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Knoxville radio history

Does anyone remember those station format flips in Knoxville radio?

For me, I remember one where in the mid to late 1990s, WOKI-FM 100.3 changed nicknames to "The Hitkicker" to "Outlaw Country 100.3" but kept the country format. It did have some sort of imaging montage and announcement.

I am looking for this format flip and others like WBIR-FM 103.5's format change from country to rock.
 
radiorob2.0 said:
Two questions:

How long has WIVK been number one?

and

Whatever happened to WOKI's Brother John?
Click to expand...
It depends on who you ask. I know they have been number one for at least 30 years. I have heard from some WIVK has been number one for close to 40 years.

I had heard that Brother John was still in Knoxville, but out of radio and selling cars for a local car dealer. Or was that Bob The Bandit?
 
WIMZ was a fairly consistent #1 into the early 1980's with shares in the high teens. WEZK was a regular #1 in the late 70's. WIVK didn't jump ahead of the pack until they
1. Moved off their Middlebrook Pike tower and
2. Hired the Research Group in the early 80's who told them to tigthen up the music, quit playing instrumentals at the top of the hour to back time into a legal ID, and cut back from their 18 minutes an hour commercial load.

Before that they still pretty much only ran commercials when the AM was on the air and considered the FM to be a bonus.

And who could forget those unforgettable almost-Legal Legal ID's...

With 250,000 watts.... 100,000 vertical, 100,000 horizontal and 50,000 AM... This is WIVK Knoxville. (no mention of the FM).
 
SuperQ said:
And who could forget those unforgettable almost-Legal Legal ID's...

With 250,000 watts.... 100,000 vertical, 100,000 horizontal and 50,000 AM... This is WIVK Knoxville. (no mention of the FM).
Click to expand...

That's an interesting legal ID from the 1970s and 1980s. I would like to hear that one because I don't remember that one.
 
Does anyone know the Knoxville radio dial list from 1972?
 
By memory only....

620 WETE (or WATE. I don't remember the exact year of the call letter change)
850 WIVK
900 WKXV
990 WNOX
1240 WBIR
1340 WKGN
1490 W149
1580 WSKT

91.9 WUOT
97.5 WEZK
103.5 WBIR-FM
107.7 WIVK-FM

I'm not including suburban stations that have since moved in. They were non-factors in those days, each concentrating on their own county.
 
SuperQ said:
By memory only....

620 WETE (or WATE. I don't remember the exact year of the call letter change)
850 WIVK
900 WKXV
990 WNOX
1240 WBIR
1340 WKGN
1490 W149
1580 WSKT

91.9 WUOT
97.5 WEZK
103.5 WBIR-FM
107.7 WIVK-FM

I'm not including suburban stations that have since moved in. They were non-factors in those days, each concentrating on their own county.
Click to expand...

WETE-AM 620 aired an AC format. They changed the calls from WATE-AM to WETE in 1971.

WROL-AM 1490 was the calls for progressive rock "W-149".

WEZK-FM 97.5 was a beautiful music station.

WIVK-FM 107.7/AM 850 was country.

WBIR-FM 103.5 aired an automated MOR format from Drake-Chenault called "Hit Parade".

WUOT-FM 91.9 was an NPR affiliate was the station for The University of Tennessee-Knoxville.

WSKT-AM 1580 was a religious station.

WKGN-AM 1340 was a top 40 station. I mentioned this in the past but Jack Etzel, a former WFIE-TV 14 news anchor, was a DJ at WKGN-AM in the 1960s.

WKXV-AM 900 was a gospel music station.

WNOX-AM 990 was a top 40 station that would evolve to an AC station in the late 1970s.

Don't know about the format WBIR-AM 1240 carried in 1972. I think it was AC.
 
KnoxvilleTVFan said:
SuperQ said:
By memory only....

620 WETE (or WATE. I don't remember the exact year of the call letter change)
1240 WBIR



97.5 WEZK
103.5 WBIR-FM
Click to expand...

WETE-AM 620 aired an AC format. They changed the calls from WATE-AM to WETE in 1971.


WEZK-FM 97.5 was a beautiful music station.

Don't know about the format WBIR-AM 1240 carried in 1972. I think it was AC.
Click to expand...
Even though both WETE-AM 620 and WBIR-AM 1240 were both carrying an AC format, they were going after a different audience. WETE-AM were trying to reach the adults in their early twenties to early-thirties that were "TOO OLD" for Top 40 and rock while WBIR-AM were trying to reach adults that were in their mid-thirties and up. In today's radio, WBIR-AM would have been the standards format.
 
WIVK-FM moved somewhere in the 1979-1980 area. The old tower is still there right off 640 and is the backup antenna for WIVK and WNOX. I think they also might send their actual STL signals to transmitters from there.

WBIR-AM was really an old time MOR station with a piano playing Doc Johnson and a talking parrot in the morning (simulcast on 103.5 well into the 70's.). WETE was what was called contemporary MOR or chicken rock in those days. Top 40 without the rock edge and lots of news.
 
SuperQ said:
WBIR-AM was really an old time MOR station with a piano playing Doc Johnson and a talking parrot in the morning (simulcast on 103.5 well into the 70's.). WETE was what was called contemporary MOR or chicken rock in those days. Top 40 without the rock edge and lots of news.
Click to expand...

Thank you very much for information of what WETE-AM 620 and WBIR-AM 1240. I was wanting to find out about those two stations. This is very interesting discussion.

I have another question: Does anyone know what each station's legal ID sounded like in the 1980s?
 
WIVK moved from the Middlebrook Pike Tower site to Bluff Mountain (Greentop) in 1974. When they moved transmiter sites, they also added stereo. They bought a new Collins transmitter that was used until its retirement almost four years ago. The Middlebrook site is still very active, with 4 of Citadel's stations using it for their studio-to-transmitter relays, and it has two backup transmitters to back up WIVK, WNOX, and WOKI. It is also used to receive marti signals.
 
For WNOX stories from the 60's, go to www.oidar.com. There are also air checks: Kincaid in Chapter 3 of "Puttin' On The Hits" and Rex Miller in the REX MILLER TRIBUTE.
 
Several people on this site are writing Wikipedia articles about radio. So I'm just wondering: is anyone botthering to transfer all this good information to Wikipedia?

I have no real reason to care about Knoxville, but I can pick up some of your stations when I go to the mountains in the summer.

I know! I heard live play-by-play of the O. J. Simpson trial on 850 when it was going on.
 
oidarman said:
For WNOX stories from the 60's, go to www.oidar.com. There are also air checks: Kincaid in Chapter 3 of "Puttin' On The Hits" and Rex Miller in the REX MILLER TRIBUTE.
Click to expand...

I did hear the aircheck of WNOX on the site and it is pretty cool. I love the "WNOX, Number One In Knoxville" sweeper. It is so cool. This is one of my favorite Knoxville radio airchecks of all time.
 
Does anyone remember WSEV-FM 102.1 (later WMYU-FM 102.1)?

If so, I recently found an article that talks about WSEV-AM and WSEV-FM.

You can check it out at http://www.dollymania.net/knox2.html because it does talk about WSEV.

Also, does anyone know what programs aired on WSEV-FM 102.1 before it became WMYU-FM 102.1 in the early 1980s?
 
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