KQUE Playlist?

[Kavalon]

Does anyone know where I can access any of KQUE's playlists from the 1980's. I remember listening to so many great songs on that station that I never heard anywhere else, and have not heard since their untimely demise.

 

[ChuckTiller]

There are none.

 

[OldChicago]

There are none.

I wonder if there are any airchecks of KQUE around anywhere.

Old Chicago

 

[mmarshall]

I worked nights there for nearly 14 years and if there was a format, I was never made aware of it. We were required to list each song we played, after the fact, but there was no playlist per se. The completed lists were stacked on a shelf, when the stack got too high, it moved to the floor. When THAT stack got to the level of the First City Bank building, it was removed. I had my doubts that anyone in management ever looked at the sheets. Every song was recorded on a separate cart and there were something over 4,000 carts scattered in different rooms around the station. No records, because there were no turntables in the control room and no CD's, because, I assumed, Dave Morris was opposed to any device developed in the twentieth century. Before KQUE, I worked for Paul Mitchell at KXYZ (Gentle on Your Mind) which had the most rigid music format I ever worked under. It was all you could do to decide on the next selection while the current one was playing. At KQUE I played what felt good.

 

[davideduardo]

I worked nights there for nearly 14 years and if there was a format, I was never made aware of it.

For such a loose operation, the ratings were rather good.

For much of the 80's, the station was competitive, if not at the top at any time. I don't know how it did in the sales demos, but 12+ looks OK, particularly from about '84 to '90.

Here's 29 years of Houston ratings history (KQUE is listed by current calls of KLTN).

 

[davideduardo]

Here's 29 years of Houston ratings history (KQUE is listed by current calls of KLTN).

Here is the link http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Duncan-1975-1992/Houston.pdf

 

[Mediafrog+]

Even in its final days the KQUE 12+ ratings were quite good, but I suspect they skewed overwhelmingly 55+, which killed the format when the station was put up for sale.

 

[davideduardo]

Even in its final days the KQUE 12+ ratings were quite good, but I suspect they skewed overwhelmingly 55+, which killed the format when the station was put up for sale.

When did the format change (I have the summary books for Spring and Fall for most years from '76 on)?

Or, you can check yourself at http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Duncan-American-Radio-Issue-Guide.htm

There is some limited 25-54 data, such as top 10 rankers.

 

[Mediafrog+]

When did the format change (I have the summary books for Spring and Fall for most years from '76 on)?

I think it was March 1997 when the FM flipped to KKPN, although I'm sure there are plenty of posters here who remember the precise date. By sheer dumb luck while tuning around I happened to hear the flip. KQUE had a routine traffic report, then a long silence, then the launch of KKPN. At the time it was already being simulcast on 1230, so there was no formal goodbye on FM.

 

[jd]

I think it was March 1997 when the FM flipped to KKPN, although I'm sure there are plenty of posters here who remember the precise date.

I believe you're right about it being in March, as I seem to recall that they still used the KQUE call letters for several weeks afterward. FCC records show the switch to KKPN was effective 05/23/1997.

 

[FilioScotia]

***For such a loose operation, the ratings were rather good.***

That is a truly telling comment. "Loose operation" compared to what? That was precisely the reason it was successful. Those were the days of "real radio", before play lists and liner cards.

DJ's were allowed to be personalities and create their own style on the air. They even (gasp!) picked their own music from a large library of albums within the station's chosen format. (Easy Listening, MOR, Adult Contemporary, etc) KQUE was Easy Listening all the way and all its songs were on carts, as Mike Marshall has told us. Thousands of carts. I'm guessing that Dave Morris didn't like it when a record would skip or get stuck on a scratch.

My point is that back before the corporate conglomerate suits took over, all radio stations were "loose operations." Today's radio, for the most part, is almost unlistenable because stations aren't allowed to have "loose operations" anymore. They all sound the same and their DJ's are forbidden to wander off the liner cards.

 

[willdav713]

I worked nights there for nearly 14 years and if there was a format, I was never made aware of it. We were required to list each song we played, after the fact, but there was no playlist per se. The completed lists were stacked on a shelf, when the stack got too high, it moved to the floor. When THAT stack got to the level of the First City Bank building, it was removed. I had my doubts that anyone in management ever looked at the sheets. Every song was recorded on a separate cart and there were something over 4,000 carts scattered in different rooms around the station. No records, because there were no turntables in the control room and no CD's, because, I assumed, Dave Morris was opposed to any device developed in the twentieth century. Before KQUE, I worked for Paul Mitchell at KXYZ (Gentle on Your Mind) which had the most rigid music format I ever worked under. It was all you could do to decide on the next selection while the current one was playing. At KQUE I played what felt good.

Moral of the story: Tape 'em if you got 'em. ;D

 

[rogergray]

I had not seen Mike's earlier comment about no format. I was there from '74-'77 when I went to KRIV. There was a format actually but if I recall, it came in about halfway through my time there. It was based on decades, which meant segues from Sinatra to Elvis to the Four Freshmen to John Denver. If you're thinking that's too broad a timespan to please anyone really, you're right. But somehow, the numbers were pretty much always good. We did wing it to an extent, I even wrote and produced comedy bits. It was (almost) anything goes as long as you didn't piss off Berlin or play any jazz, which Dave hated. We had girlfriends in the control room (I worked the evening shift) and still no one complained. The infamous Bob Jones event didn't even get him fired. All that, and we still punched a time clock like it was a GM plant. The airshifts were long, 6 hours at times, and you worked a 3 hour production shift before that. But it was about the best time I ever had in radio. (KLYX was close, Walt and Don.)

 

[davideduardo]

***For such a loose operation, the ratings were rather good.***

That is a truly telling comment. "Loose operation" compared to what? That was precisely the reason it was successful. Those were the days of "real radio", before play lists and liner cards.

By the 80's, stations with several thousand cuts and no guidance for the jocks had pretty much disappeared. The reason, as mentioned indirectly, was that anything else tended to get 55+ demos and was not very salable.

Stations had playlists in the 60's... do you think Drake or Mike Joseph did not have playlists? Or Jim Schulke and Marlin Taylor? Or Lee Abrams?

Callout research and music testing started way back in the 70's. As stations learned that it was better to play songs most people liked, they crushed nearly all the broad playlist stations. And playlists allowed stations to create a brand just at the time when most markets, due to the emergence of FM, found that there were three times the signals chasing the listeners.

Many of us... myself included... have at some time thought that a broad playlist would win. We generally retreated really fast, that is, unless we were already fired.

Tight formats go way back to when owners had, at most, 7 AMs (at a time when FM did not matter) and had names like Storz, McLendon, Crowell-Collier, Mooney, Bartell, Leland- Bisbee, Swanson and the like. The move to tighter playlists and controlled DJs / announcers had nothing to do with "corporate suits" and happened when radio was pretty much a cottage industry.

 

[johndavis]

Heck, I see it on the web stream I program for fun, and I don't even have the benefit of research. When I play the hits, people listen for a couple of hours. When I play my favorite stiffs, my audience disappears.

I can even see what songs drive people away. Hint: it's the ones that only I remember.