True. "Takin' It To The Streets", "Father Harry" and a few other recurring features (usually no more than 60 seconds long) every few hours on weekdays and weeknights helped KFRC meet its community affairs programming quotas without resorting to long blocks of such programming on Sunday evenings.
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99.7 KFRC and 93 KYA
- Thread starter mikecroaro
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True. "Takin' It To The Streets", "Father Harry" and a few other recurring features (usually no more than 60 seconds long) every few hours on weekdays and weeknights helped KFRC meet its community affairs programming quotas without resorting to long blocks of such programming on Sunday evenings.
But even so, KFRC did run the hourlong "Dupont Gai" and the half-hour "Mustard Seed". I seem to remember something with Jan Yanehiro, but don't remember what it was called.
David: Absolutely they did---but the public affairs stuff in regular programming through the week allowed KFRC to do their Sunday night stuff for one or two hours instead of three or four. In the 60s and 70s, KHJ in Los Angeles was out of format on Sundays from 6:00 a.m.-9:00 a.m. for religion and from 9:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. for public affairs. If I remember correctly, KFRC only had 6:00-7:00 a.m. for religion and 11:00 p.m.-1:00 a.m. for public affairs (wonder if Father Harry counted as both?).
Father Miles Riley - now there is a name out of the past. In my memory, he was more of a TV guy. Miles was very...how do I put this diplomatically?...uh, er..."very San Francisco."
I was a bit of a night-owl in the late 70's and in those days, there wasn't too much choice in late night TV viewing, so on some late Sunday nights, I would watch KPIX 5's late night block of public affairs programs, which consisted of Reverend Cecil Williams of the activist Glide Church("Walk that walk, talk that talk, and be that be..."), Marcos Gutierrez of all people (later a 107.7 KSOL DJ), who did a show half in Spanish, and half in English, and Father Miles Riley
I'm going to guess you may not be Catholic!
Having known Father Miles for several years (and knowing what a truly delightful person he is) I don't think that he had anything to do with Father Harry being demoted ... because I don't think Father Harry actually was "demoted." (I don't think that's what you were implying, David.)
In either case, both Frs. Miles and Harry are doing quite well. Both have recently written books that have been well received.
Father Harry is now the retired Reverend Monsignor Harry G. Schlitt of St. Ignatius Parish, having served most recently as Vicar General of the Archdiocese of San Francisco. He's still the leader of The God Squad and does the Sunday Mass on Channel 26 in San Francisco each Sunday morning.
Father Harry's website is at:
https://fatherharry.org/
Actually I was raised Catholic. It took a while but now I know what he meant. For those not familiar with Catholicism, you're suppose to confess your sins to your priest and he is required to never tell anyone about them. It's know as the seal of the confessional, so "he'll never tell."
Father Miles interviewed Dr. Don Rose, who was a devout catholic, a few years ago discussing body and soul. It's on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCfV6M-thk0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCfV6M-thk0
Whenever I see the calls "KFRC" and "KYA", I perk up. In the late 60's and early 70's, even mid-70's, these two were very good top 40 radio stations. Among the best in the country, IMO. (Though WLS and WCFL Chicago were right up there as well!).
The Drake presentation ruled the roost here. Very quick jock hits, very quick jingles, very short playlists. And it worked! Radio won't ever be the same.
The Drake presentation ruled the roost here. Very quick jock hits, very quick jingles, very short playlists. And it worked! Radio won't ever be the same.
Are you really thinking of KFRC as being "more difficult" to hear than KEWB or KYA?
Remember, KFRC did not go Top 40 until the year after KHJ did the flip with Bill Drake and Ron Jacobs; Tom Rounds, who founded American Top 40, was the first Top 40 PD. Before February, 1966, it was a rather old-line MOR station that tried to be contemporary but couldn't. When you were in San Francisco,
KFRC has, and had, a 5 mVm signal reaching Santa Rosa to the north, Campbell to the south, Davis to the NE and Tracy to the SE. Today, the signal covers 6.5 million people.
