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Tim Dorsey
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Tim Dorsey has been
carrying on a love affair with radio since his childhood. And, while he never intended to
work in the medium, today he is the general manager and one of
the owners of the most successful locally-owned radio stations in
the Midwest, if not the entire nation.
Along with a group
of investors, Dorsey purchased WIBV-AM in 1996 and KSD-AM a year
later. WIBV was sold to
the Disney Corporation and KSD was renamed KTRS-AM 550 and turned
into a news/talk station with the largest daytime signal in the United States. In the years that followed,
Dorsey acquired the rights to carry the games of the St. Louis
Blues of the NHL and the AM rights to air games of the St. Louis
Rams of the NFL, positioning KTRS as the premier sports voice in
the Midwest. However, that was just a start.
In 2005, Dorsey and
his KTRS investors sold 50 percent of the radio station to the
St. Louis Cardinals, who moved their broadcasts to “The Big
550” after more than five decades on KMOX. Dorsey was named president of
the new ownership group, St. Louis Sports Radio LLC, and is a member of
its board of directors. KTRS is one of only a few radio stations
in the United
States to own the broadcast
rights to both a Major League Baseball franchise and an NFL
franchise.
Although he has spent
his professional career in advertising sales and the media,
Dorsey originally studied for the priesthood at St. Louis
Preparatory Seminary for four years, and graduated from St. Louis University with a Bachelor
of Arts degree in political science. He went to work in marketing
and advertising for Proctor & Gamble, the Ford Motor Company
and American Motors before beginning his radio career as an
advertising salesman at KMOX in 1975.
For the next 16
years he occupied many positions at the CBS-owned station under
the legendary general manager Robert Hyland, Jr., who died of
cancer in 1992. Dorsey was
the sales manager and station manager at KLOU-FM (formerly KHTR)
and rose to the position of vice president and station manager of
both KMOX-AM and KLOU-FM.
He left KMOX in
1991 to head the Cable Advertising Network, which sells
advertising on the top cable networks in the metropolitan St. Louis
area. In 1996 Dorsey
resigned his position at Cable Advertising and put together a
business venture which purchased WIBV Radio in Belleville,
Illinois and KSD in St. Louis.
KTRS, which stands
for Talk Radio St. Louis and The Red Birds Station, has the most
powerful daytime signal in the area with a reach of 63,000 square
miles and can be heard in 108 counties in Missouri
and Illinois. Members of the investment group
that owns the station, along with the St. Louis Cardinals,
includes football Hall of Famer Dan
Dierdorf, baseball Hall of Famer Ozzie Smith
and actor John Goodman.
A native of St. Louis, Dorsey has been active in
numerous St. Louis
civic organizations. He was the Chairman of the Old Newsboys Day
for 2000. He serves or has served on the Board of Directors of
the Boy Scouts, Backstoppers, Catholic Charities, Big
Brothers/Big Sisters, Kids in the Middle, Heat Up St. Louis,
Midwest BankCentre and the St. Louis Association for Retarded
Citizens.
Dorsey is a former
board member of the Missouri
Botanical Garden and the
Cardinal
Glennon Hospital for Children,
Hosea House and S.I.D.’s.
He is a member of the Missouri Athletic Club, Westborough
Country Club, Boone Valley Golf Club and The Racquet Club.
He resides in Glendale.
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