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AM Stations that "abbreviated their frequency" in slogans

C

cd637299

Guest
This hardly ever happens nowadays at AM stations, due to digital readouts----but what stations used to go by frequencies by dropping their "zero" in announcements, or even dropping both zeroes on frequencies that were multiples of 100? For example:

WQAM 560 "Q56"
CFCF 600 "Radio 60"
WRKO 680 "68 RKO"
WLW 700 "Radio 7"
WABC 770 "Musicradio 77"
WFUN 790 "79" (in fact rival WQAM wasn't allowed to announce Miami temperature as 79 degrees)
CKLW 800 "The Big 8"
WHAS 840 "84 WHAS"
WINZ 940 "94 WINZ"

.....and so on....

(and wasn't KOGO 600 San Diego "Radio 6" or something?)

Also, what were the highest-frequency stations that abbreviated? I am sure that many multiple-of-100 stations announced as "14" or "16"....but how about the others----did any 1590's announce as "159"? I now recall CKLM 1570 Montreal's logo as "157" in the late 70s.

Oh and how many "rounded off" their frequencies---e.g.

XERF 1570 "Love 16"
WSRF 1580 "Surf 16"

cd
 
WMAQ All-News 67
WBBM Newsradio 78
The Big 89 (and later, Musicradio 89) WLS
Big 10 WCFL

All, of course, from Chicago.
 
The old WDXN of Clarksville, TN (AM 540) was "the big 54" for many years, until about 1993, when TennAire Communications of Russellville, KY, bought it. Then they started emphasizing "540" because, as they said at the time, "54" sounded like a CB channel! ::) They have undergone many format, management, ownership, and even call letter changes over the past 20 years, but still emphasize 540.

WHBQ of Memphis was "56HBQ."

WVOL of Nashville still is (as far as I know) "the mighty 147."
 
A few others:

* WBZ Radio 103(0)

* WCBS Newsradio 88(0)

* The old WMEX-1510 in Boston for a time in the early 1970's promoted themselves as "X-15".

* The original home of Boston's WEEI-AM (now 850) was 590, and during it's all-news years was called "Newsradio 59".

* WILD Boston for a time i n the late 1970's called themselves "Magic 109(0)".

* WPRO Providence long used "63" for 630. In fact, during the 1960's, they had a jingle that went "Color Radio, Channel 63".

And of course, many FM stations used only the Megacycles/Megahertz in their frequencies and not the decimal point.

In Boston, we once had "Stereo 105" (the old WVBF-105.7) and "FM 97" for the old WJIB-96.9. Today, the only Boston area FM station not using their full frequency (down to the tenths of a Megahertz) in their branding is WXKS-107.9, which still uses the "Kiss-108" branding they adopted when they went 24/7 disco in January, 1979 (since the early 19780's, it's been a mainstream Top-40 station).
 
Joseph_Gallant said:
* The old WMEX-1510 in Boston for a time in the early 1970's promoted themselves as "X-15".
Click to expand...
You reminded me of a couple more:

WLAC here in Nashville was "15LAC" or "15WLAC" or something like that. Despite the fact that their frequency actually was (and still is) 1510.

WCMT in Martin, TN, was "14country" for a long time, even though their actual frequency is 1410. Now they are "1410 your best friend."

Maybe in the days of mostly analog dials, they could get by with these "approximate" frequencies, but now with almost everyone having radios with digital readouts, it would be hard to get away with that, anymore!
 
Then there was that little AM station in Pound Ridge, NY in the seventies that took the trend to its logical conclusion...
 
Scott Fybush said:
Then there was that little AM station in Pound Ridge, NY in the seventies that took the trend to its logical conclusion...
Click to expand...

I meant to bring that one up......!!

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In Los Angeles:

570 KLAC was "Radio 57" in the 50s and "KLAC 57" in the late 60s. It was intermittent and they'd go back to the full "570" for a few years.

640 KFI was "64/KFI" and "Super 64 KFI" during its top 40 years (1977-1982).

690 XETRA abbreviated to "69" in 1969 and 1970. They also used "69 XTRA Gold" in the 1980s.

710 KMPC used "Radio 71" in 1971 only.

790 KABC was "Radio 79" in the early 60s and "Talkradio 79" in the late 60s/early 70s.

930 KHJ was "93/KHJ" from 1965-1986.

980 KFWB was "Color Channel 98", "KFWB Channel 98", "KFWB 98" and "KFWB News 98" from 1958 until sometime in the 1990s.

1110 KRLA called itself "Hit Radio 11" in the late 70s.
 
And in San Francisco, well, I can only think of a few:

680: KNBR, which was "KNBR 68" for I think all of the 70s and much of the 80s.

740: KCBS, which in the 70s even had a jingle: "News and more on 74...KCBS, San Francisco."

810: KGO, which used to end their weather forecasts in the 70s and 80s with "and in San Francisco it's Newstalk 81, KGO."

