You know, I'm reading this thread and reminding myself that when I was younger (I'm 62 now), you could hear stations break out of format, sometimes way out of format, even in large cities, for certain shows. KOOL-FM in Phoenix, for example, ran a top 30 U.S. albums countdown for a few months back in late 1978. The same station had a locally-produced contemporary Christian show hosted by D.W. Thomas in 1979. KOY in Phoenix ran the entire 1978 version of Drake-Shenalt's "The History of Rock and Roll," though many of the hours included songs that were not on the station's normal MOR/AC playlist. The same station also carried Casey Kasem's "American Top 40," for a time between 1979 and 1980 though several songs in that program were not on KOY's playlists either. In Oklahoma City, KOMA ran for 15 years, first on Saturday evenings and then on Sunday evenings, an oldies show dedicated to playing songs from the 1950s through the 1970s that most people either never heard of or forgot about completely.
In small towns (and this is still true today), what local stations played when was even starker. Show Low Arizona's KVSL, though mostly a country and top-40 mix, reserved Sunday mornings from 6am to noon to play (besides religious services and public affairs programming) literally easy music from the likes of Johnny Mathis, Dean Martin, and Herb Alpert during the 1970s and early 1980s. In Lawrenceburg, Tennessee today, WLLX-FM, which normally plays current country, spends all Saturday night and early Sunday morning playing 1950s and 1960s pop and rock.
And you get in a tizzy because KLOS-FM decides to have an all yacht-rock weekend? Regardless of how it does in the ratings, I think that it's cool that they're playing these songs, many of which are deemed to be too old to be played even on KRTH!