KFRC...FINALLY MAKING SOME CHANGES!

[DavidKaye]

Of course, for most of the RKO PDs, who were watching FM AOR stations eat into their teen shares, "You" sent all the wrong messages. I think John Long at WHBQ dumped it first...KHJ had it for less than a year. But KFRC...in the hippest market in America...not only ran it for more than a year, they signed up for the sequel..."You II"...

Unless this was a purposeful positioning to pick up slightly older people. I don't think it was lost on anybody at RKO that their prime audience was aging and the younger ones weren't coming on board. I thought the jingle packages were very well done, the jingles memorable, and they made me feel good. And I was in my 20s at the time. I much preferred them to the Drake-era jingles, which had been run into the ground.

 

[michael hagerty]

Of course, for most of the RKO PDs, who were watching FM AOR stations eat into their teen shares, "You" sent all the wrong messages. I think John Long at WHBQ dumped it first...KHJ had it for less than a year. But KFRC...in the hippest market in America...not only ran it for more than a year, they signed up for the sequel..."You II"...

Unless this was a purposeful positioning to pick up slightly older people. I don't think it was lost on anybody at RKO that their prime audience was aging and the younger ones weren't coming on board.

David: Yes and no. Paul Drew was certainly aiming for the big middle...hoping to get 18-49 numbers for the RKO chain the way KFRC had been getting them since Dr. Don Rose started in mornings.

But if you were Charlie Van Dyke (then PD at KHJ) in L.A., with KMET starting to attain critical mass with 12-24 year olds, you didn't want to chase out those listeners any faster than they were already leaving...especially with the 18-49 year olds arriving slowly.

Then you had the RKO pds like John Long at WHBQ, Memphis and Jerry Clifton at 99X in New York, whose hearts were in the "Boogie Radio" mold and who were all about high-energy rock and roll.

Those PDs were relying on a thin slice of their playlists (Steve Miller Band, Eagles, Boston, Peter Frampton. Aerosmith, Queen, Fleetwood Mac, Jefferson Starship, Thin Lizzy) to maintain credibility with those listeners while "Silly Love Songs", "Don't Go Breaking My Heart", "Afternoon Delight", "I Write The Songs" and "Theme From Mahogany" shared their power rotations with novelties like "Play That Funky Music", "A Fifth Of Beethoven", "Disco Duck", "Convoy" and the "Theme From S.W.A.T." (every one of those was #1 in Billboard).

Ultimately, they all lost...except for KFRC, which blended it all together and to this day counts 1976 as a high-water mark.

How come? It certainly didn't hurt to have Dr. Don Rose, Rick Shaw, John Mack Flanagan, Chuck Buell, Marvelous Mark and Don Sainte-Johnn playing those records and making it sound exciting. Sponsoring Bill Graham's Day On The Green concerts was a great way to hold the youth without blowing off the adults.

Plus, nobody was going to try Boogie Radio in San Francisco....and unlike KMET, KSAN was far too hip to consider pandering to 14 year old boys. So, without being squeezed on the flanks, KFRC found and held the big middle that Paul Drew wanted.

That may seem ironic, given San Francisco's hip image, but Paul Drew himself said it best on the 25th Anniversary CD, reflecting on attending a 49ers game at Kezar Stadium his first weekend in town, followed by a Raiders game across the bay in Oakland: "I realized...this isn't Nob Hill....it's....Milwaukee!"


---Michael Hagerty

 

[doublecashkgb]

All this SF is hip stuff is laughable. If there was ever a market that wasn't hip
it's the Bay Area. Drew was right even though he was an a**hole. Today, can
anyone say SF is the hippest market straight faced?

 

[LKellerIII]

Michael - Yes, I've read a bit on the "You" package...probably things you posted on Reelradio. I do know that era at KFRC was post-Drake, but I remember thinking at the time that it was a huge break from the forward momentum KFRC format I was used to - both pre and post Drake. It reminded me of those early 60s "Color Radio" KFWB jingles that seemed to last about as long as the songs.

And it DID seem like they lasted more than 60 seconds - I'd usually change stations. They also sounded like they were designed for KHJ - since "you are the music we play" rhymes with "93/KHJ," not KFRC.

And I also DO remember wondering why McDonalds didn't raise a fuss at the time.

 

[tcsnrayp]

A few months ago, I asked a co-worker who was happily singing along with Al Green, if he was aware that the song was heard in the office at least 3 times every day. He looked at me with a confused expression...it had obviously never occurred to him, because he wasn't paying that much attention.

If he was "happily singing along with it" then is it really likely he wasn't paying that much attention? Is it possible his "confused expression" was more like "why are you saying that as if it is a bad thing?"

These are hits and that is what the people like. Familiarity and comfort in this crazy world is not a bad thing.

 

[DavidKaye]

All this SF is hip stuff is laughable. If there was ever a market that wasn't hip
it's the Bay Area. Drew was right even though he was an a**hole. Today, can
anyone say SF is the hippest market straight faced?

Well, I guess that depends on how you define "hip". If it means doing something new, refreshing, and different, I think the Bay Area still does this and does it well. The Bay Area does this in food, in the performance arts scene, in art, in music, in the Internet, in many things culturally. Where are the most innovative websites based? Here. Where is ground zero for Burning Man? Here. Where can you see Bishop Joey, David Apocolypse, David Capurro the Yo-Yo King, Chicken John, Dr. Hal, Kitten on the Keys, Jascha Ephraim, etc? Here.

Where did the concept of Cirque du Soleil originate? Here -- they copied the Pickle Family Circus. Where is the only clown school in the U.S. outside of Barnum & Baily? Here. Where is the center of the "New Balkan" folk music movement? Here. Where did hyphy originate? Here.

And how about all those institutions we take for granted -- the SF Mime Troupe? Rainbow Grocery? The Folsom Street Fair? Clownarchy, the Million Clown March, etc? Craigslist? Squidlist? Suicide Club? Underground comix?

As for radio and TV, the Bay Area had the first all-jazz station in the country, KJAZ, was the birthplace of "underground radio", was the birthplace of community-supported radio (KPFA way back in 1949), the oldest non-commercial FM in the West (KALW), the most-listened to public station, KQED. The Bay Area has one of the very few commercial classical music stations in the country -- and at one time it had 5.

And don't forget that the Bay Area was the birthplace of radio broadcasting itself! It was also the birthplace of TV.

So, pardon us Friscans if we have chips on our shoulders.