910 covered about half that in the daytime and perhaps 1/3 of that area nights. KYA, on a bad high frequency, covered daytime a bit less than 910, and at night even less. They did have the nicest studio location, though, at One Nob Hill Circle next to the Mark Hopkins Hotel:
http://www.theradiohistorian.org/ksfo0050.html
560 and 610, in the daytime, were only exceeded by 680, 740 and 810 as to coverage. And KGO and KCBS are very directional, so the KFRC night coverage was probably second only to 680 in that era.
Of course, the year you got to San Francisco was the year the original Top 40 station, KOBY 1550 changed format. It could not hold up to the budgets of KYA and KEWB and the glitz that Chuck Blore gave the Cowell Collier stations!
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David: 610 only moved to its current tower site in 1968. They'd been diplexed with 560 south of the city prior to that.
I first discovered KFRC about 1968, when I used to DX the AM band from the house I grew up in - in Los Angeles. KFRC had an excellent signal, especially at night.
RE: the pre-"boss" MOR format. The Bay Area Radio Museum has an air check of disc jockey Van Amburg (yes - the pre-Channel 7 NewsScene Van) on KFRC about 1964. It's fun to listen to from an historical perspective, but otherwise kind of a snoozer. KFRC was definitely not KMPC or KSFO, and Van just phones it in without much personality.
Yes. I lived in Santa Venetia which is just north of San Rafael. We had to deal with Mt. Tam and the smaller hills and mountains further north and east. KYA came in great during the day but crapped out at night. KEWB had the best signal over 24 hours. KFRC was listenable but with static. I had a motor paper route in the very early mornings that took me from San Anselmo way out past Fairfax and it was difficult to hear KFRC or KYA while driving that far west.
I don't remember KOBY at all. I do remember KLOK but it didn't have a very good signal. Just enough to hear that clock ticking in the background.
Even so, the North Bay signal was very good, and should not have had any problems in San Rafael at that time, particularly with the noise levels. In its pre-Drake Don Lee/Mutual network days, it was considered the affiliate for Santa Rosa, San Jose, and, for a time, even Monterey and Salinas prior to KSBW signing on in, I believe, early 1948.
KSFO and KFRC had comparable daytime signals... and look at what KSFO claimed as coverage in 1948;
https://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-BC-YB/1948/1948-BC-YB.pdf (skip to page 87). This was, of course, the era when... for example... KFI was considered it's network's affiliate for Palm Springs! Today, you can barely get KFI anywhere in the Coachella Valley due to noise.
Going forward to 1967 (before the transmitter move), TR told me that Mount Tamalpais in Marin County was chosen for what became the first rock festival in the world because of the proximity to so many listeners. The KFRC folks realized that even with the lessened traffic of that era, it would be harder for people far down the peninsula or from the East Bay to get there, but the local area listening was big enough. Of course, many more people than expected showed up.
Generally speaking, hills an mountains affect FM, not AM. I owned stations in 4 markets smack dab in the Andes in that same era and those vastly more significant mountains did not keep my 1 kw at 570 from going more than 100 miles perfectly in any direction.
KYA cut power to 1 kw at night, and it was on a relatively high band frequency. KEWB was coming right at you from across the bay, but KFRC was really the powerhouse of the three.
And, of course, after KFRC went to Top 40 6 years after you arrived in San Francisco, PD Tom Rounds picked Mt. Tam as the location for its Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival, considered the world's first rock festival.
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Am I misreading this or are you contradicting yourself? You say that your 1kw AM in the Andes got out fine despite the mountains, yet you also say mountains affect AM, not FM. Other way around, right? There's no worse place to be for FM reception than deep in a valley, I've always found.
Nah, I just messed up. I could blame it on dyslexia, but I think this is more of a stupid senior moment....
You are right... unless a valley sits right below FM transmitters above it, FM sucks.
That festival was held early summer of '67 IIRC but it was on the other side of Mt. Tam. As there was only one road up the mountain back then (and might still be) I would have passed on that massive traffic jam. By '67 I was listening to 93.7 KGO and might not have even been aware it was happening. Concerts on those days in SF and Marin tended to be huge smoke-em-if-ya-got-em events and I wasn't into that or the head music of the time. Mill Valley and Mt. Tam was the Bay Area center of the pot culture back then. I tended to stay further north.
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