Heritage AORs

[Les Stock]

KYYS (99.7 KY) Kansas City bit the dust for the second and presumably final time earlier today. What heritage AORs are left in the top 100 markets? The only one that comes to mind is KMOD Tulsa, which continues to have good ratings and good billings.

 

[nativeatlanta]

KLOS 95.5 in Los Angeles which is the grandday of AOR/Classic Rock has been on air since 1969. But,ratings have gone downhill. So,who knows how much longer it will be around.

 

[buster2]

KUPD in Phoenix may more appropriately be considered "Active Rock" but it's still around. They've been rock-oriented since about 1977 or 1978 when they flipped from Top-40.

 

[Jacko]

Here's some that I can think of:

WHJY/Providence (since 1981)
WPYX/Albany (since 1980)
WCCC/Hartford (since the 70s)
WAAF/Worcester-Boston (since 1971)
WMMR/Philadelphia
WRIF/Detroit
WDVE/Pittsburgh
KSAN/San Francisco

Some of these are active rockers, but have been around for 25+ years.

Jacko

 

[BenTehelenbach]

Among the active/modern rockers that evolved from "Heritage AORs" is KICT Wichita.

 

[classic_rocker]

Although not a top 100 market WAPL in Appleton WI is celebrating 30 years as Wisconsin's blowtorch ( 100,000 watts).

 

[pbf1]

KQRS Minneapolis-St. Paul, 1968

 

[Time Traveler]

In the Northeast...right off the top of my head....

WBCN-Boston (since 1968)
WAAF-Worcester/Boston (since 1970)
WPYX-Albany (since 1980)
WQBK-Albany (since 1975)
WCCC-Hartford (since 1975)
WPLR-New Haven (since 1970)
WHJY-Providence (since 1981)
WBLM-Portland (since 1973)
WGIR-Manchester (since 1980)
WHEB-Portsmouth (since 1983)
WAQY-Springfield (since 1981)
WPDH-Poughkeepsie (since 1977)
WOUR-Utica (since 1971)

 

[buster2]

Can't believe I also forgot KDKB in Phoenix. On air since about 1971 and has never been anything but AOR. Too bad it's a shadow of its once-formidable self.

 

[Eli Polonsky]

KSAN/San Francisco

They're rock again, but they weren't continuosly since their progressive heyday in the late '60s/'70s. Didn't they go country for a number of years in the '80s or '90s? And, isn't the current KSAN not the same frequency as the original?

I'm on the other side of the country so I didn't hear them, only going by what I've read and heard.

 

[Hunter]

They're rock again, but they weren't continuosly since their progressive heyday in the late '60s/'70s. Didn't they go country for a number of years in the '80s or '90s? And, isn't the current KSAN not the same frequency as the original?

KSAN was at 94.9 originally. Now at 107.7 as Active Rock "The Bone".

I remember the day they switched to Country. I can't remember the late 70's year, but it was such a big deal that KFRC was talking about the impending noon change that morning. I only wish that I had rolled tape. Their first song was Judy Collins - Someday Soon.

 

[Time Traveler]

KSAN/San Francisco

They're rock again, but they weren't continuosly since their progressive heyday in the late '60s/'70s. Didn't they go country for a number of years in the '80s or '90s? And, isn't the current KSAN not the same frequency as the original?

I'm on the other side of the country so I didn't hear them, only going by what I've read and heard.

They were country for a number of years, and from what I can see, the only similarity between the two stations is that the KSAN call letters were revived around 1997 for the new station. Also, it was in 1977 that WBCN's Norm Winer (Ol Saxophone Joe) left WBCN which was being slaughtered by WCOZ, to program the original KSAN.

 

[mbatchelor]

KSHE 95 in St. Louis is the Longest Running AOR in the USA, AFAIK; they have been going strong since 1967...

 

[Eli Polonsky]

They were country for a number of years, and from what I can see, the only similarity between the two stations is that the KSAN call letters were revived around 1997 for the new station. Also, it was in 1977 that WBCN's Norm Winer (Ol Saxophone Joe) left WBCN which was being slaughtered by WCOZ, to program the original KSAN.

I remember listening to Norm Winer's very first days on the air as a college student in 1968 on WBRS, the 25 watt Brandeis University station in the suburbs ten miles west of Boston. He used his real name on-air, he wasn't "Saxophone Joe" yet. He went from WBRS directly to WBCN in their early days as Boston's "underground" rocker in 1969, where he became "Saxophone Joe".

Currently he's been PD of WXRT Chicago since the early '80s, a AAA station which has been another longtime rocker (starting in 1972 as a nightly show, then full-time 1976 to present).

 

[Time Traveler]

They were country for a number of years, and from what I can see, the only similarity between the two stations is that the KSAN call letters were revived around 1997 for the new station. Also, it was in 1977 that WBCN's Norm Winer (Ol Saxophone Joe) left WBCN which was being slaughtered by WCOZ, to program the original KSAN.

