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LA Radio Dream Dial

As for KFWB, that building was condemned after the 1994 Northridge quake (KFWB itself had moved to an old supermarket on Yucca decades earlier), and was torn down. It's still an empty lot.

I had always wondered why KFWB was in such a strange looking building. I saw some photos of its exterior and its old newsroom at A selection from a decade of visits to tower and studio sites in the Northeast and beyond a decade and a half ago. According to PressReader.com - Digital Newspaper & Magazine Subscriptions, it was a rather storied facility with a massive relevance to Los Angeles broadcast history. A worthwhile read for anyone who is curious.

Edit - I apologize if I'm contributing to the thread going off-topic. But I don't think off-topic background chatter really hurts a thread. It's not unlike audience members at a concert talking among themselves between performers' sets on stage. If anyone has their own L.A. dream dial to enumerate, just post it and people will engage with the subject again. :) By the way, I disagree about the idea being "a recipe for self-indulgence." I think the idea of a dream dial isn't so much laying out one's personal jukebox choices but each person's opinion of what line-up would best serve the interests of listeners. You know, an antidote to the current corporate model, which is basically two companies that own 98% of the existing stations trying multiple variations of the same small clutch of formats, eliminating the kind of variety and diversity that made FM fun for people in its golden years.
 
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I had always wondered why KFWB was in such a strange looking building. I saw some photos of its exterior and its old newsroom at A selection from a decade of visits to tower and studio sites in the Northeast and beyond a decade and a half ago. According to PressReader.com - Digital Newspaper & Magazine Subscriptions, it was a rather storied facility with a massive relevance to Los Angeles broadcast history. A worthwhile read for anyone who is curious.

Edit - I apologize if I'm contributing to the thread going off-topic. But I don't think off-topic background chatter really hurts a thread. It's not unlike audience members at a concert talking among themselves between performers' sets on stage. If anyone has their own L.A. dream dial to enumerate, just post it and people will engage with the subject again. :)
Thank you for your timely & important thoughts ! KFWB Los Angeles was an iconic rocker on famed Hollywood Blvd., as you can see in this 1966 photo of the station's 2 story building. Fans who came to visit were not allowed to go upstairs to the DJ booth on the second floor. I remember standing on the first floor, looking at the stairs and thinking how many sets of famous shoes had climbed those stairs, and how difficult it would be for the next generation of talent to fill those big shoes in the years to come.

As Michael Hagerty noted above, this building that housed the KFWB studios was knocked down after the 1994 earthquake and to this day, it's a vacant lot. The old towers are still next door on what used to be the Warner Bros. building, I think.

On the topic of going off-topic, I agree with you ! On another thread here, we currently have 275 messages, which originally started out as a comment about station KZOK playing a Pat Benatar song, which the OP feels is wrong for a classic rock station. :) That has now evolved into a 14 page discussion on everything from Taylor Swift to Meghan Thee Stallion, to how Billboard counts streaming of songs for charting purposes, LOL. 😂 As you say - it's very much like concert-goers chatting between appearances of bands. It doesn't bother me, because I'm fascinated by all this, and I learn so much from every conversation.

When there is a group of highly extroverted people, especially on-air talent or content creators whose job it is to write material, they're going to do that, as they're naturally wired to be chatty and informative. It's like a dinner party, where the extroverts are skilled at making tangential dialogue which keeps the camaraderie moving forward. Camaraderie is part of what makes a message board so successful --- and just from looking at the number of members online, we can see that this board creates a lot of interest.

On the topic of Los Angeles, where I used to work downtown: Yes, like all giant cities, it has a share of grinding poverty, homelessness, drugs, and crime. Much of central Hollywood is tawdry - but I'm glad to hear that West Hollywood - WeHo-is still nice. Despite the problems. L.A. is still a magic city - and the music & entertainment capital of the world. I never tire of driving past the Capital Records building or the Television City complex in West L.A., or the Walt Disney Concert Hall, home of the L.A. Philharmonic. The L.A. beaches are gorgeous year round ( yes, they need to clean up Venice), the Hollywood Hills & Santa Monica mountains are wonderful for strolling and hiking; & the Palos Verdes Peninsula is stunning. The canyons whose cantilevered homes look down on the nighttime city, with its lights spread out like glittering electric marbles, are beautiful to drive at dusk. There's still much magic there, and all who would like to visit should make the trip out west. JMO 😊
 

