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KAVO History?

S

SD Lizard

Guest
All,

I have some questions on KAVO. Was it located in Fallbrook? What format did it play? What years of operation? Was it a combo with other FM or AM in North County? I see that 107.1fm in Fallbrook was once KAVO when did Y107 or the know KSSD take over?

Thanks in advance.
 
Well I used to work for Douglas Broadcasting which was headquartered in Palo Alto up in the Bay Area. They bought the old 107.1 station back in the early 90's and changed it to KBAX . The old call letters before that was KMLO and Doulass bought the station for $1.25 million. They simulcasted with 107.1 in Ventura, 1071. in Arcadia and 107.1 in Fallbrook. The idea was to "trimulcast" all three station so you could drive from Ventura to the Mexican border and hear the same station but of course that never worked out because of the contour.

Douglas Broadcasting specialized in foreign language programs mostly Asian. The format lasted for a few years until Douglas sold off several stations including all three stations at 107.1 including KWIZ in Santa Ana for $38 million and then the new company switched formats to Y-107 with a modern rock format. The studios for all three frequencies were in Pasadena at the time.

All this information I gave you is from Broadcasting and Cable magazine from 1991 and 1995 which I still have copies of. Hope this helps you.
 
SD Lizard said:
All,

I have some questions on KAVO. Was it located in Fallbrook? What format did it play? What years of operation? Was it a combo with other FM or AM in North County? I see that 107.1fm in Fallbrook was once KAVO when did Y107 or the know KSSD take over?

Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...


KAVO was in Fallbrook and I seem to recall it did not last too many years under that name. i had a friend who worked there in the early 80's. At some point it was linked up with AM 1000 in Vista - KMLO - and became KMLO.

KAVO was probably the last of the North San Diego County radio stations to go on the air.

At one point most towns in the North County had their own station(s) providing local news and sports (Friday night high school football games) along with other local programming and live DJ's from signon to signoff (usuall 6am to midnight).

In the 1970's you would have found:

Carlsbad had what was KARL-FM, which - like all of these stations has since changed call signs - is now 95.7 FM KUSS. KARL was a freeform album rock station.

Oceanside had KUDE AM 1320 and FM. The AM is now owned by Palomar College. I believe the FM became what is now KPRI-FM. KUDE AM was a Top 40 station in the 70's. The FM - like most in that era - was automated "beautiful music."

Vista had KMLO, AM 1000.

Escondido had KOWN AM 1450 and an FM at 92.1, also automated. The FM later became KOW country and now is KSOQ, simulcasting KSON. KOWN-AM was MOR - middle of the road programming.

All of those stations managed to operate on local advertising revenue for many years but I remember being surprised when Fallbrook got a station because it just did not seem like Fallbrook had the local advertising base to support it.
 
I recall visiting the studios for KAVO in 78 or 79. I think they were in a strip mall. A young guy was on the air at the time who sounded pretty good. I met the owner, a guy named Max.
 
KUDE, I recall Bill Jay or something like that years ago, I think he later went to KOGO. KUDE seemed to have an MOR format during the day & Top 40 at night. KOWN was Country with terrrible reverb on the mic channel, later they were chicken rock, then Top 40 at night, it was pretty good. KMLO never left much of an impression. KARL and later KKOS of course with their horse crap mellow rock format. I remember a few years ago when I lived in Carlsbad thinking, there is no local radio here at all. Look at all the potential advertisers with 1 or 2 stores in North County, it woulnd't make sense for them to spend money on the big San Diego stations. Someone could have made a good living with a true North County FM. Today it couldn't be done, stick prices are way too prohbitive.
 
doublecashkgb said:
KUDE, I recall Bill Jay or something like that years ago, I think he later went to KOGO. KUDE seemed to have an MOR format during the day & Top 40 at night. KOWN was Country with terrrible reverb on the mic channel, later they were chicken rock, then Top 40 at night, it was pretty good. KMLO never left much of an impression. KARL and later KKOS of course with their horse crap mellow rock format. I remember a few years ago when I lived in Carlsbad thinking, there is no local radio here at all. Look at all the potential advertisers with 1 or 2 stores in North County, it woulnd't make sense for them to spend money on the big San Diego stations. Someone could have made a good living with a true North County FM. Today it couldn't be done, stick prices are way too prohbitive.
Click to expand...

In the early 70's KUDE was full on Top 40 and KARL was a really good free form FM about: it was very low budget but it was sort of "underground".
 
In the early 70's KUDE was full on Top 40 and KARL was a really good free form FM about: it was very low budget but it was sort of "underground".

I vaguely remember KARL-FM, studios were right down in the village I think.

RE: KUDE circa early 70's, whatever happened to Paul Wonder?
 
doublecashkgb said:
I vaguely remember KARL-FM, studios were right down in the village I think.

RE: KUDE circa early 70's, whatever happened to Paul Wonder?
Click to expand...

I think he was one of the three PD's I worked for when I was there. Seems like he and Art Bell came in about the same time.

Yeah the KARL studios were on the south side of Elm in downtown. I don't think they had any soundproofing and in fact the production studio was separated from office by cubicle type walls that stopped about two feet short of the ceiling so it was best to do production at night when no one was typing or talking in the office. I only worked there twice, doing fill-in. PD Mike Brown (later Billy Juggs at KLOS and KMET and a helluva nice guy) called me to fill-in one night when they were having the station Christmas party and he wanted everyone who there to be able to go (ever been the part timer who's had to do a shift while everyone else was at a party????). I told him I'd do it if I could bring my own records. He agreed. Wish I had a tape of what I played that night.

Back to KAVO: seems like they had an owner named Wally Reid who had been manager of KITT-FM 105.3, when Sonny West was doing mornings in about 1980-81. Ashley Gardner did nights then, but earlier had been at KAVO and there's a photo of her in KAVO studios in 1977: http://ashleygardner.com/narrator.html
 
Bob:


I think I mentioned the story before, back in 1975 when I responded to an ad for a jock at KUDE, I was
a rookie, & much to my shock & dismay they had already hired one of my radio idols KO Bayley, I remember the PD seemed to be an older guy, don't remember his name. but I recall how strange it was to hear K.O, on KUDE, and how entertaining he was.
 
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