97.1 FM country legends

[Mediafrog+]

Oddly enough, while Tejano itself as a genre is dying, the tejano aesthethic is making a comeback. Superstar group Grupo Frontera's songs borrow a lot from it, and the group is from the Rio Grande Valley.

While it's not worth it to research new songs for the format, if Tejano stations were doing it, I imagine they'd be playing Frontera. They sound right at home in the format. And from what I understand, a lot of norteño groups from Texas, like Intocable, get airplay on these stations.

Would Frontera be considered a “border straddling” cousin of Norteño or a subset?

Interesting to note that here in Houston, the highest rated of our many rimshot FM signals is a Norteño format.

 

[Kent]

KXTN was the "original" all Tejano station, and even when it launched the success of Tejano was an accident: they got a huge FM signal and a bad AM daytimer. So they put Tejano on the AM as fill. The FM, using the common Latino AC format of the 80's, was beaten out of the gate by the lousy AM. They swapped formats and the FM became all Tejano.

I remember the old K-Suave 107.5 and "Lock it in, and crank it up. Tejano 1310 KXTN!" Seems like it was early '91 when the formats swapped. KZVE 1310 only lasted a couple more years, though that was probably because of the new station down the hall. Tichenor attempted to do the Latino AC after it bought 92.9 from what became Secret Communications in '93, and it might've lasted three years before becoming "Estereo Latino." I seem to remember Tichenor had originally planned on doing Tejano on 92.9, but TK was looking to cash out its investment in radio after duopoly had become legal. When it found out KXTN was for sale, it made an offer.

There was a lot of heritage in the cluster to keep the format, but most of the reasoning for retaining it was community pressure by civic and government leaders. When it moved to AM, billing was horrible. We had tried a variety of different mixes and spent a couple of hundred thousand in research... nothing would keep it from being a 45+ format and nothing would produce new music.

I remember you saying that, by around 2005, the vast majority of revenue from KXTN was coming from its mostly talk morning show.

Outside of the blip-on-the-radar burst of national attention the music got in 1995 when its biggest star, Selena, was murdered. It made the news in all 50 states, and got people in 49 of them curious about who Selena was and what made her such a star. She had one crossover hit, "Dreaming of You," which got considerable adult contemporary airplay.

"I Could Fall in Love" was also played on AC and CHR, at least in Texas. Don't know how well it did nationwide, but I remember hearing it on Casey's Top-40 and the Rick Dees Weekly Top-40. It couldn't have done that just based on Texas airplay, but I couldn't tell you how many spins it got outside the state.

For those not familiar, that “bad AM daytimer” was previously KBUC 1310, which had been Country for a number of years. KBUC-FM 107.5 was its sister station. Both were flipped under new ownership.

That was either '86 or '87 when KBUC AM/FM became KXTN and KZVE. Seemed like a strange format change at the time, but KBUC was the stodgy old country station that wasn't sold out if it was playing music and had been struggling to compete against the "more music, fewer commercials" approach KJ-97 and Y-100 were using. Class 100 flipping to country as Y-100 was quite shocking at the time, too, but no one can argue it didn't work. Not sure who sold KBUC AM/FM to TK Communications, but it was owned by Sigmor, which was an oil company, in the 70's and early 80's. I don't remember all the details about KBUC, but, looking back, it reminds me a lot of the Great Empire stations.

The KXTN-FM Tejano format did have an imitator in Houston with KXTJ 107.9 in the mid 90’s, which was a direct competitor to KQQK. Both eventually fell under common ownership, and the formats were combined. Tejano eventually fizzled, and both frequencies have gone through several changes over the years, but are still Hispanic targeted.

We had a couple in Dallas, too, though only Kick FM even came close to covering the entire market. Even then, it had three FM's at one time with plans to launch a fourth. It tended to cover the surrounding area better than it did the middle of the market. Seems like the first DFW station to try the Tejano format was 1540, which was previously religious KSGB, as KTNO. It might've lasted longer than a year, but I don't think it lasted two. Kick FM lasted about 10 years in total on various signals, but it was at least gone from FM by 2004. Seems like it might've continued on 1480 for a few years afterward, but it was eventually dealt to Salem. Texas still has a few Tejano stations, but most are either on poor signals or in small markets. As you might remember, Alpha flipped one of its San Antonio signals to Tejano and brought back Jhonny Ramirez, who had been working in San Angelo since being let go from KXTN. Seems like the Tejano station in San Angelo where Jhonny had been working is still doing the format, too. Tejano would seem to be most successful in Laredo and Corpus, though I have no idea what 92.7 Laredo and 99.9 Corpus are billing these days.

 

[davideduardo]

Outside of the blip-on-the-radar burst of national attention the music got in 1995 when its biggest star, Selena, was murdered. It made the news in all 50 states, and got people in 49 of them curious about who Selena was and what made her such a star. She had one crossover hit, "Dreaming of You," which got considerable adult contemporary airplay.

