kenrayc said:
I think ACTIVE ROCK/AOR can still work in the Bay Area if it's done right,for example if it more AOR style with out the heavy rotations of Slipnot, Metallica and Disturbed.Tell me if I'm wrong ,but didn't the Bay Area have 6 AOR stations in the early 80's.(KSAN 94.9, KMEL 106.1, KRQR 97.3, KOME 98.5, KSJO 92.3, and KFOG 104.5) all at the same time.
Could we add 98.9 MC, KQAK, aka "The Quake, FM 99" to that mix? Or was it not AOR enough?
If we can, that would've been SEVEN stations doing AOR for awhile...whew!!
DyingMedium said:
I think KSAN went country pretty early in the 80s. But everything else is correct. I would say KRQR "The Rocker!" was King of the Mountain at that time. Great Jocks like Peter B Collins, John MaCrae, Mercy Hawks, Mimi Chen...And a great overall sound. Mercy Hawks...a great talent and one of the nicest guys in radio. Don't think he's in the biz anymore.
Still remember when that consultant came in in 1989 and told them to change from "The Rocker" to "The Wolf". Ratings plummeted...That was the beginning of The End.
KSAN changed in 1981...I knew my Sunday-night, four-hour "Dr. Demento" shows were through when I started
hearing Waylon and Willie on KSAN with no forewarning. (I was in Lodi at the time, and didn't see the Chronicle
Pinkie at the time, or see any SFO TV channels report KSAN's change.)...
Yup...when KRQR - born at Midnight the day after the 49ers beat the Bengals in the 1982 Super Bowl - dropped
"The Rocker" moniker, that was the beginning o' the end for that station, too...
Actually, the stations mentioned above by kenrayc would NOT have been doing AOR at the same time, as
KSAN had already gone country in '81, prompting KFOG's change to AOR well over a year later...
KMEL became Top-40 in, what, 1984?
And KTIM, San Rafael, (100.9/1510) was still AOR until about 1983, no?
When I visited KCBS-FM (later KRQR) July 21, 1981, the Public Service Gal raved about KTIM to me and a few
buddies. We had passed our FCC first-class-license test that day, and we partook a coupla tours afterward...
And let's not forget that other, long-forgotten AOR station of the early-1980s: 103.7, KSFX, which eventually
became KGO-FM and simulcast 810 AM part of the time...although KSFX never knew a format it could hold onto
for an extended time period...
--jay