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Top-40 AMs transition in the 80s.

C

CentralFL

Were there any major market CHR AMs that did not transition to AC or oldies before going to talk? Stations like WABC, WLS and WNBC evolved before flipping away from top-40.

Were there about major markets where the was an AM CHR one day and something unrecognizable like talk or religion the next?
 
CentralFL said:
Were there about major markets where the was an AM CHR one day and something unrecognizable like talk or religion the next?
Click to expand...

KTNQ in Los Angeles abruptly went from CHR to Spanish-language programming at noon on July 31, 1979.
 
KRIZ/1230 Phoenix was sold to Family Life Radio in 1978. It ended Top 40 and got religion on 7/30/1978 as KFLR.

Also in Phoenix, KRUX/1360 switched from Top 40 to all-news via NBC's short-lived News and Information Service
in 1975.

KTAR/620 tried a Top 40 format in the early '70s, but dumped it for all-news in 1973.
 
K.M. Richards said:
KTNQ in Los Angeles abruptly went from CHR to Spanish-language programming at noon on July 31, 1979.
Click to expand...
And the prior decades saw KFWB flip to all news from the Color Radio Top 40 format.
 
K.M. Richards said:
KTNQ in Los Angeles abruptly went from CHR to Spanish-language programming at noon on July 31, 1979.
Click to expand...
But it was a music format, basically Top 40, until 1976 when it went all talk. The question was about direct Top 40 to News or Talk formats.
 
K.M. Richards said:
But the OP used the phrase "something unrecognizable" which, to an English speaker, a sudden flip to Spanish language programming would fit.
Click to expand...
But most folks in SoCal are familiar with Spanish to some extent, even if just to name cities and streets. Tagalog and Farsi... not so much.
 
CentralFL said:
Were there any major market CHR AMs that did not transition to AC or oldies before going to talk? Stations like WABC, WLS and WNBC evolved before flipping away from top-40.

Were there about major markets where the was an AM CHR one day and something unrecognizable like talk or religion the next?
Click to expand...
San Antonio: KSJL 760 flipped from top 40 to a top 40 simulcast with its FM ("Super Q") to SMN’s Z-Rock to SMN’s The Touch adult R&B and then to talk/sports

Houston: KRBE 1070 went from simulcasting its top 40 FM to Z-Rock back to simulcasting KRBE-FM to briefly religious KCRR then back to a top 40 simulcast to ethnic KENR (it’s from the 60s to early 80s) to then religious talk to its present day conservative talk KNTH.

Ottawa: CFGO/CJBZ 1200 flipped from top 40 to sports directly in 1998. Canada's top 40 fade from AM was a decade later than the US...
 
davideduardo said:
But most folks in SoCal are familiar with Spanish to some extent, even if just to name cities and streets. Tagalog and Farsi... not so much.
Click to expand...

Please stop nitpicking, mi amigo. The point is AM CHRs that made sudden changes in format, if I read the OP correctly. English-to-Spanish is still in that definition.

I think perhaps the original wording of the question was a little too vague, and I would ask @CentralFL to clarify the two major points of disagreement:
1. Are we talking all-time format flips, or just those that happened as CHR/Top-40 was disappearing from AM?
2. Is any sudden non-CHR format within the definition of "something unrecognizable"?
 
K.M. Richards said:
2. Is any sudden non-CHR format within the definition of "something unrecognizable"?
Click to expand...
Likely those would be CHRs that had a simulcast FM that "suddenly" converted the AM to brokered time, religion or some ethnic format.

Some time ago, I heard of a Music of your Life type station in SE Florida that suddenly switched from Sinatra and Friends to Kreyol programming. I got a mental picture of Bob in Pompano screaming, "Doris, you changed my radio and now it is talking in foreign."
 
K.M. Richards said:
Please stop nitpicking, mi amigo. The point is AM CHRs that made sudden changes in format, if I read the OP correctly. English-to-Spanish is still in that definition.

I think perhaps the original wording of the question was a little too vague, and I would ask @CentralFL to clarify the two major points of disagreement:
1. Are we talking all-time format flips, or just those that happened as CHR/Top-40 was disappearing from AM?
2. Is any sudden non-CHR format within the definition of "something unrecognizable"?
Click to expand...
I didn't mean to start anything ugly. All the big CHR's flipped to something else as the audience for music on AM dwindled.

I meant a flip to a completely different format with little overlap to the previous CHR. A station becoming AC or playing more oldies can happen slowly without immediately becoming immediately apparent that a format has flipped. Whereas Spanish language programming, to my mind, is a total flip - as would be a flip to news, talk, country, nostalgia, region.
 
txchipk said:
Ottawa: CFGO/CJBZ 1200 flipped from top 40 to sports directly in 1998. Canada's top 40 fade from AM was a decade later than the US...
Click to expand...

The radio dial up in Canada was like a blast from the past in the 1980s and 1990s. Their regulations keeping top-40 on AM. I would imagine that the border towns like Windsor and the Niagara region had a lot of Canadians listening to the FM's coming Detroit and Buffalo.
 
WPOP Hartford went straight from CHR to news in the mid-'70s, adding right-wing talk to the mix in the '80s. WDRC(AM) did the standard transition from CHR to AC to talk.
 
CentralFL said:
Were there any major market CHR AMs that did not transition to AC or oldies before going to talk? Stations like WABC, WLS and WNBC evolved before flipping away from top-40.

Were there about major markets where the was an AM CHR one day and something unrecognizable like talk or religion the next?
Click to expand...

KHJ to Country. KFRC to Nostalgia. KGB to CNN Radio News. KCBQ to Country.
 
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CentralFL said:
I meant a flip to a completely different format with little overlap to the previous CHR. A station becoming AC or playing more oldies can happen slowly without immediately becoming immediately apparent that a format has flipped. Whereas Spanish language programming, to my mind, is a total flip - as would be a flip to news, talk, country, nostalgia, region.
Click to expand...

Thank you for clarifying the question. That lets us provide more examples and avoid arguing over what you meant. (y)
 
As late as 1990, M Street Radio Directory still listed a few CHR stations on AM in major markets, usually licensed to a suburb. These apparently were very small stations, as they didn't even show up in the ratings. I think Boston or Pittsburgh may have had one. I'm pretty sure WINX in Washington DC was still listed as CHR.

WCLU Cincinnati was another very small AM top 40 which rarely if ever showed in the ratings. It became oldies WCVG in 1987 under new owners. But I think there might have been a tiny bit of overlap musically. After the switch, WCVG kept playing the same oldies in the same order every day. When that happened, a lot of people finally got rid of their AM-only car radios.
 
NoWayNoCC said:
After the switch, WCVG kept playing the same oldies in the same order every day. When that happened, a lot of people finally got rid of their AM-only car radios.
Click to expand...

That is, pure and simple, bad programming. Either they didn't actually use any kind of scheduling method -- in 1987, it would have likely been index cards rather than software -- or whoever was doing it had no idea what they were doing. (Or they were automated and kept running the same reels at the same time each day.)

That's a situation where the station deserved to lose its listeners.
 


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