At the time of her death, Selena had only one song played on the radio in California, and that was "Como la flor" which I played on KKHJ and then on KTNQ in LA.

 

[davideduardo]

For those not familiar, that “bad AM daytimer” was previously KBUC 1310, which had been Country for a number of years. KBUC-FM 107.5 was its sister station. Both were flipped under new ownership.

Yes, the dreaded Tenaglia and Steve Humphries as GM.

 

[Kent]

Yes, the dreaded Tenaglia and Steve Humphries as GM.

Didn't Humphries try to buy KZVE/KXTN before Tichenor stepped in and made an offer? Seems like there was a deal that was proposed that didn't end up happening between TK shopping its stations and Tichenor getting those stations.

Don't remember when TK sold Miami, but it sold 98.7 KLUV in either '94 or '95 and got $51 million. Seems like KZVE/KXTN went for around $10 million.

 

[davideduardo]

We had a couple in Dallas, too, though only Kick FM even came close to covering the entire market.

At 2 AM one morning in the later 1990's, Cecil Heftel called me. "I want you in Dallas this morning. They broke my radio stations".

I got there on an early flight and by lunchtime had fired the GM who had been Tenaglia's GM in San Antonio. I spent a couple of weeks there as we looked for a new manager, David DuBois.

 

[davideduardo]

Don't remember when TK sold Miami, but it sold 98.7 KLUV in either '94 or '95 and got $51 million. Seems like KZVE/KXTN went for around $10 million.

It was the PD at Tenaglia’s Orlando station who said working there was “like a daily root canal“.

 

[Engineering]

That was either '86 or '87 when KBUC AM/FM became KXTN and KZVE. Seemed like a strange format change at the time, but KBUC was the stodgy old country station that wasn't sold out if it was playing music and had been struggling to compete against the "more music, fewer commercials" approach KJ-97 and Y-100 were using. Class 100 flipping to country as Y-100 was quite shocking at the time, too, but no one can argue it didn't work. Not sure who sold KBUC AM/FM to TK Communications, but it was owned by Sigmor, which was an oil company, in the 70's and early 80's. I don't remember all the details about KBUC, but, looking back, it reminds me a lot of the Great Empire stations.

I seem to recall that KBUC also featured local talent, with the right amount of pursuasion. I recall one of the old KBUC jocks telling me that (the late) Mean Gene Kelton pestered him frequently until he relented and gave his songs some airplay, which he leveraged. Toward his later years, Kelton was popular with his brand of Texas Blues (alternately Texas Country), and he had at least two self-published CDs with such memorable tunes as My Baby Don't Wear No Panties and Texas City Dyke.

 

[Engineering]

The KXTN-FM Tejano format did have an imitator in Houston with KXTJ 107.9 in the mid 90’s,

Maybe it's just me, but I noticed that many of these radio stations seem to reverse the postal code for Texas, TX.

 

[BamaTX]

Maybe it's just me, but I noticed that many of these radio stations seem to reverse the postal code for Texas, TX.

The use of "T" and "X" seems to have been popular in past and present Tejano stations. KXTN (San Antonio), KXTJ (Houston), and KXTQ (Lubbock), KRTX (Houston), and KXQT (Odessa) are a few that come to mind.

But I'm not too sure that KXTJ was meant to be an imitation of KXTN. KXTN was known as "Tejano 107 FM" while KXTJ was known as "Super Tejano 108". I don't remember both stations using similar jingles or voiceover talent. But then again, it's been almost 30 years and I may be misremembering.

 

[Kent]

I seem to recall that KBUC also featured local talent, with the right amount of pursuasion. I recall one of the old KBUC jocks telling me that (the late) Mean Gene Kelton pestered him frequently until he relented and gave his songs some airplay, which he leveraged. Toward his later years, Kelton was popular with his brand of Texas Blues (alternately Texas Country), and he had at least two self-published CDs with such memorable tunes as My Baby Don't Wear No Panties and Texas City Dyke.

That was probably another reason KBUC started having problems. Mixing untested local artists into your regular rotation usually doesn't go over well, despite your audience possibly saying it wants to hear more local music. I was surprised to find KBUC actually went away in September 1988. I thought that happened a year or two before that. I remember seeing a KBUC 107.5 bumper sticker on somebody's car in the summer of 1990 and thought it had been gone longer than that. My dad recognized KBUC right away because one of his friends used to listen to that station when I was a baby.

KJ-97 beat KBUC hands down almost immediately. It still performed respectably until Y100 signed on. That was really the death knell for the station, though it had gotten rid of the separate programming on AM a year or so before it signed off for good.

Reading the Radio & Records article about the new formats replacing it on AM and FM, it sounded like TK staggered the shifts on KXTN 1310 and KZVE 107.5 so it didn't have to have two people on at the same time. Both apparently had live morning shows while they ran automated in middays. KZVE was live afternoons while KXTN was live at night. What little I remember of Que Suave 107.5 was generic announcing without much personality, though I only listened at night a couple times.