From Jim Duncan's "American Radio" here are the ratings from 45 years ago!
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Los Angeles Ratings Spring 1976
- Thread starter davideduardo
- Start date
Just amazing.
--10 of the top 15 stations are on AM.
--All News (KNX and KFWB) is #5 and #7
--Four 5,000 watt stations (KABC, KHJ, KFWB, KLAC) are in the top 10.
--The only FM stations in the top five are Beautiful Music, KBIG and KJOI.
--The #2 station for 18-34 and #1 for 18-49 is Soft Rock KNX-FM. James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt, The Eagles, Carole King.
--The #1 station, KABC, is well rounded talk. Some slightly liberal, some moderate, some slightly conservative, some psychiatric (Dr. Toni Grant), some historic (Ira Fistel). It's not own the libs, everything Republicans do is right, everything Democrats do is evil.
Moderate, intelligent talk is #1, All-News is #5 and #7. Soft, instrumental music is #2 and #4. Over the last 45 years, did humans lose half their brain cells?
--10 of the top 15 stations are on AM.
--All News (KNX and KFWB) is #5 and #7
--Four 5,000 watt stations (KABC, KHJ, KFWB, KLAC) are in the top 10.
--The only FM stations in the top five are Beautiful Music, KBIG and KJOI.
--The #2 station for 18-34 and #1 for 18-49 is Soft Rock KNX-FM. James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt, The Eagles, Carole King.
--The #1 station, KABC, is well rounded talk. Some slightly liberal, some moderate, some slightly conservative, some psychiatric (Dr. Toni Grant), some historic (Ira Fistel). It's not own the libs, everything Republicans do is right, everything Democrats do is evil.
Moderate, intelligent talk is #1, All-News is #5 and #7. Soft, instrumental music is #2 and #4. Over the last 45 years, did humans lose half their brain cells?
KABC was number 1 due to Dodgers and an afternoon block of sports talk. Remember, Dodger home games were not on TV, you had to listen To Vinny, Jerry and Ross to get your Dodgers fix.
If there were conservatives, I don't remember them. I think Bruce Herschenson (sp?) came later.
If there were conservatives, I don't remember them. I think Bruce Herschenson (sp?) came later.
KABC had its biggest numbers in AM drive. And looking at the Fall book, post season, the had even better numbers. Baseball was about the revenue, not the ratings.
Yes, they did very well mornings. I think it was Ken and Bob back then. But a lot of those radios were tuned into them because they were still on KABC from the previous night's Dodger game. I witnessed this in my own circle of family and friends.
I'm not saying they wouldn't have done well on their own, they were the only talk station in town too (back in the day when you could actually hear the station), but the Dodgers "lead-in" so to speak was very helpful.
Moderate, Intelligent talk moved somewhere else this time on KPCC and KCRW in the LA Radio Market.
But in the past 45 years we seen CHR shift from KHJ to KIIS-FM.
KFI was AC in 1976 prior to being the talk station we know today. KFI's AC format was later moved to KOST-FM. Note KFI and KOST were then owned by Cox Media in the 1970's.
Note KLOS remain Rock today, KRTH is Classic hits, KBIG is AC, KABC remain talk and KNX remains all news to this day.
But the others on this list has since flipped formats, changed call letters and changed owners.
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This is one year after the death of Tom Donohue, who was running The Mighty Met KMET with his wife. She took over programming duties after his death. He was only 45 at the time of his death, but was overweight and died of a heart attack.
You can see how much of an impact the station had with young listeners, with the sweet spot being young adults in their 20s. By this point, most of the Metromedia FMs were rock, with WNEW NY, KSAN SF, WMMR Philly, and WMMS Cleveland.
You can see how much of an impact the station had with young listeners, with the sweet spot being young adults in their 20s. By this point, most of the Metromedia FMs were rock, with WNEW NY, KSAN SF, WMMR Philly, and WMMS Cleveland.
KFI went Top 40 in 1977. The AC format Jhani Kaye devised for KOST in 1982 had nothing in common with KFI’s approach to AC. In fact, Jhani re-invented Adult Contemporary, making it more music-intensive and with a much bigger appeal to adult females.
Tom’s involvement with KMET lasted only a few months of 1968. Shadoe Stevens was PD from 1974-75 and was replaced by Sam Bellamy.
When Tom died, Raechael briefly took the reins at KSAN in San Francisco, then moved down to KMET as talent, not as a programmer.
For a big market 50,000 watt non-directional AM station in the mid 70’s, KFI wasn’t doing so hot in the ratings losing out to smaller and weaker AM stations. The format was “General / MOR” so does that mean it was playing “middle of the road” music back then? No wonder they later flipped formats!
I have always been told... including when management wanted me to put the Dodgers on KTNQ when it was talk... that baseball in any language lost audience in LA. Again, management liked it due to the revenue; even if shared with the team, it was non-ratings-driven money and very good.
