When I left LA, KHJ , KRLA, and KFWB were playing Top 40. I know that others did later on AM. Was it KFI and KMPC? If so, how did they perform against KHJ? Was there anybody else? What was KMET?
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AM Top 40
- Thread starter OldSchoolWoman
- Start date
"When I left LA, KHJ , KRLA, and KFWB were playing Top 40. I know that others did later on AM. Was it KFI and KMPC? If so, how did they perform against KHJ? Was there anybody else? What was KMET?"
My - you did leave LA a long time ago...I left in 73 (that's 35 years ago!), and by then, Top 40 was starting to move to FM. KFWB went all-news in 1968. Metromedia's KMET (94.7) and KPPC in Pasadena (106.7) both began playing "underground" album rock music around 1967 - B. Mitchell Reed from KFWB was one of the first DJs to defect to the new format. KABC-FM (95.5, or "95 and a half" as they called it then) followed a couple of years later with a network album rock format out of New York, then became live and local a couple of years later as KLOS. I remember that in the beginning, KMET still played elevator music part of the day, and rock the rest of the time.
KFI became a top 40 station sometime after I left in 73. The only other Top 40 AM station I can think of in that period was low powered KDAY (1580) out of Santa Monica which went Top 40 about 68, then by 1970 morphed into more of an album rock station along the lines of KMET. I don't know of any other AM Top 40 stations - KMPC might have become a sort of Top 40/MOR hybrid...that's really what KFWB became in the last year or two of their music format. KIIS (AM) began in the early 70s as one of the first light-rock stations I can remember.
A number of FM top 40 stations started about 1970, primarily KKDJ (102.7), and K-100). They were poorly executed stations at first, and the AMs like KHJ and KFI still dominated for awhile.
Hopefully, Michael Hagerty will chime in with his encyclopedic memory of California Top 40 radio.
My - you did leave LA a long time ago...I left in 73 (that's 35 years ago!), and by then, Top 40 was starting to move to FM. KFWB went all-news in 1968. Metromedia's KMET (94.7) and KPPC in Pasadena (106.7) both began playing "underground" album rock music around 1967 - B. Mitchell Reed from KFWB was one of the first DJs to defect to the new format. KABC-FM (95.5, or "95 and a half" as they called it then) followed a couple of years later with a network album rock format out of New York, then became live and local a couple of years later as KLOS. I remember that in the beginning, KMET still played elevator music part of the day, and rock the rest of the time.
KFI became a top 40 station sometime after I left in 73. The only other Top 40 AM station I can think of in that period was low powered KDAY (1580) out of Santa Monica which went Top 40 about 68, then by 1970 morphed into more of an album rock station along the lines of KMET. I don't know of any other AM Top 40 stations - KMPC might have become a sort of Top 40/MOR hybrid...that's really what KFWB became in the last year or two of their music format. KIIS (AM) began in the early 70s as one of the first light-rock stations I can remember.
A number of FM top 40 stations started about 1970, primarily KKDJ (102.7), and K-100). They were poorly executed stations at first, and the AMs like KHJ and KFI still dominated for awhile.
Hopefully, Michael Hagerty will chime in with his encyclopedic memory of California Top 40 radio.
I forgot KGBS, which simulcast on 1020AM daytime only, and FM "97" 24 hours a day. They were also on the light-rock end of the scal, though they morphed into more of a personality oriented station, with the likes of Emperor Hudson and Dave Hull (formerly KRLA), and Bill Ballance (formerly KFWB).
...and of course, I forgot to mention that 1020 AM later got approval to broadcast 24/7, and became "Ten-Q" (KTNQ), a major Top 40 player for a number of years.
oldies76 said:
KFI was actually Top40/CHR into the mid 80's, at least 1984. But by then it couldn't compete with FM, even with great jocks which KFI had over the years. It went a little AC after 85 and slowly went more talk with the likes of Dr. Ruth on Sundays and daily blocks of Toni Grant and Larry King.
I miss KHJ and KRLA cause that was the summer of 65. I was still young and cute and going to "It's Boss" on Sunset and hanging out with the Turtles (sort of). Everybody was getting fat but Mama Cass. Those were the days. ( except Viet Nam and J.Edgar)--------it was cool, groovey, and ginchy!Running into Dave Diamond walking down Gower St. ;D
JON BRUCE said:
In 1988, XETRA had a 4-book average of 5.1 and KFI had a 5.2 for the year. Even though noise levels were lower, XETRA had a definite signal disadvantage yet it pretty much tied KFI that year.
