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Past and present Top 40 stations in the bay area.

T

thebeach33445

Hey Guys:

Just thought I would share this with all of you. Here is my list of Top 40 (Mainsteam only) stations past and present:

1. KEWB 910 June 8, 1959 to Sept 1966. Would anybody know the exact date KEWB went to KNEW?

2. KKIS 990 (K-KIS RADIO 990) Sept 15, 1958 to Aug 15, 1972

3. KGO 810 1959 to 1962 Would anybody know the exact date KGO went talk?

4. KLOK 1170 Dec 1, 1966 to March 1972

5. KYA 1260 May 1,1958 to Dec 1, 1980

6. KHTT 1500 Sept 7, 1982 to Sept 1985

7. KOBY 1550 Oct 8, 1956 to Feb 23, 1960

8. KLIV 1590 1964 to May 1980

9. KWSS 94.5 Jan 17, 1983 to March 4, 1991

10. KATD 95.3 Sept 9, 1985 to Nov 28, 1989

11. KZQZ 95.7 June 2, 1997 to May 5, 2002 Used KOYT calls from June 2 to July 21, 1997.

12. KYUU 99.7 March 1982 to Sept 1985 March 1988 to Oct 5, 1988

13. KXXX 99.7 Oct 5, 1988 to March 2, 1991

14. KMVQ 99.7 Nov 14, 2008 till now (Should have changed the logo)

15. KAEV 92.7 Sept 10, 2009 till now

16. KKIQ 101.7 Jan 1974 to Feb 1981

17. KITS 105.3 Feb 27, 1983 to Oct 1, 1986

18. KSFX 103.7 June 2, 1973 to 1978

And last but not least KFRC the big 610 ended Aug 11, 1986 but the start dates are mixed. I have first Feb 1966 and then I found March 1966 and now I found an article dated Feb 16, 1966 that says Drake was going to put Top 40 in place at KFRC 610 either April 1 or May 1 of 1966. Im confused.

Would anybody know the exact start date for KFRC Top 40 in 1966?

I hope this list brings up great memeories for you all!! If you guys have any corrections to add please go right ahead and do that.

Thanks
T.J
 
One correction to your list is KYA. They ceased being a Top 40 station on November 1, 1977 when King Broadcasting took over and ruined it. Ah, the price of incompetence.
 
TJ - I'm curious how you arrived at the 1982 date for KYUU. I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm just curious. I believe 99.7 went to the KYUU call letters and music in the late 70s - maybe as early as 77. They were very 'lite-rock' at first, and I remember that they kind of gradually morphed into Top 40, and labeled themselves as The Hit Music Station at some point.

Was KGO really Top 40 for 2+ years? I had heard it was only a few months.

I'm not sure you could say KSFX was 'Top 40' for that long. I'm not good at dates, but it seems to me that from the mid 70s, they concentrated almost entirely on soul and dance music, finally morphing into "Disco 104" during the disco craze. About 73, they briefly borrowed the WABC brand and called it "Musicradio," but that didn't last very long
 
When was the exact date of KWSS dropping Top 40? For some reason, I thought KWSS was stunting with a Continuous Louie Louie marathon, well before March 4, though I maybe wrong.
 
Looks like KOBY was the first, followed by KYA and KEWB. I had a chance to listen to airchecks of both KYA and KEWB on the Bay Area Radio Museum website www.sfradiomuseum.com. Both were great sounding stations.

K O Bayley, a DJ at KEWB, later worked at WOR-FM New York, when it was Drake-formatted. NYers knew K O Bayley as Bob Elliott.

It seems surprising with a top-40 history that rivals New York that the Bay Area has had trouble supporting an oldies or classic hits station. :)
 
radioguy39nj said:
Looks like KOBY was the first, followed by KYA and KEWB. I had a chance to listen to airchecks of both KYA and KEWB on the Bay Area Radio Museum website www.sfradiomuseum.com. Both were great sounding stations.

K O Bayley, a DJ at KEWB, later worked at WOR-FM New York, when it was Drake-formatted. NYers knew K O Bayley as Bob Elliott.

It seems surprising with a top-40 history that rivals New York that the Bay Area has had trouble supporting an oldies or classic hits station. :)
Click to expand...

