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KMPC 710 The first Sports station? 1540 the ticket?

T

thebeach33445

Hey Guys:

Is it true that KMPC 710 was the first true spaorts station on the West Coast in Dec 1992?

Can anybody give me a little history of 1540 when it was sports radio? My notes are not complete.


Thanks

T.J.
 
XETRA Baja Calfornia XTRA Sports 690 or the Mighty 690 as it was known then was the 1st and then came KMPC 710 owned by Gene Autry.
 
I really enjoyed the 710 KMPC sports format, particularly Jim Lampley in the morning. He did an excellent show.
The station overall had real energy with mostly local hosts instead of a lot of manufactured crap I hear now. And the iconic Jim Healy on at (of course) 5:30pm.


But Arbitron says that I was only one listening, so I wouldn't expect anyone else to know. For what it's worth though, at least I was in the target demo!
 
t.j. said:
Hey Guys:

Is it true that KMPC 710 was the first true spaorts station on the West Coast in Dec 1992?

Can anybody give me a little history of 1540 when it was sports radio? My notes are not complete.


Thanks

T.J.
Click to expand...

It was early May of 1992.
 
1540 didn't become all-sports until the 2000's. It was spanish before that. In 1997 KIIS-AM 1150 became XTRA Sports 1150 and then moved to AM 570 KLAC in 2003.
 
Clarification: May of 1992 was when 710 KMPC went all-sports. I should have edited T.J.'s question to eliminate any possible confusion.
 
1540 definitely went from Spanish language to all sports in 1997.

From the October 3, 1997 edition of the Daily News:

"One-on-One Sports ' L.A. affiliate on AM- 1540 finally switched from Spanish-language to sports -language at midnight Monday."

Earlier on September 19, 1997, the Daily News reported:

"Billboards for the new 1540 -AM. ``We're more of a religious station than a sports station,'' says one. The reality is it's more of a Spanish-language station - still - despite One-On-One Sports insistence that on Sept. 1 it would begin airing its syndicated sports -talk shows. A network spokesman says the switch could be flipped ``any hour now.'' There have been about 480 hours since Sept. 1."

I don't know when they first started using 'The Ticket' slogan.

As for 710, the Daily News has the switch to Sports being on Monday, April 27, 1992. From that day's paper:

"This is the day swing music fans have dreaded for months. That decades- old standby, KMPC -AM (710), today drops big band for baseball when the station switches to an all-sports talk format. "

As for 1150, the Daily News from March 7, 1997:

"KIIS-AM ( 1150 )'s attempt to blast into the L.A. sports-talk market begins Monday with a lineup that's more syndicated scattershooting than bulked up with city-based boys who are a little more on-target with their local spin."
 
I remember when AM 1150 switched to all-sports in '97...before that, it was a simulcast of KIIS-FM, and even before that for a brief time, if I remember correctly...it ran its own lineup of music while complementing 102.7.

In the two weeks or so before the official launch, 1150 ran a recorded loop with Vic "the Brick" Jacobs announcing the new sports format. Part of the day, they also simulcast Dallas-Fort Worth's KLIF-AM...they were carrying the Dallas Mavericks games at the time, so on 1150, if the Mavericks were at home, we got to hear the first half-hour of each game.

This wasn't too long after the failure of KMAX-FM 107.1, who tried an a sports format for a couple of years (circa 1994-1996)...they had the Joe McDonnell-Doug Krikorian show, the Sports Gods (Dave Smith and Joey Haim, maybe the funniest and raunchiest sports-talk program of all time), Pete Rose's syndicated talk show, North Dame football, San Francisco 49ers, a back-up outlet for the Clippers (their flagship at the time was KGIL 1260), and it was also were J.T. The Brick got his first radio gig (just mere months after winning Jim Rome's Smackoff). Their biggest problem, among other things, was their signal strength beyond Downtown L.A. was piss-poor. At the time, I lived near the Crenshaw District of south Los Angeles, and I had to adjust the antenna towards the north (the station was based in Pasadena, but not sure where the transmitter was) just to get a decent signal. Also, XTRA Sports 690 was really making inroads into Los Angeles and Orange Counties, plus having a very solid lineup: Steve Mason & John Ireland, Jim Rome, The Loose Cannons (Steve Hartman & the late Chet Forte, later replaced by Bill Werndl), and Hacksaw Hamilton. 690 pretty much inherited the Sportsradio 710 audience they changed formats.
 