Here's the quick rundown of Top 40 on AM in Los Angeles:
1955: KFVD (1020)
1955-1960: KPOP (1020)
1958-1968: KFWB (980)
1958-196?: KDAY (1580)
1958-1962: XEAK (690)
1959-1971: KRLA (1110)
1965-1967: KBLA (1500)
1965-1980: KHJ (930)
1969-1971: KDAY (1580)
1972-1974: KROQ (1500)
1976-1979: KTNQ (1020)
1977-1984: KFI (640)
1982-1983: XETRA (690)
KFVD changed calls to KPOP during 1955. When Storer bought it in 1960, the calls were changed to KGBS and the station went MOR. Over the years, they'd flip through Country and Adult Contemporary before finally getting authorization for nighttime broadcasting and returning to Top 40 as KTNQ (TenQ).
KFWB was the first major Top 40 station in the market. Programmed and marketed by Chuck Blore, the station rocketed to #1 in a matter of months. KPOP, KDAY and XEAK (The Mighty 690) didn't stand a chance. It wasn't until 1963, when KRLA established itself as the surf music authority, and then imbedded itself in all things Beatles the following year, that KFWB lost its hold on the top. More competition from KHJ (see below) in 1965 made it even tougher. By 1967, Crowell-Collier sold to Westinghouse (Group W), which took the station virtually MOR in the daytime while letting the night jocks verge on album rock, all of which was simply treading water to a format switch to all-news in March, 1968.
KRLA went Top 40 in 1959, but it wasn't until four years later that it really caught fire...with a combination of a more contemporary sound, more local music and several jocks that were refugees from the Chuck Blore school (Emperor Bob Hudson, Ted Randall and Casey Kasem were all at KEWB, Oakland). But there were only two and a half years at the top before KHJ's Boss Radio swept the Southland. KRLA never fell out of the Top 5, and it looked like it might re-take the lead in 1969, but ultimately, KHJ won and new PD Shadoe Stevens (who crossed the street from a 9-Midnight jock shift at KHJ) took KRLA album rock.
KBLA debuted with Top 40 in February of 1965, facing long odds against KRLA with an inferior signal. The odds got worse with KHJ's arrival two months later. It lasted just over two years, and then KBLA went Country as KBBQ.
KHJ hit the ground running and never looked back. Within a year (some say six months), they were #1. The tight, streamlined format made all else seem too talky, too gimmicky. KFWB and KBLA dropped out of true competition with KHJ in 1967. KRLA lost its footing and, apart from 1969, never quite got it back...and they were gone by 1971.
Apart from a 3-year half-hearted challenge from signal impaired KDAY (which flipped to album rock in 1972), KHJ had AM Top 40 all to itself from '71 until Labor Day, 1972...when KBBQ flipped back to Top 40 as KROQ. It had star-power jocks (Charlie Tuna, Sam Riddle, Jay Stevens, Steve Lundy, Jim Wood, Steve Sands, Jimmy Rabbit), but the same signal that didn't work from 1965-1967 and much larger overhead. Within six months, paychecks were bouncing. Within a year, Tuna and Stevens had bolted across the street to the first FM Top 40, KKDJ (102.7). And within a year and a half, KROQ was dead as a Top 40.
KHJ had the format all to itself (at least on AM) again...helping it weather the departures of Robert W. Morgan, The Real Don Steele and Bill Drake himself in mid-1973 (they surfaced in December of that year at L.A's second Top 40 FM, KIQQ...K-100 (100.3)).
Even though the post is about AM Top 40, this is a good point to note that KKDJ was hot and getting hotter in the Summer of 1973...but K-100's arrival split the available audience for FM Top 40 and both stations failed...it was 1982 before anyone tried to launch a new Top 40 on FM again. Ironically, that station was KIIS (102.7)...the old KKDJ.
The next challenge was not until December, 1976 and the launch of KTNQ (TenQ). Basically a child of the old Buzz Bennett "Q" format, but about four years after that format had peaked in the rest of the country...and with some differences, including a much looser (some said chaotic) approach to music. Despite generating some teen buzz (with jocks like The Real Don Steele, Rich Brother Robbin, Beaver Cleaver), it never quite took off...and two and a half years later, the station was sold and flipped to a Spanish-language format.