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My Los Angeles Dream Dial Revival:
  • 1190 AM - KEZY - was a terrific CHR that rimshotted Los Angeles from Anaheim but still managed to eek out ratings in the LA book
  • 100.3 FM KIQQ - an early mover CHR that broke lots of British hits into this market - it fulfilled the purpose that KROQ later excelled at
  • 101.9 FM KEDG - The Edge was a hybrid new rock with indie
  • 92.3 FM KFAC - LA's classic classical station (also at 1330 AM)
  • 710 AM KMPC - The Station of the Stars - was always more than just a full-service MOR - plus it was home to Jim Healy
  • 980 AM KFWB - I wish we all could still give it 22 minutes, so that KFWB's newsroom could give us the world
  • 930 AM KHJ (and later 1020 AM KTNQ) - both were full energy AM Top 40 stations
  • 103.1 FM KACD/KBCD - "MARS FM" circa 1991 which mainly played electronic music
  • 94.7 FM KMET - the home of Dr. Demento and during its prime the home for adventurous rock n roll
 
My Los Angeles Dream Dial Revival:
  • 1190 AM - KEZY - was a terrific CHR that rimshotted Los Angeles from Anaheim but still managed to eek out ratings in the LA book
Orange County and, of course, Anaheim, are in the "LA Book". All of LA County and all of Orange Country have been the LA Arbitron survey area for decades.
  • 100.3 FM KIQQ - an early mover CHR that broke lots of British hits into this market - it fulfilled the purpose that KROQ later excelled at
  • 101.9 FM KEDG - The Edge was a hybrid new rock with indie
  • 92.3 FM KFAC - LA's classic classical station (also at 1330 AM)
  • 710 AM KMPC - The Station of the Stars - was always more than just a full-service MOR - plus it was home to Jim Healy
  • 980 AM KFWB - I wish we all could still give it 22 minutes, so that KFWB's newsroom could give us the world
  • 930 AM KHJ (and later 1020 AM KTNQ) - both were full energy AM Top 40 stations
And KTNQ's biggest problem was that at night it did not cover most of Orange County, making it hard for it to compete with other AM stations and with all the Mt Wilson FMs.
 
I had always wondered why KFWB was in such a strange looking building. I saw some photos of its exterior and its old newsroom at A selection from a decade of visits to tower and studio sites in the Northeast and beyond a decade and a half ago. According to PressReader.com - Digital Newspaper & Magazine Subscriptions, it was a rather storied facility with a massive relevance to Los Angeles broadcast history. A worthwhile read for anyone who is curious.
For those who didn't click through, here are some shots of what KFWB's studios on Yucca (where they were from 1977 to 2005) looked like:

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The building was torn down, the lot sat empty for years. Now, luxury apartments are on the site:

Argyle House | Related
 
Is that newscar a Javelin? I vaguely remember a friend having one.
No. That's an AMC Matador Coupe. I couldn't tell the year. They were made from the 1974 to 1978 model years. There are some Dodge Aspen/Plymouth Volares parked against the wall. They came out in fall '75 for the '76 model year, and we know KFWB moved to Yucca in '77, so unless some AMC freak knows something like a unique hubcap design for the Matador for one year only, I think we're stuck.
 
Looks like a gas guzzling V-8.
Might have been. Five engines were available---two straight sixes and three V-8s. If Westinghouse had penny-pinchers in accounting who knew these were only gonna be "around town" cars, they might have opted for the six.

While we're on the topic (or off-topic in this direction), we've become accustomed to "news cars" being SUVs in the past few decades, but L.A. radio stations had different approaches back in the day.

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For KMPC, it was always white Chevrolet station wagons. They had six, and two of them would be traded in each year, so no vehicle was more than three years old. These cars were also used for traffic reporting and put on the miles quickly.

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KGIL had a Mercury Comet wagon in the early 60s, a first-generation Mustang in the middle 60s and an AMC Hornet wagon in the mid-late 70s.

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KHJ? Three '67 Mercury Cougars with racing stripes.

I've also seen pictures of some station using a 1968 Dodge Charger for a news car. It's been years, but my memory says it was KFWB. Quite possibly purchased while they were still playing music.
 
I know that for a lot of folks it seems like KFWB News98 was news forever, and it was a great operation...many people thought it was better that KNX, and it probably was (its audio certainly sounded better), it just couldn't compete with that giant KNX signal. But to me when I think of KFWB, and especially when I see an old photo of those studios I immediately think of Joe Yocam, BMR (Mitch Reed), Sam Riddle, Gene Weed, Bill Ballance, Elliot Field, and the list goes on and on...Chuck Blore's KFWB Color Channel 98 was a masterpiece.. and for a few years the highest rated radio station in the United States...
 
