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Atlanta FM Radio Dialscape c. 1976

jabba17

jabba17

Found this in an old GM radio manual from 1976 listing all then-current FM stations and formats:

Atlanta Metro:
WRAS 88.5 Alternative Rock
WABE 90.1 Fine Arts & Classical
WREK 91.1 Alternative Rock
WZGC 92.9 Top 40
WQXI 94.1 Top 40
WPCH 94.9 Beautiful Music
WKLS 96.1 Rock
WSB 98.5 Beautiful Music
WLTA 99.7 Beautiful Music
WBIE 101.5 Country
WPLO 103.3 Country

Exurban/Future Move-Ins in north Georgia:
Athens:
WUDG 90.1 Rock
WNGC 95.5 Country
Carrollton:
WBTR 92.1 Oldies
Cornelia:
WCON 99.3 MOR/Standards
Gainsville (sic):
WFOX 97.1 Rock
WDUN 106.7 Beautiful Music
Griffin:
WKEU 97.7 MOR/Standards
Jackson:
WJGA 92.1 Top 40
LaGrange:
WLAG 104.1 Country
Manchester:
WFDR 93.3 Soul
Rockmart:
WZOT 107.1 Gospel
Rome:
WROM 97.7 Rock
WRGA 102.3 Pop/MOR
Anniston, AL:
WHMA 100.5 Beautiful Music
 
"GM radio manual" - as in General Motors? They actually took the time to list all receivable radio stations for an FM car radio? Boy, I bet you don't see car manufacturers going out of their way to do that these days. In fact, with more and more drivers relying on iPods and the like, why bother?
 
Why do some not go to iPod-info.com instead of here? No, 99% of the population is not listening only to their personal mix of death polka country metal every time they run to the store.
 
The last time I saw a local radio guide like that was at a fancy hotel in Midtown. The list was out of date by at least four format flips - WLTM, WKLS, WYAY and I think WZGC.
 
I never knew that 99.7 was also a "Beautiful Music" station. I do remember back around 1980 WLTA becoming the Atlanta Flames Flagship station after they left WSB-AM and a couple of years before the Flames departed for Calgary.
 
gr8oldies said:
3 BMs, 2 top 40s and 2 countrys. What was considered alternative rock in 1976?
Click to expand...
At the time, the AJC listed WRAS and WREK as "Diversified". Something deeper than 96 Rock's AOR, perhaps?

DToTheJ said:
"GM radio manual" - as in General Motors?
Click to expand...
Yes, it was an Oldsmobile manual.

JR1967 said:
I never knew that 99.7 was also a "Beautiful Music" station. I do remember back around 1980 WLTA becoming the Atlanta Flames Flagship station after they left WSB-AM and a couple of years before the Flames departed for Calgary.
Click to expand...
The Flames left for Calgary after the 1980 season.

WLTA was the first of Atlanta's three* BM stations to flip--although, if I remember correctly, all three more-or-less evolved into AC by a gradual change of the playlist to include more easy listening with vocals, more soft pop, then more soft rock. WLTA did this around 1980, Peach was still solidly BM as late as 1985 (but flipped not long after that), and WSB-FM flipped somewhere between the two--I'm guessing 1981-1982-ish, after WSB-AM dumped the last of their music and around the time WLTA rebranded as WRMM (later WARM) Warm 100.

*Although you could argue ATL had a fourth BM at one time with a pre-96 Rock (1974) WKLS (and maybe even a fifth with a pre-94Q WKXI 94.1), but I am not sure if 94.9 was Peach at that time or was still WAVQ, the FM side to religious WAVO 1420 (now WATB). I do remember it seemed like every station on the FM dial in the early 1970s was BM.
 
DToTheJ said:
"GM radio manual" - as in General Motors? They actually took the time to list all receivable radio stations for an FM car radio? Boy, I bet you don't see car manufacturers going out of their way to do that these days. In fact, with more and more drivers relying on iPods and the like, why bother?
Click to expand...

Yep, my mom's 1976 Olds 98 Regency came with one in the glove compartment. It would come in handy when traveling out of town.

Hard to believe there was once upon a time where there was no V-103 here in the city. WFDR was the only FM station that broadcast a Soul music format to a portion of the metro. WIGO (AM 1340) and WAOK (AM 1380) were the "local" Soul music outlets.
 
WIGO 1340 was a very good Soul/R&B station and I still remember Chico Renfroe doing sports updates on the station and can still hear him now:

"This is Chico Renfroe, 1340 WIGO sports"
 
I fondly remember Johnny Persons(the Jive Master) opening and closing his show talking a lot of cool trash over "The Sissy Strut". Overnights it was Zilla Mays sponsored by 20 Grand Malt Liquor. Ron Sailor did a great turn there as THE newsman and Scott Andrews was the P. D. They're all gone except Ron.
 