A more serious threat to KHJ was KFI, where ex-WLS, Chicago PD John Rook gradually evolved the station from its Adult Contemporary format to Top 40...gaining new audience while blowing off as little of the earlier listeners as possible. Rook, who'd worked with Lohman and Barkley in Denver in the early 60s, kept them on even after the switch to full-blown Top 40, as the other AC jocks left, replaced by stellar talent like Eric Chase, Jackson Armstrong and Big Ron O'Brien.
For KHJ, KFI moving in on the adult side and KTNQ grabbing the teens was big trouble. When Charlie Van Dyke left for Dallas in May, 1977, KHJ brought in Michael Spears from KFRC as PD. Spears tried to position KHJ as more of an 18-49 station...which accelerated the teen erosion. Spears left in six months, replaced by John Sebastian, who severely restricted DJ talk, dropped the jingles and played album versions of hits.
The numbers went up in the April/May 1978 Aribtron, making KHJ the #1 contemporary (Top 40, Album Oriented Rock or Adult Contemporary) music station for the first time in a year (since Van Dyke's departure, KHJ had trailed KIIS (AC) in July/August 1977, KIIS and KLOS (AOR) in October/November 1977 and KIIS , KLOS and KMET (also AOR) in January/February 1978). But in July/August 1978, KHJ lost half a point and fell behind KMET and KMPC (AC). Sebastian was gone in the fall.
New PD Chuck Martin brought back the jingles, took the restrictions off the jocks (the only survivor from the year before was Bobby Ocean) and moved in more of a rhythmic direction with the music. But KFI beat KHJ in January/February 1979, and stayed ahead. Even KTNQ, on the verge of going Spanish, managed to beat KHJ in its last month of Top 40.
KTNQ went Spanish in August, 1979. In October, 1980, KHJ went Country....leaving KFI as the only AM Top 40 until XETRA's revival as "The Mighty 690" in the early 80s. As noted in an earlier post, XETRA actually beat KFI in one book...and by the time that battle was settled, it didn't matter. Top 40 on FM was viable...with KIIS-FM beginning a legendary run that continues today.
---Michael Hagerty
1955: KFVD (1020)
1955-1960: KPOP (1020)
1958-1968: KFWB (980)
1958-196?: KDAY (1580)
1958-1962: XEAK (690)
1959-1971: KRLA (1110)
1965-1967: KBLA (1500)
1965-1980: KHJ (930)
1969-1971: KDAY (1580)
1972-1974: KROQ (1500)
1976-1979: KTNQ (1020)
1977-1984: KFI (640)
1982-1983: XETRA (690)
KFVD changed calls to KPOP during 1955. When Storer bought it in 1960, the calls were changed to KGBS and the station went MOR. Over the years, they'd flip through Country and Adult Contemporary before finally getting authorization for nighttime broadcasting and returning to Top 40 as KTNQ (TenQ).
KFWB was the first major Top 40 station in the market. Programmed and marketed by Chuck Blore, the station rocketed to #1 in a matter of months. KPOP, KDAY and XEAK (The Mighty 690) didn't stand a chance. It wasn't until 1963, when KRLA established itself as the surf music authority, and then imbedded itself in all things Beatles the following year, that KFWB lost its hold on the top. More competition from KHJ (see below) in 1965 made it even tougher. By 1967, Crowell-Collier sold to Westinghouse (Group W), which took the station virtually MOR in the daytime while letting the night jocks verge on album rock, all of which was simply treading water to a format switch to all-news in March, 1968.
KRLA went Top 40 in 1959, but it wasn't until four years later that it really caught fire...with a combination of a more contemporary sound, more local music and several jocks that were refugees from the Chuck Blore school (Emperor Bob Hudson, Ted Randall and Casey Kasem were all at KEWB, Oakland). But there were only two and a half years at the top before KHJ's Boss Radio swept the Southland. KRLA never fell out of the Top 5, and it looked like it might re-take the lead in 1969, but ultimately, KHJ won and new PD Shadoe Stevens (who crossed the street from a 9-Midnight jock shift at KHJ) took KRLA album rock.
KBLA debuted with Top 40 in February of 1965, facing long odds against KRLA with an inferior signal. The odds got worse with KHJ's arrival two months later. It lasted just over two years, and then KBLA went Country as KBBQ.