910: KEWB was "Color Channel 91" and "Channel 91", "KEWB 91" and for a while called itself "91-derful".
 
And in San Diego:

760 KFMB was "76/KFMB" for most of the 70s and 80s.

910 KDEO was "91-derful" in the 60s. When it became KMJC in the 70s, it was "Magic 91".

1170 KCBQ had jingles based on the WABC jingles in the early-mid 60s...."Eleven-Seven...KCBQ."
 
michael hagerty said:
690 XETRA abbreviated to "69" in 1969 and 1970. They also used "69 XTRA Gold" in the 1980s.
710 KMPC used "Radio 71" in 1971 only.
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At least one FM station here in Nashville did that. The station now known as "Mix 92.9" was "lite 93" during 1993, then went back to calling themselves by their digital frequency in 1994. Interestingly enough, this was accompanied by a call-letter change to WJXA (which they still use) back about that time. They had previously been WZEZ, one of those "beautiful" "elevator-music" stations back in the '80s (EZ whatever), so apparently the call change was a way to distance themselves from that. (Interestingly enough, they were then using the call letters WRMX for their oldies station; looks like they would have used those calls for Mix 92.9. Even after changing WRMX's calls to WMAK (after a Nashville heritage top 40 station), they still did not shift the 'RMX calls over to Mix 92.9.)
 
Several in Alabama that come quickly to mind:

WVOV 1000 / Huntsville ... "Big 10" and later "Super 10"

WHHY 1440 / Montgomery ... early '70s, "The Big 144"

WTBF 970 / Troy ... in the late '70s they dabbled a bit in the nickname T-97.

Birmingham:

WSGN 610 went through an odd phase in 1974 where they used "Super 61."

After flipping to country in late 1976, WVOK 690 started going by OK-69.

WERC 960 / Birmingham imitated the RKO-Drake scheme by using "96-ERC"

But the crown of head-scratchers would have to be that city's heritage 'adult' station WAPI 1070 ... for a short time in 1977, they adopted the name I-107. "The road to Birmingham's best listening."

1977 adverts for WVOK and WAPI: http://www.birminghamrewound.com/features/1977-04.htm

Some others:

WTUP 1490 Tupelo, Miss. -- "The Big 149" (1970-71), "Rock 149" (1984, when they leaned rock at night).

WRBC 1300 Jackson, Miss. -- "The Big 13"

WSGA 1400 Savannah, Ga. -- "The Rockin' 140"

Oh, and in 1974 one of the top-40s in Panama City, WGNE 1480 was going by "G-15."

--Russell
 
KQV 1410 Pittsburgh-Radio [or Audio] 14 [briefly known as 14K in 1974] and WKTQ [the once-and-future WJAS]-13Q from 1973-79. WEDO in McKeesport identifies itself as Radio or AM 81 [810].
 
michael hagerty said:
And in San Francisco, well, I can only think of a few:

680: KNBR, which was "KNBR 68" for I think all of the 70s and much of the 80s.

740: KCBS, which in the 70s even had a jingle: "News and more on 74...KCBS, San Francisco."

810: KGO, which used to end their weather forecasts in the 70s and 80s with "and in San Francisco it's Newstalk 81, KGO."

910: KEWB was "Color Channel 91" and "Channel 91", "KEWB 91" and for a while called itself "91-derful".
Click to expand...

And let's not forget that Top 40 giant "The Big 610" KFRC became "Magic 61" when it switched to a MOYL style format for a few years in the mid-late 80s.

In Los Angeles, I recall that until the advent of digital read-outs, all stations below 1000 Khz tended to abbreivate, while stations above generally did not. The only exception to this (IIRC) was KMPC 710, and I assume its because "seven-ten" is 3 syllables, but "seventy-one" is 4 syllables. Same thing with the Big 610 in San Francisco. Most other Bill Drake programmed Top 40 stations abbreivated - even 136/KGB in San Diego. CKLW was "The Big 8."

For some reason I recall that in those days, the announcers didn't say "ten-seventy" on KNX, but always "ten-seven-oh." probably because it rhymed with News Radi-O. On billboards and printed ads, it was "KNX 10.70"
 
Lkeller said:
In Los Angeles, I recall that until the advent of digital read-outs, all stations below 1000 Khz tended to abbreivate, while stations above generally did not. The only exception to this (IIRC) was KMPC 710, and I assume its because "seven-ten" is 3 syllables, but "seventy-one" is 4 syllables.
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Llew: As I noted in my L.A. list, KFI waited until their flip to Top 40 in 1977 to abbreviate to "64/KFI"....and KMPC used "Radio 71" for one year only, 1971, though they didn't recut the jingles. It was announcer voices in promos and legal IDs.
 
In Memphis WHBQ 560 went by 56 WHBQ when they were top 40 and they go by Sports 56 as a sports talk station now.

WMSO, a former CCM station in Memphis (Now WCRV) went by Victory 63 when they were on 630, but changed to Victory Radio AM 640 when they changed frequencies.
 
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