I did a lot of nighttime listening to KFI while I was living in West Texas during the late 70s and early 80s. Really enjoyed the music mix and presentation, and they would also sprinkle in some gold amongst the Top 40 hits. I do recall the jocks would occasionally acknowledge some of the distant listeners that had called in.
It was music radio on AM at a time FM was taking over, but was nice to have a big city alternative to the often mediocre local options I had at the time.
MetroMedia sold off MMS in 1972 to Malrite. Ironically that station truly thrived with rock after the sale.
KABC suffered less in terms of normal audience tune-out with the Dodgers than KFI because it wasn’t interrupting music.
I’ve seen L.A. ratings back to fall of 1966. KFI was never number one, and in the late 60s and early 70s, they often weren’t even top ten.
There were a lot of problems. When NBC network radio programming wound down, KFI essentially went to block programming. MOR in the morning, on a show called “Hit The Road” with interchangeable announcers while KMPC had a name personality in Dick Whittinghill. Chuck Cecil in afternoons was playing big band and swing, which was at the time just 15-20 year old music. They gave hours a week to Dick Sinclair for Polka music.
Oh, and a one-hour farm report at 5:00 a.m. That was the lead-in to morning drive. Plus a five-minute “frost report” every evening.
In 1961, Earle C. Anthony, who founded KFI in 1922 and had been the station’s sole owner, died. His family continued to run it as they thought he’d want.
Even when they streamlined to a pure MOR around 1966, they still came off as stodgier than KMPC and KGIL.
In 1968-69, they remade the station—-contemporary MOR with personalities (Lohman and Barkley, Jerry Bishop, Jack Angel, Jay Lawrence, Dave Hull and Scott Ellsworth). It was actually hipper and funnier than KMPC. And it scared the existing KFI audience. The ratings took a big dip.
So in 1970, the station over-corrected. Back to very conservative MOR music. Dave Garroway, who had hosted the Today show on NBC in the 50s, replaced Jay Lawrence in afternoons. Chuck Cecil was brought back from weekends to evenings to play swing and big bands, replacing Dave Hull.
It helped, but not enough. So in 1972, they went back to block programming…MOR 6 am to 6 pm, Chuck and the big bands 6-9, country music with Bob Kingsley from 9-midnight and talk with Hilly Rose overnight.
Finally, Anthony’s heirs sold to Cox Broadcasting in 1973. By 1974, the station was morphing back to Adult Contemporary (which, in the 1970s, was really Top 40 minus the five or six hardest records and a little deeper oldies library). That’s what they were doing at the time of the ratings posted here.
So why were they doing so poorly? Basically, too many stations playing the same music…there wasn’t much space between KFI, KMPC and KHJ. But, as in the late 60s, the new music was a tune-out for the old audience—-and a lot of KFI and KMPC’s traditional long-time listeners, by then 50 or older, went to FM beautiful music stations like KJOI and KOST. KFI got hurt less than KMPC because Cox also owned KOST. KMPC at the time was a stand-alone AM.
It wouldn’t be until Cox hired John Rook as PD and he took KFI Top 40 in 1977 that KFI would be truly competitive. Until then, Lohman and Barkley basically carried the station. The joke at the time…and very close to the truth…was that you could turn off the transmitter 20 hours a day, just air Lohman and Barkley, and KFI’s rating wouldn’t change that much.
The original KDAY-AM had a good sized audience back then with a Motown/Soul/R&B playlist.
The PD was John Rook of WLS, Chicago, who knew how to do Top 40 on a big signal.
John had worked with Lohman and Barkley separately in Denver, kept them, and then hired top-notch jocks for the rest of the lineup—-Charlie Fox, Eric Chase, Jack Armstrong, Big Ron O’Brien, Bob Shannon.
It only had about five years before Cox let John go and started pulling back to AC as KIIS-FM took over the CHR space, but it was a strong, solid, first-class station during that time.
True. KDAY was top five in the fall ‘74 and fall ‘75 books, and got within 8/10th of a point of KHJ in ‘75.
I suppose not many would care accept me, but it shouid be noted that the antenna elevations listed for the FM stations on the list are feet above sea level===not height above average terrain (HAAT) which is what the FCC uses to determine appropriate/approved ERP and channel spacing. HAAT is determined by the height of the antenna at the center of radiation between 2 and 10 miles from the antenna. Although Mt. Wilson is a mile high in the San Gabriels, less than 10 miles behind it to the North there's an 8000 ft mountain range which knocks Wilson's HAAT down to about 3000 ft. This explains why you can't hear LA FM stations in Palmdale. The powers listed were grandfathered in when the FCC stopped authorising Class "C" FM stations in California. Max Class C power is about 50 kW at about 3000 ft HAAT (based on the 100 kW at 2000 ft rule). As KBIG and KPFK were authorised before the rules were finalised both operate with over 100 kw. Same for KRUZ in Santa Barbara which has its antenna on the KEYT Channel 3 tower overlooking the Pacific at over 4000 ft. That station can be heard (providing no local interference) from San Diego to near Monterey and Salinas.
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I’ve heard KRUZ down in Rosarito.
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