Maybe the board posters can compile a list of April Fools Pranks on the Radio over the Years. Here is a recording of a prank played on WABC's Dan Ingram on April 1, 1964
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April Fools Pranks on the Radio over the Years
- Thread starter BruceNYC
- Start date
Probably not the best of all time, but sometime while WGRR in Cincinnati was doing 50s/60s oldies, they claimed the foreign language subchannel was bleeding through and were playing foreign language versions of oldies.
Kevin and Bean on KROQ had some great April Fool's Day pranks.
The most interesting prank I know of was one that I read about. KGA-AM (1510 kHz) in Spokane, Washington, decided to go after the top-40 audience of its competitors, KJRB (790 kHz) and KREM (970 kHz). The station had a better signal than the other two, especially outside of the city.
From what I heard, the station was beginning to do well as a top-40 until one April Fool's Day (I think it was 1969) when they pulled a prank and announced they were going country. That prank cost the station its top-40 audience who didn't return when the top-40 format returned a day later. Within the year (if memory serves), KGA-AM switched to a country format for real.
From what I heard, the station was beginning to do well as a top-40 until one April Fool's Day (I think it was 1969) when they pulled a prank and announced they were going country. That prank cost the station its top-40 audience who didn't return when the top-40 format returned a day later. Within the year (if memory serves), KGA-AM switched to a country format for real.
WEBN April Fool's Day parade aircheck 1986:
in Dallas, in 2004, there was a April Fools Day prank where Russ Martin opted to air his show on the then KRBV "Wild 100" for that day in the morning, his show at the time in 2004 was normally aired live in the afternoon on the then KLLI "Live 105.3", during this episode, which was pretaped, he had special bumpers that fit with the station's then top 40 format (this was 2 months before it flipped to KJKK 100.3 Jack FM). he would later do his show airing live at scheduled on 105.3 later that afternoon on April Fools day.
here's the entire Jack FM April Fools Day show on YouTube:
here's the entire Jack FM April Fools Day show on YouTube:
I believe a couple of Atlanta morning shows "swapped" stations one April fools once
Didn't
Thanks that was when WEBN was in their prime.
As I recall from a decade or so later, KGA-AM was getting very good ratings with that country format, so I guess it ultimately turned out okay for them.
Back in the early 80s one of our local TV stations (then WNHT-TV Channel 21) passed around printed notices that the station would sign off for good at midnight that night. Being April 1st, everyone took it as a joke.....Nope!! Halfway through the Pat Sajak Show, Master Control put up a crawl, stating the station was going dark.....In fact, that's EXACTLY what happened!! After the crawl, the picture went to black --- and the carrier was left ON until about 6:00 the next morning!!
The transmitter site on Fort Mountain in Epsom still houses ION TV, with "studios" in (I believe) Boston.
The transmitter site on Fort Mountain in Epsom still houses ION TV, with "studios" in (I believe) Boston.
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