I don't think anyone has said why KFRC did this game show experiment. This was the era where SOME people were still listening to AM radio for music, even though most had migrated to FM. In the mid 80s not all cars had FM radios. And for cars that did, the hills of San Francisco may have stopped those with an inexpensive FM car radio from hearing their favorite station.
KFRC was one of a few AM Top 40 powerhouses still trying to hang on. Was WNBC New York still playing music but using Imus, Soupy Sales and Howard Stern as the daytime DJs? And how about KHJ Los Angeles' experiment doing traffic every ten minutes while playing Top 40 hits in between? It was usually two songs, some spots and a traffic report repeated six times each hour. Traffic every ten minutes is a given today on All-News stations but it was revolutionary then. Obviously AM stations were experimenting to keep their audiences tuned in by using compatible spoken word programming.
When I heard it on a SF vacation, I thought KFRC had a good idea. I suppose the theory was that Top 40 stations had been playing games to give away prizes for years and people seemed to like that interruption in the music. So why not play games on a Top 40 station during the day and omit most of the music?
Well, obviously a brief game interruption as a giveaway is different than six hours of games. As stated above, it wasn't long before Adult Standards replaced Top 40 music on 610... and today it's Family Radio with old sermons from Harold Camping still being played between the old fashioned white gospel music. How far we've come!