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I've also seen pictures of some station using a 1968 Dodge Charger for a news car. It's been years, but my memory says it was KFWB. Quite possibly purchased while they were still playing music.
And we've become so used to "form fitting" adhesive wraps for vehicles that the ugly painting of letters or logos with no flair or "splash" is almost as depressing as seeing an old weathercast with temperatures on little cards that sat in a rail on a display like prices at Walmart.
 
But to me when I think of KFWB, and especially when I see an old photo of those studios I immediately think of Joe Yocam, BMR (Mitch Reed), Sam Riddle, Gene Weed, Bill Ballance, Elliot Field, and the list goes on and on...Chuck Blore's KFWB Color Channel 98 was a masterpiece.. and for a few years the highest rated radio station in the United States...
KFWB may have had the highest AQH persons listening level, but there were plenty of smaller market stations with much, much higher shares.
 
GEDA1990:

Nice Lineup!
How about this ATSF.... (as heard from South OC, back in the early-mid 80's) Some stations are from the San Diego and the Inland Empire markets, as heard in South OC, adding variety to a good L.A. lineup. This is from my 40 year-old memory, so I'm sure there are other great stations from that time to make a complete dream lineup.

88.5 KSBR (College Jazz)
91.1 XTRA (91X-AOR)
94.7 KMET (Rock)
95.5 KLOS (Rock)
96.5 KYXY (A/C)
99.1 KGGI (early 80's Top 40)
99.9 KOLA (Album Rock)
100.3 KFMB (B-100, Hot A/C)
101.1 KRTH (A/C, Classic Rock & Roll, 1950's - 1980)
102.7 KIIS (Top 40)
103.5 KOST (A/C)
103.7 KJQY (Beautiful, A/C)
104.3 KBIG (A/C)
105.9 KWST / KMGG (Top 40)
106.7 KROQ (Rock, New Wave)
107.9 KWVE (A/C, MOR)
 
I know that for a lot of folks it seems like KFWB News98 was news forever, and it was a great operation...many people thought it was better that KNX, and it probably was (its audio certainly sounded better), it just couldn't compete with that giant KNX signal. But to me when I think of KFWB, and especially when I see an old photo of those studios I immediately think of Joe Yocam, BMR (Mitch Reed), Sam Riddle, Gene Weed, Bill Ballance, Elliot Field, and the list goes on and on...Chuck Blore's KFWB Color Channel 98 was a masterpiece.. and for a few years the highest rated radio station in the United States...
( By the way, those news cars are cool. What fun photos).
I agree w/ Tomas. KFWB did a great job with its all-news format, but I'll always remember the "Seven Swingin' Gentlemen" of the Top 40 format years. This photo shows the front of the record list that KFWB published once a week and sent out to the record stores. I don't know what they called it, but my station, KRLA 1110 called it the "Tunedex", with photos of KRLA jocks, "the 1110 men" on the front.

Every so often, one of KRLA's "1110 men" would migrate over to KFWB, and I would change the channel from KRLA over to KFWB. This photo is one of the very early record surveys, when Bruce Hayes was still the morning DJ, before Wink migrated from KRLA and took over the morning shift. KFWB had a slower sound than KRLA and was oriented more towards adults ( Hence the slogan, "My Mommy listens to KFWB").
I know this is off-topic, but at least it has to do with L.A. radio. And this nostalgia is super-fun. D.L. - L.A. :cool:💙
 

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I know that for a lot of folks it seems like KFWB News98 was news forever, and it was a great operation...many people thought it was better that KNX, and it probably was (its audio certainly sounded better), it just couldn't compete with that giant KNX signal. But to me when I think of KFWB, and especially when I see an old photo of those studios I immediately think of Joe Yocam, BMR (Mitch Reed), Sam Riddle, Gene Weed, Bill Ballance, Elliot Field, and the list goes on and on...Chuck Blore's KFWB Color Channel 98 was a masterpiece.. and for a few years the highest rated radio station in the United States...
There's no denying that KFWB was a giant, but it was for a relatively short time (5 years), and the lead changed just as the first of the Baby Boomers were entering their late teens.

Taking nothing away from Chuck Blore, who was absolutely brilliant, a huge chunk of KFWB's early success was simply from being first---the other stations attempting a Top 40 format in the market had been daytimers. KFWB had a then-solid signal and was on 24 hours.

KFWB missed opportunities in a couple of key areas. First, it never established a long-running morning show. Bruce Hayes lasted three years, Gary Owens just one. Wink Martindale actually had the longest tenure at five years, but within a year of his moving into mornings, KFWB's dominance ended.

Second, with the possible exception of B. Mitchel Reed, KFWB's jocks were very adult-sounding. In fact, Al Jarvis was 49 when KFWB went Top 40 and Bill Balance was 40.

