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KRTH History Question

Correct me if I'm wrong but the first stand alone rock FM station would have been KMPX in San Francisco although KYA-FM tried and failed a few years earlier using more middle of the road rock. The hippie format (for want of a better term) was copied all over the country in one way or another. KRLA had a staff poet, I might be remembering a different station but I think KRLA would sometimes slip some symphonies in with the rock just to keep things unpredictable and interesting. There were ride boards: "Sunshine is driving to Berkeley and can take two along for gas money", that kind of thing. Again I could be wrong but I think the first FMs to break through financially were the hippie stations, until they came along FM was basically a holding operation--a good way to make a small fortune given that you had started with a big one. There are some very interesting stories from that era of radio, its a little surprising they are actually remembered. This could have been considered free form radio, playing acid rock, introducing groups like Quicksilver, Country Joe & The Fish, Janis Joplin, Hendrix, et al. and airing the Beatles and Stones more esoteric and experimental music.
 
Lopaka said:
Again I could be wrong but I think the first FMs to break through financially were the hippie stations, until they came along FM was basically a holding operation--a good way to make a small fortune given that you had started with a big one.
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The free form rockers came towards the end of the 60's, mostly as a reaction to the FCC mandate to eliminate most simulcasts of AMs.

Before that, FMs like WDVR, KBCA, KFOG, WJIB, WTFM, WPAT,WGMS, WCLV, etc., all around the country were making very significant money doing easy listening or classical or even, as in the case of WFAN in DC, Spanish.

And that is not including many other FMs that perhaps broke even on the broadcast side, but made considerable money doing SCA background music services.
 
Lopaka said:
Correct me if I'm wrong but the first stand alone rock FM station would have been KMPX in San Francisco although KYA-FM tried and failed a few years earlier using more middle of the road rock. The hippie format (for want of a better term) was copied all over the country in one way or another. KRLA had a staff poet, I might be remembering a different station but I think KRLA would sometimes slip some symphonies in with the rock just to keep things unpredictable and interesting. There were ride boards: "Sunshine is driving to Berkeley and can take two along for gas money", that kind of thing. Again I could be wrong but I think the first FMs to break through financially were the hippie stations, until they came along FM was basically a holding operation--a good way to make a small fortune given that you had started with a big one. There are some very interesting stories from that era of radio, its a little surprising they are actually remembered. This could have been considered free form radio, playing acid rock, introducing groups like Quicksilver, Country Joe & The Fish, Janis Joplin, Hendrix, et al. and airing the Beatles and Stones more esoteric and experimental music.
Click to expand...

I was a KRLA listener in the 60s and 70s. I don't recall that they EVER threw in symphonies to "keep things unpredictable" - You must be thinking of another station. For a couple of years (68 - 70 approximately), KRLA was traditional Top 40 most of the day - albeit with a deeper play list than KHJ with more album cuts - and would then switch to album rock between about 8:00 PM and 6:00 AM - very similar to KMET or KPPC on FM.

The "staff poet" you are thinking of was probably Len Chandler of the Credibility Gap - their satirical news program that started with an earnest and left-wing group of radio news guys (Lew Irwin, Thom Beck, Richard Beebe), and ended up with professional actors Harry Shearer, Michael McKean and David L. Lander. The second group was less overtly political, but a whole lot funnier.

Chandler was primarily a song-writer, and for awhile, would write a new song every day for the "news" - usually very political, anti-Vietnam War, and anti-establishment.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Credibility_Gap
 
KRTH also has a unique spot in broadcast history.

They were the first FM station west of the Mississippi, signing on August 1941 from the tower atop Mt. Lee. They were originally called K45LA on the old 42-50 megacycle FM band. Later, KHJ-FM on 99.7 and then, in 1948, to 101.1.

KHJ and the FM were owned by Don Lee Broadcasting back then, who also had LA's first TV station up there on Mount Lee (studio and transmitter) at the same time (W8XAO, later KTSL, KNXT and now KCBS). There were only a handful of TVs and FMs in metro LA in those days just before World War II, and I remember that some old timers told me that Don Lee put a TV set in The Brown Derby, which is where most folks in Hollywood first saw television.
 
HHH said:
KRTH also has a unique spot in broadcast history.

They were the first FM station west of the Mississippi, signing on August 1941 from the tower atop Mt. Lee. They were originally called K45LA on the old 42-50 megacycle FM band. Later, KHJ-FM on 99.7 and then, in 1948, to 101.1.

KHJ and the FM were owned by Don Lee Broadcasting back then, who also had LA's first TV station up there on Mount Lee (studio and transmitter) at the same time (W8XAO, later KTSL, KNXT and now KCBS). There were only a handful of TVs and FMs in metro LA in those days just before World War II, and I remember that some old timers told me that Don Lee put a TV set in The Brown Derby, which is where most folks in Hollywood first saw television.
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KALW of San Francisco will dispute that

http://www.kalw.org/about-kalw

in its claim KALW said that it was the first FM station that went west of the Mississippi River
 
recto101 said:
KALW of San Francisco will dispute that

http://www.kalw.org/about-kalw

in its claim KALW said that it was the first FM station that went west of the Mississippi River
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No, they say they are the oldest non-commercial station in that area. There were a number of earlier commercial stations.
 
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