KHJ hit the ground running and never looked back. Within a year (some say six months), they were #1. The tight, streamlined format made all else seem too talky, too gimmicky. KFWB and KBLA dropped out of true competition with KHJ in 1967. KRLA lost its footing and, apart from 1969, never quite got it back...and they were gone by 1971.
Apart from a 3-year half-hearted challenge from signal impaired KDAY (which flipped to album rock in 1972), KHJ had AM Top 40 all to itself from '71 until Labor Day, 1972...when KBBQ flipped back to Top 40 as KROQ. It had star-power jocks (Charlie Tuna, Sam Riddle, Jay Stevens, Steve Lundy, Jim Wood, Steve Sands, Jimmy Rabbit), but the same signal that didn't work from 1965-1967 and much larger overhead. Within six months, paychecks were bouncing. Within a year, Tuna and Stevens had bolted across the street to the first FM Top 40, KKDJ (102.7). And within a year and a half, KROQ was dead as a Top 40.
KHJ had the format all to itself (at least on AM) again...helping it weather the departures of Robert W. Morgan, The Real Don Steele and Bill Drake himself in mid-1973 (they surfaced in December of that year at L.A's second Top 40 FM, KIQQ...K-100 (100.3)).
Even though the post is about AM Top 40, this is a good point to note that KKDJ was hot and getting hotter in the Summer of 1973...but K-100's arrival split the available audience for FM Top 40 and both stations failed...it was 1982 before anyone tried to launch a new Top 40 on FM again. Ironically, that station was KIIS (102.7)...the old KKDJ.
The next challenge was not until December, 1976 and the launch of KTNQ (TenQ). Basically a child of the old Buzz Bennett "Q" format, but about four years after that format had peaked in the rest of the country...and with some differences, including a much looser (some said chaotic) approach to music. Despite generating some teen buzz (with jocks like The Real Don Steele, Rich Brother Robbin, Beaver Cleaver), it never quite took off...and two and a half years later, the station was sold and flipped to a Spanish-language format.
A more serious threat to KHJ was KFI, where ex-WLS, Chicago PD John Rook gradually evolved the station from its Adult Contemporary format to Top 40...gaining new audience while blowing off as little of the earlier listeners as possible. Rook, who'd worked with Lohman and Barkley in Denver in the early 60s, kept them on even after the switch to full-blown Top 40, as the other AC jocks left, replaced by stellar talent like Eric Chase, Jackson Armstrong and Big Ron O'Brien.
For KHJ, KFI moving in on the adult side and KTNQ grabbing the teens was big trouble. When Charlie Van Dyke left for Dallas in May, 1977, KHJ brought in Michael Spears from KFRC as PD. Spears tried to position KHJ as more of an 18-49 station...which accelerated the teen erosion. Spears left in six months, replaced by John Sebastian, who severely restricted DJ talk, dropped the jingles and played album versions of hits.
The numbers went up in the April/May 1978 Aribtron, making KHJ the #1 contemporary (Top 40, Album Oriented Rock or Adult Contemporary) music station for the first time in a year (since Van Dyke's departure, KHJ had trailed KIIS (AC) in July/August 1977, KIIS and KLOS (AOR) in October/November 1977 and KIIS , KLOS and KMET (also AOR) in January/February 1978). But in July/August 1978, KHJ lost half a point and fell behind KMET and KMPC (AC). Sebastian was gone in the fall.
New PD Chuck Martin brought back the jingles, took the restrictions off the jocks (the only survivor from the year before was Bobby Ocean) and moved in more of a rhythmic direction with the music. But KFI beat KHJ in January/February 1979, and stayed ahead. Even KTNQ, on the verge of going Spanish, managed to beat KHJ in its last month of Top 40.
KTNQ went Spanish in August, 1979. In October, 1980, KHJ went Country....leaving KFI as the only AM Top 40 until XETRA's revival as "The Mighty 690" in the early 80s. As noted in an earlier post, XETRA actually beat KFI in one book...and by the time that battle was settled, it didn't matter. Top 40 on FM was viable...with KIIS-FM beginning a legendary run that continues today.
---Michael Hagerty
Garrett: XETRA as a Top 40 was over by '83...'84 at the latest. From '84/'85 onward, there was no AM Top 40 in Los Angeles, unless you count KIIS-FM simulcasts on 1150.
