Funniest stunting in LA radio

[ChannelFlipper]

Don't remember what year but KROQ and KQLZ Pirate Radio flipped their formats.
Pirate Radio was playing Duran Duran and Culture Club and The Cure while KROQ was playing Motley Crue and Poison and Cinderella.

Sluggo was taking calls on KROQ with his listeners going apoplectic about the stunt.

I remember that one well. Of course the whole fun is watching loyal listeners go apoplectic over it - their lives are just DEVASTATED by what is going on!

Remember, they have taken all of the FUN out of radio for a long time now, so stunts like this are no longer allowed ("we might miss a PPM reading!")

 

[davideduardo]

Remember, they have taken all of the FUN out of radio for a long time now, so stunts like this are no longer allowed ("we might miss a PPM reading!")

I guess you are being sarcastic, but it is important to note that PPM "readings" occur as often as 12 times a minute, 24/7. And they are unrelated to the format of any station.

 

[Weiserguy]

Wasn’t KABL 5kw by then with that crazy null to the east by then? Picking that up in Ohio was a pretty good catch. Interestingly, that signal is a regular in Hawaii at night due to their pattern.

Yes, but 35 miles south of the Bay Bridge toll plaza, where the xmtr and tower array sits, 960's signal is so weak it could be coming from Boise.

 

[Weiserguy]

Way back when, KABL 960 was my Aunt's favorite station! Had it on whenever I visited. I once asked her why she liked listening to that radio station, when she flatly refused to watch anything on Channel 2, because it was "from Oakland". When I told her that KABL was based in Oakland, she just turned and walked away! Huh???

960 is licensed to Oakland, but the transmitter and tower array is at the foot of the Bay Bridge toll plaza, which I think is technically Emeryville, and the offices and studios were (and continue to be) in San Francisco. Weren't they up on Nob Hill back then? I think today they're part of the iHeart complex on Townsend, across from the Caltrain terminal. And since they're Bloomberg, you could say their programming originates in either Bloomberg's offices downtown, or even 570 Lexington Ave (the Bloomberg Building) in NYC! Truly a mongrel of a station.

 

[CaliRadioFan]

In late 1976, Bobby "Boris" Pickett in his Karloff-esque voice and Peter Ferrera did a guest DJ stint on KFXM to promote their then new "King Kong (Your Song)" single and tie it into the movie that had just come out. The gag was Boris and Kong took over the station to play whatever they wanted....mostly novelty tunes if I remember correctly.

 

[multiplex]

Maybe not exactly funny, but about McLendon. In 1961 before changing from Top 40 XEAK to XETRA's news format, they ran a couple of days with records sped up and slowed down, and promoting the Giants' classic baseball game Saturday morning (May 6) at 10 AM. During the game they promoted something new coming to southern California radio, and they launched the all-news format in the 2 PM hour.
Also, in 1968, with two all-news competitors in L.A. --KFWB already with KNX in the works--in the last couple days of their all-news format, they had promos with reverb done by Top 40 jocks in other markets, promoting the all-new "Go Sound of Extra."
But on April 2, 1968, they didn't go Top 40 but went Beautiful Music instead.
In 1980, when a format change was in the works, XETRA did a hosted format-an-hour until the debut of "The Mighty 690" during the noon hour on that Friday (which I believe was Sept. 25, 1980.)

 

[MassMusicMan]

Someone told me there was a reason why Amp Radio chose to play “paranoid“ by Kanye west specfically after Leykis signed off, and I kept forgetting to ask why. Here’s to hoping someone here knows why?

I read that Kevin Weatherly's idea was to launch with something that was, at the time, a new song out of the box.