I was a big fan of KMAX. Sports on the FM Dial. The Sports Gods was one of the best sports-talk radio shows in LA radio history. They were also on AM 1150 for a short period of time. I also remember when XTRA Sports 1150 briefly was on 103.1 FM when Clear Channel controlled that frequency.
 
BMedina said:
1540 didn't become all-sports until the 2000's. It was spanish before that. In 1997 KIIS-AM 1150 became XTRA Sports 1150 and then moved to AM 570 KLAC in 2003.
Click to expand...

Actually, it was XTRA 690 that moved to KLAC 570. Then again, 1150 might have been part of that, but 1150 started pretty much as a simulcast of 690, with a few hours different to appease Jim Rome syndicators.
 
ShawnHill1 said:
I remember when AM 1150 switched to all-sports in '97...before that, it was a simulcast of KIIS-FM, and even before that for a brief time, if I remember correctly...it ran its own lineup of music while complementing 102.7.

In the two weeks or so before the official launch, 1150 ran a recorded loop with Vic "the Brick" Jacobs announcing the new sports format. Part of the day, they also simulcast Dallas-Fort Worth's KLIF-AM...they were carrying the Dallas Mavericks games at the time, so on 1150, if the Mavericks were at home, we got to hear the first half-hour of each game.

This wasn't too long after the failure of KMAX-FM 107.1, who tried an a sports format for a couple of years (circa 1994-1996)...they had the Joe McDonnell-Doug Krikorian show, the Sports Gods (Dave Smith and Joey Haim, maybe the funniest and raunchiest sports-talk program of all time), Pete Rose's syndicated talk show, North Dame football, San Francisco 49ers, a back-up outlet for the Clippers (their flagship at the time was KGIL 1260), and it was also were J.T. The Brick got his first radio gig (just mere months after winning Jim Rome's Smackoff). Their biggest problem, among other things, was their signal strength beyond Downtown L.A. was piss-poor. At the time, I lived near the Crenshaw District of south Los Angeles, and I had to adjust the antenna towards the north (the station was based in Pasadena, but not sure where the transmitter was) just to get a decent signal. Also, XTRA Sports 690 was really making inroads into Los Angeles and Orange Counties, plus having a very solid lineup: Steve Mason & John Ireland, Jim Rome, The Loose Cannons (Steve Hartman & the late Chet Forte, later replaced by Bill Werndl), and Hacksaw Hamilton. 690 pretty much inherited the Sportsradio 710 audience they changed formats.
Click to expand...

You are right on with this.....Sports talk was great during this time.......Even at one time Joe and Doug and Jim Rome were at 670 am doing sports talk.....Always remember they would complain about the smell of Hotdog on a Stick coming into the studios from next door(they were in the Fallbrook Mall in Canoga Park at the time).....Also, Terry Bradshaw did a one hour show for a brief time.....It was a train wreck.....He would ask for callers and the station had no listeners so no one would call....Terry would start yelling he was doing this show because his agent told him to because he needed to work to pay his ex-wife......It was priceless...........
 
Michael Thompson ex-p.d. at XTRA Sports 1150 was behind that "brilliant" move of hiring Terry Bradshaw. He also paired Karl Malone with Vic "the brick" Jacobs at 1150. Those were the days.
 
BMedina said:
Michael Thompson ex-p.d. at XTRA Sports 1150 was behind that "brilliant" move of hiring Terry Bradshaw. He also paired Karl Malone with Vic "the brick" Jacobs at 1150. Those were the days.
Click to expand...

