City. Local artists are encouraged to bring CDs and recordings of their music and meet the 98/9 staff. A similar event will take place in the next few weeks in Tijuana.

Halloran acknowledges that More FM has a loyal existing audience, and he fully intends to bring that current fan base along as he gradually expands the musical palate of 98/9 TJ SD. “We want to give those hardcore fans even more Rock en Español, and we are looking for bands on this side of the border that fit,” Halloran told RAMP, adding, “The danger needs to come back into Alternative.”