FM 100- WLTA-Top-of-the hour theme was from Gone With the Wind. Truly talented guys with great pipes:
Joel Godard(formerly Conan's announcer); Gary Macdowell; Denis Wayne; Jay Neely. It was Jim Gantner's first Chief Engineer gig in the big "A". Thanks to these dudes I learned some serious stuff in the prod room. Anyone who still has a WLTA prestige license plate has a collector's item.
 
I believe you are correct about Skinny Bobby being at WLTA but only briefly. My failing memory also remembers Neal Boortz being there briefly during the time the station was carrying the Flames. BTW forgot to mention Art Macfarland as another cool on the air guy. He went on to fame and fortune at channel 7 news in NYC, again, if memory serves.
 
Actually WKLS started out as a beautiful music station. Don Kennedy ran it..studios, xmitter and antenna atop Black Jack Mountain in Marietta.
WBIE (the FM101.5) was also a beautiful music station. I know because running the automation was my first job in radio while I was in high school. Finally Jim Wilder flipped it to his own version of a country format. I was working in the Carolinas, back in Marietta for a family visit when Jim and I had breakfast one morning at the Tasty Grill. He wanted my opinion about changing the format. If memory serves me, I told him "it's your station...you're paying the bills, do what you want".
Jim loved country music, had been doing a live show on Saturday nights just for fun. The next week he flipped the format and the rest is history.

Yes Bobby Harper did work at WLTA and he co-hosted my Oldies show Golden Sunday's at Timothy Johns occassionally on Sunday nights. In fact both Harper and Gary McDowell were my best guest co-hosts.
 
Jim Rich said:
Actually WKLS started out as a beautiful music station. Don Kennedy ran it..studios, xmitter and antenna atop Black Jack Mountain in Marietta.
WBIE (the FM101.5) was also a beautiful music station. I know because running the automation was my first job in radio while I was in high school. Finally Jim Wilder flipped it to his own version of a country format. I was working in the Carolinas, back in Marietta for a family visit when Jim and I had breakfast one morning at the Tasty Grill. He wanted my opinion about changing the format. If memory serves me, I told him "it's your station...you're paying the bills, do what you want".
Jim loved country music, had been doing a live show on Saturday nights just for fun. The next week he flipped the format and the rest is history.


Again from the Magpie...

If memory serves, Jim and Marietta Police Chief Craft were close buds. Sometimes the chief would hang out at the station yucking it up with Jim during morning drive; then they would take off to hold court at the Tasty Grill(some of the best saw mill gravy and biscuits I ever ate.) Jim was also an accomplished photographer and the chief "deputized" him on occasion to take crime scene pictures. Jim had great access to the police as befitting a great broadcaster thoroughly plugged in to his community. I recall a prominent double murder case at the time that involved a husband and wife, two M.D.'s both shot to death in their home driveway. All the earmarks of a contract job. I can't remember if it was ever solved or not. Jim had one of the very first First Class FCC tickets ever given. He was an excellent engineer. Extremely fastidious. I doubt if the occasional FCC field visit from Powder Springs even turned up dust on the transmitter tubes. I suspect the field guys, like the police chief, just liked to go and hang out with a great, self made broadcaster.

Yes Bobby Harper did work at WLTA and he co-hosted my Oldies show Golden Sunday's at Timothy Johns occassionally on Sunday nights. In fact both Harper and Gary McDowell were my best guest co-hosts.
Click to expand...
 
gr8oldies said:
3 BMs, 2 top 40s and 2 countrys. What was considered alternative rock in 1976?
Click to expand...

Calling 94Q Top 40 is totally inaccurate, probably because of the few hours of Simulcast with the AM. Alternative Rock in 1976 - the term didn't exist. If a market had an Abrams Superstar Rock station, that was the only thing contemporary in most markets in 1976. Based on what they actually played, 94Q was probably the closest thing to "alternative rock" in Atlanta - and if you had seen the hallways of the station, it certainly looked the part.


GRS86 said:
Hard to believe there was once upon a time where there was no V-103 here in the city. WFDR was the only FM station that broadcast a Soul music format to a portion of the metro. WIGO (AM 1340) and WAOK (AM 1380) were the "local" Soul music outlets.
Click to expand...


Why? FM had far less than 50% of the radio listening in 1976. Nationally, the Top 40 FMs only really started to beat their AM counterparts in total week listening during the the 4 week April/May 1979 Arbitron. You would be hard pressed to find "Soul" Stations on FM Nationwide in 1976 - and many of those "Soul" AMs were daytime only.
 
Jim Rich said:
I know because running the automation was my first job in radio while I was in high school. Finally Jim Wilder flipped it to his own version of a country format.
Click to expand...


Z-93 was also automated using the Drake Chenault Top 40 format. It wasn't until the mid 70s - probably right before the time the GM Manual printed in post #1 that it went live.
 
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