---Michael Hagerty
---Michael Hagerty
A couple of memories have been jogged loose...both on the FM side:
KHTZ (97.1) was Top 40 for a few months from August, 1979 to about the end of the year. It had been TenQ's FM and the airstaff moved over there. Eventually, Bobby Rich (a great Top 40 PD) was brought in to program it, but Greater Media insisted that it be shifted to Adult Contemporary.
And, when KHJ went Country in October 1980, Chuck Martin got another PD gig a few months later...at KWST (105.9). It had been AOR, but Chuck took it Top 40 from 1981-1983 (getting steamrollered by KIIS-FM and to a lesser extent by KKHR (93.1) in the process). Chuck and the Top 40 crew got thrown out in 1983 when it became Adult Contemporary as KMGG (Magic 106), which lasted only three years prior to morphing into KPWR (Power 106), which lives on today. Whether Power 106 could be considered a true Top 40 as opposed to a rhythmic station prior to evolving into pure hip-hop is a matter of debate.
---Michael Hagerty
KHTZ (97.1) was Top 40 for a few months from August, 1979 to about the end of the year. It had been TenQ's FM and the airstaff moved over there. Eventually, Bobby Rich (a great Top 40 PD) was brought in to program it, but Greater Media insisted that it be shifted to Adult Contemporary.
And, when KHJ went Country in October 1980, Chuck Martin got another PD gig a few months later...at KWST (105.9). It had been AOR, but Chuck took it Top 40 from 1981-1983 (getting steamrollered by KIIS-FM and to a lesser extent by KKHR (93.1) in the process). Chuck and the Top 40 crew got thrown out in 1983 when it became Adult Contemporary as KMGG (Magic 106), which lasted only three years prior to morphing into KPWR (Power 106), which lives on today. Whether Power 106 could be considered a true Top 40 as opposed to a rhythmic station prior to evolving into pure hip-hop is a matter of debate.
---Michael Hagerty
Michael Hagerty - incredible information. Your mastery of Top 40 radio history in LA and California never fails to amaze me.
Lkeller said:
Thank you, but actually I don't know that much, I can't even come close to you, but I get lucky here and there.
I do enjoy your posts here and on LA Radio. Like you I love radio, though I will admit that current radio doesn't hold my interest like radio of the past.
As for KWST, if I'm not mistaken Chuck Martin even used the same jingles from TM, "Rhythm Of The City" that he was playing in 1980 at KHJ. Well except that at KHJ I'm pretty sure he was using the Double A Image series from Drake-Chenault as well.
To avoid confusion, Calguy and I are not the same people. Or person. Or whatever. 
And thanks, Llew. Some of it's from memory (increasingly chancy as time goes by), but the internet has also made it easy for me to ask questions of people like Bill Drake and Ron Jacobs, and to read the postings of others on this site, Reelradio.com and LAradio.com.
And I'm blessed with friendships that allow me to pick up the phone and call Charlie Van Dyke, Bobby Ocean and Bobby Rich.
I'm also fortunate in that a lot of friends have given me airchecks over the years that they knew I'd enjoy. There's nothing like a few hundred airchecks, unscoped and in chronological order, to put hazy memories back into perspective.
As to Chuck Martin and his using the Rhythm of the City package at K-West..I don't know...I never heard the Top 40 K-West live and very little tape appears to exist. Martin did press the Double A image series (which had aired for about six months in 1971) into service when he assumed the PD gig at KHJ from John Sebastian in fall 1979. But I believe it went off the air when Rhythm of the City went on.
---Michael Hagerty
And thanks, Llew. Some of it's from memory (increasingly chancy as time goes by), but the internet has also made it easy for me to ask questions of people like Bill Drake and Ron Jacobs, and to read the postings of others on this site, Reelradio.com and LAradio.com.
And I'm blessed with friendships that allow me to pick up the phone and call Charlie Van Dyke, Bobby Ocean and Bobby Rich.
I'm also fortunate in that a lot of friends have given me airchecks over the years that they knew I'd enjoy. There's nothing like a few hundred airchecks, unscoped and in chronological order, to put hazy memories back into perspective.
As to Chuck Martin and his using the Rhythm of the City package at K-West..I don't know...I never heard the Top 40 K-West live and very little tape appears to exist. Martin did press the Double A image series (which had aired for about six months in 1971) into service when he assumed the PD gig at KHJ from John Sebastian in fall 1979. But I believe it went off the air when Rhythm of the City went on.
---Michael Hagerty
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