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KOLA 20th Anniversary?

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Lately I have been hearing ads and promos on KOLA celebrating their 20th anniversary.

If memory serves correct hasn't KOLA been around a wee bit longer than 1993?
 
I think they are celebrating the 20 Years Fred Cote, the former owner will be away from the general population and with other men, plenty of men! He pocketed my Social Security contributions. Its been KOLA for more than 40 Years. Before that it was KFMW. Brother Bill worked there!
 
It's been a classic hits/oldies station much longer than 20 years. I think just would rather forget the badly-operated automation days, run by a crazy man! ::)
 
In the early 1980s KOLA had an album rock format. I think KOLA evolved into a top-40 station by the late '80s. They switched to oldies in 1993. The Los Angeles I'm Yours website has some interesting observations (posated on July 30) about local stations that are worth listening to. KOLA is described as "a bit 'newer' and a more vanilla version of 92.3." I said the observations are "interesting," not necessarily "accurate." :D

http://www.laimyours.com/49087/curating-alt-radio-in-los-angeles/
 
LARadioRewind said:
In the early 1980s KOLA had an album rock format. I think KOLA evolved into a top-40 station by the late '80s. They switched to oldies in 1993.
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I would be interested to know when KOLA exactly went AOR? I would say the mid 70's. Fred Cote programmed his Station directly from the KMET reporting section @ R.& R.. By 1979 I got him to add New Wave Modern Music and the kids went crazy. I will never forget, we carried a live Jefferson Starship concert and ordered a 3 kz mono 'Broadcast' line. The audio was so bad we rebroadcast KMET without permission. A few times that night you could hear KMET LOS ANGELES, followed by a quick 'KOLA SAN BERNARDINO' voiced by Danny Dark. Fred even called in to tell me what a great job I was doing! I'm glad Fred is still a guest of the State!
 
Didn't longtime KOST DJ Ted Ziegenbusch program KOLA for a while during the AOR days? We could post a question on the KOLA Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/KOLAFM and ask about the different format changes and when they occurred but I figure that if Michael Hagerty doesn't know, nobody knows.
 
LARadioRewind said:
Didn't longtime KOST DJ Ted Ziegenbusch program KOLA for a while during the AOR days? We could post a question on the KOLA Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/KOLAFM and ask about the different format changes and when they occurred but I figure that if Michael Hagerty doesn't know, nobody knows.
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I never spent time east of Downtown, so I never heard any of the IE stations. However, Wikipedia (grain of salt alert) has Ted as the PD who took KOLA AOR and as their consultant until 1987.
 
Not to get off the subject here---("Oh sure!")---but didn't Ziegenbusch also program XETRA-690 in the mid-1980s? I remember two things about "The Mighty 690" from those years: The station ID came at about ten minutes before the top of the hour...and for several months the first song played after almost every ID was Every Breath You Take.
 
LARadioRewind said:
Not to get off the subject here---("Oh sure!")---but didn't Ziegenbusch also program XETRA-690 in the mid-1980s? I remember two things about "The Mighty 690" from those years: The station ID came at about ten minutes before the top of the hour...and for several months the first song played after almost every ID was Every Breath You Take.
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I don't think so. Ted was at KOST by '82.

Legal IDs in English were irrelevant on XETRA.

I think the format for a while included playing whatever was #1 at the top of every hour.
 
michael hagerty said:
I don't think so. Ted was at KOST by '82.

Legal IDs in English were irrelevant on XETRA.

I think the format for a while included playing whatever was #1 at the top of every hour.
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Yes Ted had a long association with Fred!



Program Director / Consultant

KOLA 99.9 Radio



1980– 1987 (7 years)Riverside-San Bernardino, CA.

I became the Programming Consultant for KOLA in 1980. Soon, we captured the #1 spot as the most popular Album Rock station in the entire Inland Empire. In the ratings race, we had double the 18-34 men of all other radio stations in the survey! My tenure with the station continued until 1987 when the owners made a change from Rock 'n Roll to more traditional Top 40. However, it was a nice long run with amazing ratings and audience participation. Thanks to then General Manager, Al Barnett for giving me the opportunity of a lifetime
 
I could have swore that when I moved to the IE around 1991, they already had a satellite oldies format and called themselves "KOOL GOLD 99.9" or something like that
 
Neel Mehta said:
I could have swore that when I moved to the IE around 1991, they already had a satellite oldies format and called themselves "KOOL GOLD 99.9" or something like that
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If around 1991 was really 1992, it would fit.

