"Imagine how many more years KB Radio might have survived had (half) Price Communications years ago insisted on retaining the valuable "WKBW" call letters when it purchased the 50 kW flame thrower. Number two, imagine if Price had made the investment to retain the services of Dan Neaverth instead of letting him go to WHTT. After the calls letters where changed to WWWKB and Neaverth departed, all bets were off."
Price messed up every market it entered, and as a corporation, AFAIK it left the broadcasting business after emerging from Chapter XI in the mid-90s, tried a run as a cellphone operator, sold that to Verizon and has been a very low profile operation since. KB radio would have needed a different owner, or gotten a waiver to stay under CapCities/ABC ownership, to remain viable. What would have happened under different ownership, or if it had stayed under the CapCities/ABC banner?
Maybe what happened with WLS in Chicago, which made a gradual and successful transition from rock to personality talk, is a guide to what would have happened at a well-run, well-capitalized KB between 1988 and today. WLS remained CHR/Hot AC and kept its personality lilneup late into the 80s, far longer than most AM top 40s, and continued to do well. Gradually in 1989-90 they did make the transition to talk but retained a lot of their personalities and found out they could do talk radio pretty well...and gradually phased in some new uptempo talk hosts as needed. Let's suppose KB had gone in a similar direction and made a gradual transition to talk. Your KB lineup even today as a personality talker would be Danny in the morning, probably Sandy Beach in the afternoon, maybe George Hamberger in middays and Shane at night. John Zach would be running the newsroom--and make no mistake, KB in that incarnation would still have one.
WBEN would have gone from AC to talk on the same timetable it did, of course. AM was clearly the place for spoken word programming just as FM was the place for music. People like Bill Lacy and Jack Mindy would probably have been retained at WBEN (whoever owned it) and anchored that station's schedule up through today. So you'd have had a continuing battle of powerhouse talkers across the dial, also similar to the Chicago crosstown battle between WGN and WLS that's been going on for the last 20 years now with no end in sight. WGR would probably have gone to sportstalk a lot sooner, maybe even in the late 80s, and made a good run with it...the AM band would be a lot more interesting, and probably still stronger, in Buffalo as it is in Chicago or San Francisco. No one would have been a loser, but there would have been more winners, including the listeners.