I remember listening to Norm Winer's very first days on the air as a college student in 1968 on WBRS, the 25 watt Brandeis University station in the suburbs ten miles west of Boston. He used his real name on-air, he wasn't "Saxophone Joe" yet. He went from WBRS directly to WBCN in their early days as Boston's "underground" rocker in 1969, where he became "Saxophone Joe".
/quote]

Back when WBCN's competition was 94.5-WHDH-FM!!!

 

[Eli Polonsky]

I remember listening to Norm Winer's very first days on the air as a college student in 1968 on WBRS, the 25 watt Brandeis University station in the suburbs ten miles west of Boston. He used his real name on-air, he wasn't "Saxophone Joe" yet. He went from WBRS directly to WBCN in their early days as Boston's "underground" rocker in 1969, where he became "Saxophone Joe".

Back when WBCN's competition was 94.5-WHDH-FM!!!

WHDH-FM didn't last long as an AOR station. As I remember, it was only about a year of automated AOR, if that, beginning in summer 1968 a few months after WBCN went progressive rock. It went back to easy listening shortly thereafter, and adopted the call letters WCOZ ("cozy") in the early '70s.

WCOZ made 94.5 into AOR competition to WBCN again beginning in summer 1975 with progressive album rock (the overnight DJ for a couple of years was Larry Miller, who pioneered "FM underground" radio in San Francisco on KMPX in 1967!), and it ended in the very late '70s with WCOZ morphing into a briefly popular but short-lived hard rock format which burned out quickly. WCOZ then briefly went AC, then CHR through the '80s as "Zoo" WZOU. For the past fifteen years, 94.5 has been Boston's very sucessful CHR rhythmic/hip-hop station WJMN "Jam'n".

 

[Time Traveler]

WHDH-FM didn't last long as an AOR station. As I remember, it was only about a year of automated AOR, if that, beginning in summer 1968 a few months after WBCN went progressive rock. It went back to easy listening shortly thereafter, and adopted the call letters WCOZ ("cozy") in the early '70s.

WCOZ made 94.5 into AOR competition to WBCN again beginning in summer 1975 with progressive album rock.
[/quote]

Not to dispute your comments which are always very accurate...but what I recall about WHDH-FM is that it started to rock in late 1967, although they may have initally been leaning to the heavier side of Top 40, with album cuts mixed in at that time. We certainly can agree that they were full time progressive rock by the summer of 1968, and that they did go under during the summer of 1969, in August, I believe. In fact it was probably just about six years to the day that they resumed progressive rock on August 15, 1975.

 

[Eli Polonsky]

Not to dispute your comments which are always very accurate...but what I recall about WHDH-FM is that it started to rock in late 1967, although they may have initally been leaning to the heavier side of Top 40, with album cuts mixed in at that time.

Could be, I just don't remember having heard it. I thought they were easy listening until making an abrupt switch to album rock in summer '68 to get a piece of WBCN's pie, but maybe I wasn't paying attention to 94.5 in '67.

Here's an interesting post from John Gorman, formerly of WMMS in Cleveland, who was at WHDH-FM in '68. It sheds a little more light on it's brief and mysterious rock incarnation.

 

[Hunter]

Here's an interesting post from John Gorman, formerly of WMMS in Cleveland, who was at WHDH-FM in '68. It sheds a little more light on it's brief and mysterious rock incarnation.

Interesting story from John Gorman - Thanks for the link. My apologies for getting off thread for just a sec, but an interesting note from John's blog about the Boston Herald-Traveler losing over 4 million a year in 1968. Hard to believe...I thought the 60's were a great time for the newspaper industry. The Globe must really have controled the market....thanks to their strong Kennedy support.

 

[Eli Polonsky]

My apologies for getting off thread for just a sec, but an interesting note from John's blog about the Boston Herald-Traveler losing over 4 million a year in 1968. Hard to believe...I thought the 60's were a great time for the newspaper industry. The Globe must really have controled the market....thanks to their strong Kennedy support.

That was the way it was then, and compared to The Globe, The Herald was then a trashy low-budget right-wing tabloid out of step with the predominantly Democratic MA politics at the time. It was like the New York Daily News compared to the New York Times (which now owns the Globe). The Herald had a resurgence as the years went by though, and it regained it's place as the paper of Boston's large "blue collar" working class.

Another thing that would help the Globe would be if it hit the streets and stands earlier in the morning. I work for an all-news station, and they can't get the Globe in time for the start of the morning drive program at 5:00 AM, but the Herald is on the streets by 4:00 AM or earlier. The station doesn't read from the papers, but they like to have them for reference as one local source to see what's happening to follow up on that morning.