KO Bayley also worked at KFRC for awhile, about 1967-68.

The Bay Area did support an Oldies station - for 12 - 14 years: KFRC, siimulcast on 99.7 and 610. For awhile - there were 2 - KFRC and KYA-FM. CBS decided to blow up KFRC for MOViN. In New York, they blew up WCBS-FM for Jack, but Jack was a flop, leading to the return of Classic Hits. When CBS finally brought back Classic Hits in SF on 106.9, it was poorly executed.

Different circumstances and different outcomes. That's all.
 
Lkeller said:
radioguy39nj said:
Looks like KOBY was the first, followed by KYA and KEWB. I had a chance to listen to airchecks of both KYA and KEWB on the Bay Area Radio Museum website www.sfradiomuseum.com. Both were great sounding stations.

K O Bayley, a DJ at KEWB, later worked at WOR-FM New York, when it was Drake-formatted. NYers knew K O Bayley as Bob Elliott.

It seems surprising with a top-40 history that rivals New York that the Bay Area has had trouble supporting an oldies or classic hits station. :)
Click to expand...

KO Bayley also worked at KFRC for awhile, about 1967-68.

The Bay Area did support an Oldies station - for 12 - 14 years: KFRC, siimulcast on 99.7 and 610. For awhile - there were 2 - KFRC and KYA-FM. CBS decided to blow up KFRC for MOViN. In New York, they blew up WCBS-FM for Jack, but Jack was a flop, leading to the return of Classic Hits. When CBS finally brought back Classic Hits in SF on 106.9, it was poorly executed.

Different circumstances and different outcomes. That's all.
Click to expand...

If I recall correctly, 106.9 was also saddled with A's baseball when they brought back classic hits. :)
 
Baseball is brutal on radio stations in terms of continuity...a team plays 162 games a year...if you carry spring training games and your team goes all the way to the World Series, you're carrying games most every day from March to October. And with pre-game and post-game, that blows out four hours minimum each time.

That's why Top 40 stations generally avoided live sports coverage, why MOR and adult contemporary music stations walked away from play-by-play decades ago...and why, in the past few years, many of the news/talk stations that picked them up have started reconsidering.

In Los Angeles, Johnny Magnus quit KMPC after 11 years back in '73 because of the number of Angel games that ran long, with his show sometimes not starting until nearly midnight. Here in Phoenix, my decision to leave weekends and fill-ins at KTAR back in '04 to focus all my energies on my fulltime TV gig was made a lot easier by the fact that it was baseball season...and I was being pre-empted most of the time anyway.
 
Yes - Athletics baseball put a big hurt on 106.9. I do NOT enjoy baseball on the radio, and it seemed like everytime I'd tune in for a Classic Hits fix, a game would be on.

If I remember correctly, CBS was contractually obligated to run the games on 106.9 since they ran on the prior format - Free FM (talk).

A's games ran for many years on KFRC during the Oldies format, but only on 610 AM. 99.7 FM would keep playing music
 
Lkeller said:
If I remember correctly, CBS was contractually obligated to run the games on 106.9 since they ran on the prior format - Free FM (talk).

A's games ran for many years on KFRC during the Oldies format, but only on 610 AM. 99.7 FM would keep playing music
Click to expand...

And they never should have been on Free FM...but CBS had to move them from 610 after the 2005 season...and they were smart enough not to clutter KCBS with them.

Programming KUKI-AM in Ukiah in '76 and '77 was a real challenge because the GM signed us up for the Giants and the Warriors before I got there. The two most time-consuming sports...in a town where you could hear the flagship stations from San Francisco loud and clear. Sure, local businesses bought the advertising avails...but I'll bet the vast majority of listeners were tuned into the SF stations....and our music listeners no doubt tuned into other signals from the City.
 
Baseball not only is a ratings killer...big cume during the games, but it runs off the core listeners for the music and your share takes it in the shorts...it hurts sales. You lose PM drive for about 100 days a year. Some clients won't even run on you without all the midday and PM drive. The team keeps almost all in game avails, so it's really not a great thing for a music station...even on AM.
 
Baseball should only be on a sports or news/talk station. Baseball is played almost every day for six months. That wreaks havoc with a music format! :)
 
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