If they re-set the clock when they dumped the satellite and became their own station 24/7, that would make sense too.
 
According to KRLA historian Bill Earl---that's the original KRLA, mind you---in 1988 when the syndicated "Kool Gold" format launched and KOOL-Phoenix was the flagship station, KRLA bought the rights to broadcast it in Los Angeles. KRLA had no plans to run the programming but they didn't want a competing station to carry it. KOLA, being in a different market, could have carried the format...and, according to Neel, did.
 
LARadioRewind said:
According to KRLA historian Bill Earl---that's the original KRLA, mind you---in 1988 when the syndicated "Kool Gold" format launched and KOOL-Phoenix was the flagship station, KRLA bought the rights to broadcast it in Los Angeles. KRLA had no plans to run the programming but they didn't want a competing station to carry it. KOLA, being in a different market, could have carried the format...and, according to Neel, did.
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I'm not sure that could be possible for KRLA to do? KOOL GOLD© at the time was an SMN (abc) Format. In 1988 KRLA was under contract with Unistar when the "Oldies Channel"© launched. KRLA ran it overnight & weekends for about 6 months and hated it. I do know KOOL GOLD© is now one of the DG formats names.
 
I don't know if anyone here has ever heard of a website called "Wikipedia." Anyway, according to the entry that lists Dial Global's networks, Kool Gold was renamed "Classic Hits/Pop" in 2012. Oh yeah, that's a clever and memorable name.:-\

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dial_Global
 
I'm not sure that could be possible for KRLA to do? KOOL GOLD© at the time was an SMN (abc) Format. In 1988 KRLA was under contract with Unistar when the "Oldies Channel"© launched.
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Sure they could do it. All the syndicator really cares about are the barter spots. You can pre-empt the programming all you want as long as the spots play as scheduled within the hour.

If keeping a format that you perceive as a threat out of someone else's hands, it was probably worth giving up the 2 minutes of barter an hour to what was then SMN while they ran Unistar.
 
johndavis said:
Sure they could do it. All the syndicator really cares about are the barter spots. You can pre-empt the programming all you want as long as the spots play as scheduled within the hour.

If keeping a format that you perceive as a threat out of someone else's hands, it was probably worth giving up the 2 minutes of barter an hour to what was then SMN while they ran Unistar.
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That does makes sense except why would KRLA care about what was going on with an Inland Empire FM station, while giving away 4 units per hour? The KOOL GOLD format was a much better format than the Oldies channel. They had Zippo in the Morning, full jingles, telehone requests, giveaways and a more polished radio sound. I wasn't aware of anyone else who wanted to use the format in Los Angeles? As I mentioned KRLA hated our product and for good reason, they could do better Oldies Radio themselves!
 
Billo Earl says that in 1976 KRLA was losing money and came very close to putting on a Drake-Chenault syndicated oldies format but then decided to bring in Art Laboe, who became program director and put up his own money to save the station. In late 1993 KLAC dropped country music for Westwood One's satellite-fed adult standards format. Was KLAC the first Los Angeles station to use a satellite service full-time? Jim Hilliker will know. (And yes, I'm way off topic. Again.)
 
LARadioRewind said:
Billo Earl says that in 1976 KRLA was losing money and came very close to putting on a Drake-Chenault syndicated oldies format but then decided to bring in Art Laboe, who became program director and put up his own money to save the station. In late 1993 KLAC dropped country music for Westwood One's satellite-fed adult standards format. Was KLAC the first Los Angeles station to use a satellite service full-time? Jim Hilliker will know. (And yes, I'm way off topic. Again.)
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How do you lose money when you are a not for profit station? KRLA was a cash cow! Plus we have already done this. As anybody would expect, Art Laboe wanted control of the Big 11. He loaned the trust a couple million that I know of.

KIQQ used Transtar's Format 41 fulltime with local mornings done by Jim Carson back in 1985.
 
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