Third, KFWB seemed afraid to tamper with its own success. The overlong jingles and clutter lasted until after Blore left in '62. And KFWB's PD after Blore left was Jim Hawthorne----born, like Bill Balance, in 1918, There was a generational issue.

KRLA changed format and call letters (from Country KXLA) in 1959, but they didn't really get traction until a series of key hires---Bob Hudson, Casey Kasem, Dave Hull, Dick Biondi---that began in '63. That's when they overtook KFWB in the ratings. KHJ's arrival in '65 just pushed KFWB further back in the pack.
 
AM Dial
570 - KLAC (classic country)
640 - KFI (talk)
670 - KWNK (asian)
710 - KSPN (sports - ESPN)
740 - KBRT (religious)
790 - KABC (talk)
830 - KLAA (sports - Fox Sports)
870 - KIEV (classical)
900 - KALI (asian)
930 - KHJ (spanish classic hits and classic regional mexican)
980 - KFWB (all news in M-F from 5am-8pm / talk in nights and weekends)
1020 - KTNQ (spanish talk)
1070 - KNX (all news 24/7)
1110 - KRLA (sports talk - CBS Sports)
1150 - KTLK (conservative talk/sports - BetQL on nights and weekends)
1190 - KORG (asian)
1230 - KYPA (asian)
1260 - KKGO (oldies - 1954 to 1969)
1280 - KFRN (religious)
1300 - KAZN (asian)
1330 - KWKW (spanish sports - TUDN)
1390 - KLTX (religious)
1430 - KRMB (asian)
1460 - KTYM (spanish oldies)
1540 - KMPC (Bloomberg Radio)
1580 - KBLA (spanish talk/sports - Unanimo)
1650 - KFOX (adult standards)

FM Dial
92.3 - KRRL (urban)
93.1 - KCBS (adult hits - 1980 to 2009)
93.5 - KDAY (urban)
93.9 - KZLA (country)
94.7 - KTWV (AC)
95.5 - KLOS (classic rock)
96.3 - KXOL (spanish adult contemporary)
97.1 - KLSX (modern alternative - 2000 to present)
97.9 - KLAX (regional mexican)
98.7 - KYSR (alternative - 1990 to present)
99.5 - KKLA (religious)
100.3 - KSWD (mainstream rock - The Sound)
101.1 - KRTH (oldies - 1954 to 1979)
101.5 - KZKA (spanish variety hits)
101.9 - KSCA (regional mexican)
102.3 - KJLH (urban)
102.7 - KIIS (CHR)
103.1 - KDLD (alternative - Indie 103.1)
103.5 - KOST (soft rock/AC)
103.9 - KRCD (spanish oldies)
104.3 - KBIG (Modern AC)
105.1 - KKGO (country)
105.5 - KBUE (regional mexican)
105.9 - KPWR (urban)
106.7 - KROQ (classic alternative - 1980 to 1999)
107.1 - KSSE (spanish adult hits)
107.5 - KLVE (spanish adult contemporary)
This is fantastic but I want Dr. Laura and (90s style )Tom Leykis on KFI.
 
How about this ATSF.... (as heard from South OC, back in the early-mid 80's) Some stations are from the San Diego and the Inland Empire markets, as heard in South OC, adding variety to a good L.A. lineup. This is from my 40 year-old memory, so I'm sure there are other great stations from that time to make a complete dream lineup.

88.5 KSBR (College Jazz)
91.1 XTRA (91X-AOR)
94.7 KMET (Rock)
95.5 KLOS (Rock)
96.5 KYXY (A/C)
99.1 KGGI (early 80's Top 40)
99.9 KOLA (Album Rock)
100.3 KFMB (B-100, Hot A/C)
101.1 KRTH (A/C, Classic Rock & Roll, 1950's - 1980)
102.7 KIIS (Top 40)
103.5 KOST (A/C)
103.7 KJQY (Beautiful, A/C)
104.3 KBIG (A/C)
105.9 KWST / KMGG (Top 40)
106.7 KROQ (Rock, New Wave)
107.9 KWVE (A/C, MOR)
Add 93.1 KNX-FM (Soft Rock), 95.9 KEZY-FM (Rock), 97.1 KHTZ (Top 40), 100.7 not 100.3 is KFMB-FM (Home of The Rich Bros B Morning Zoo) 101.5 KGB (Rock) and 105.5 KNAC (Rock) and you have a more complete list, at least of the FM stations I listened to.
 
KFWB may have had the highest AQH persons listening level, but there were plenty of smaller market stations with much, much higher shares.
I was indeed referring to major markets. Obviously at one time I'm sure that KIBS 1230 in Bishop had astronomical ratings since they were the only radio station available in the Owens Valley area, as an example.
 
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