General Manager of KSDO Will Take Job in St. Louis

Chris Conway, president and general manager of highly rated KSDO-AM (1130) and its sister station, KSWV-FM (102.9), announced Wednesday that he is leaving the Gannett-owned stations to take a similar post with a pair of Gannett stations in St. Louis.

Conway, who has maintained KSDO as the top-rated news-talk station in San Diego County for the last two years, will be replaced by Mike Shields, 38, general manager of Gannett-owned WDAE-AM and WUSA-FM in Tampa, Fla.

Conway, 44, first became general manager of KSDO in 1983, after serving as program director for KIIS-FM in Los Angeles. He left KSDO in 1984 to start his own advertising and promotions firm in St. Louis.

He returned to KSDO and its FM sister station, then known as KS103, in August, 1986. Last year the FM station became “The Wave,” with new call letters, KSWV, and a new-age music format.

Conway said he is returning to St. Louis, where he will head KSD-FM and KUSA-AM, to be reunited with his family.

“I hate to leave San Diego,” he said. “But I’m glad to be going back to St. Louis.”

Conway will stay with the station in San Diego until mid-September.

Shields will bring an extensive background in news-talk programming to KSDO. He spent 10 years with the Gannett-owned KTAR-AM in Phoenix, which also has a news-talk format, before moving to Tampa.

Gerry DeFrancesco, program director for Gannett’s radio division, will replace Shields in Tampa.