Those were the days... of some of the most horrible radio ever. Terry Bradshaw admits he has a bad case of Attention Deficit Disorder, so let's put him on the radio without any production or show prep whatsoever and see how it works out? After all it's just radio, and anyone can do radio, right? The results were exactly what you would expect given the facts of the situation.

Then there is Vic the Brick. Vic is a self-caricature cartoon. Literally a nutcase among sportswriters and media, which is no mean feat. It's one thing to have him "add" to a show with Hartman and whoever he is yelling at (oops, I mean paired with) this week, but to give Vic his own show should have resulted in multiple firings. The station was so bad that Clear Channel, a notoriuosly conservative outfit, saw it best to replace it with Air America.
 
ChannelFlipper said:
BMedina said:
Michael Thompson ex-p.d. at XTRA Sports 1150 was behind that "brilliant" move of hiring Terry Bradshaw. He also paired Karl Malone with Vic "the brick" Jacobs at 1150. Those were the days.
Click to expand...

Those were the days... of some of the most horrible radio ever. Terry Bradshaw admits he has a bad case of Attention Deficit Disorder, so let's put him on the radio without any production or show prep whatsoever and see how it works out? After all it's just radio, and anyone can do radio, right? The results were exactly what you would expect given the facts of the situation.

Then there is Vic the Brick. Vic is a self-caricature cartoon. Literally a nutcase among sportswriters and media, which is no mean feat. It's one thing to have him "add" to a show with Hartman and whoever he is yelling at (oops, I mean paired with) this week, but to give Vic his own show should have resulted in multiple firings. The station was so bad that Clear Channel, a notoriuosly conservative outfit, saw it best to replace it with Air America.
Click to expand...

I agree that was horrible radio, but that was not the reason the format was taken off 1150 and replaced with Air America. That happened because after the merger with XTRA Sports 690 in San Diego, Clear Channel decided to move the sports format to a better signal at KLAC and pair it with the Lakers.
 
BMedina said:
I agree that was horrible radio, but that was not the reason the format was taken off 1150 and replaced with Air America. That happened because after the merger with XTRA Sports 690 in San Diego, Clear Channel decided to move the sports format to a better signal at KLAC and pair it with the Lakers.
Click to expand...

You are correct. The station switched frequencies and Air America was implemented on the 1150 frequency. However, with the change to the 570 frequency, they started to get somewhat more professional with actual radio people as hosts. Vic the Brick is still there though. Go figure.
 
1540 The Ticket was one of my favorite sports station with much variety. From 2003 to 2005 the morning show was Roger Lodge, Mitchell Whitfield (the other actor on My Cousin Vinny along side Ralph Macchio), and I can't remember who was the third person of this morning show. Dave Smith had an afternoon show. It was where Petros Papadakis had his first show doing some of the same shenanigans he does today on the PMS show on 570AM with Matt Money Smith. For a while, maybe in 2002-ish, the afternoon show was "Myers and Golic" with Chris Myers and former Brown/Raider Bob Golic, who's a funny guy. 1540 The Ticket was the station for USC football. Tony Bruno had a show. Many more.
 
vangab said:
1540 The Ticket was one of my favorite sports station with much variety. From 2003 to 2005 the morning show was Roger Lodge, Mitchell Whitfield (the other actor on My Cousin Vinny along side Ralph Macchio), and I can't remember who was the third person of this morning show. Dave Smith had an afternoon show. It was where Petros Papadakis had his first show doing some of the same shenanigans he does today on the PMS show on 570AM with Matt Money Smith. For a while, maybe in 2002-ish, the afternoon show was "Myers and Golic" with Chris Myers and former Brown/Raider Bob Golic, who's a funny guy. 1540 The Ticket was the station for USC football. Tony Bruno had a show. Many more.
Click to expand...

Mark Willard was the third guy...when they got rid of Lodge for Bruno (Whitfield had already left by that time), Willard became Bruno's sidekick. 1540, in those days, maybe had a better lineup than either the XTRAs or ESPN 1110/710, their problem was mostly dial position and their signal (bad signal in southeast Los Angeles County, south into Orange County).
 
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