Question about the 70's

[gcreedle239]

In the late 70's, the FCC mandated that FM stations quit simulcasting their AM programming (except for morning drive, for a few years to allow for transistion IIRC). At the time, I was working in Top40 radio in Minnesota. I seem to remember a Trade mag story about KIIS at the time that goes as follows: The AM/FM combo was getting solid numbers as a top40 and not wanting to break up the success, the FM station rain the exact same playlist, but 15 minutes later than the AM and with different jocks. I may have everything including stations confused, but if anyone can fill in more info about that stunt (even if it occured in another market), please fill me in.

 

[oldiesfan6479]

Same thing was done for a while in the PHX market.

The songs/spots heard on KOPA-FM Scottsdale (Top 40, live jocks)
were "delayed simulcast" approx. ten minutes later on KOPA(AM)
Scottsdale. I can't recall whether the AM had its own jocks during
this setup, I'm thinking it was just music and stopsets.

 

[gcreedle239]

What intrigues me is:

Was a 10 or 15 minute tape delay used (non-solid state delay then and that would be a HUGE tape loop) or was there a full second staff?

If there was a second staff, how where the stations branded and was the fact that they were 15 minutes out of sync promoted?

Did the FCC have a strict definition of a time-delay needed to no longer be a simulcast, or was the practice called out eventually?

 

[calguy]

What intrigues me is:

Was a 10 or 15 minute tape delay used (non-solid state delay then and that would be a HUGE tape loop) or was there a full second staff?

If there was a second staff, how where the stations branded and was the fact that they were 15 minutes out of sync promoted?

Did the FCC have a strict definition of a time-delay needed to no longer be a simulcast, or was the practice called out eventually?

KIIS-AM had a different air staff except for morning drive as Rick Dees was simulcast. KIIS-AM was pretty much branded the same way that the FM as as I recall. Perhaps in insider from KIIS would know why, but I believe they changed KIIS-AM's format in order to make even more money.
Couldn't tell you the FCC policy on this program shifting, but in the 80's the FCC was almost non-existent.

 

[AnimatronicAbeLincoln]

I believe this page:

http://www.geocities.com/amstereo2000/

...contains an mp3 aircheck of KIIS-AM from this era.... the jingles were identical except they sang "Kiss-AM" instead of "Kiss-FM."

On this aircheck they go back and forth between KIIS-AM and KIIS-FM so you can hear the difference in quality between the AM Stereo and FM.

 

[gcreedle239]

Thanks Animatronic Abe,

That aircheck was more than I could have hoped for and answered a lot of questions.

 

[chime]

OK, as I remember it, on Friday Evening
December 27, 1984 at 6PM
1150KPRZ changed from basicly
Music of Your Life to a
shadowcast of KIIS-FM.
I think I still have an aircheck
on reel.O, Larry Morgan was the first jock
Anyway, yes, live jocks, including a yearend
countdown, which I may have some of.
1 of the differences among the AM-and-FM, were
that when the FM had a giveaway, the
AM usually did not.
1150 hungon to this shadowcast til
maybe 87?? In 88 the AM became
an interesting Rap format.
The other time I remember anything
such as shadowcasting, were among
2 oldies stations, KOLA--and-94.9
K-Best in San Diego

 

[SoCal Tom]

I was in northern California during that time period (attending college); however, several of the local AM/FM combos went to live DJs on AM; and automated the same format on FM, with one or two DJs doing the voice tracking. (I had a part time job at a combo. I voice tracked the FM, but had nothing to do with the AM (except for aligning the heads in their Mackenzie machine.)

 

[gcreedle239]

After listening to the aircheck, I rezlized I was wrong about the timeframe. The FCC did eliminate simulcasting in the late 70s (our combo split and the FM went automated). But its clear listening to the aircheck and calguys note confirm KIIS did this in the 80s.

Now I wonder

Why the jingle cuts are different on the AM/FM, and (really geeky thought) who chose the best jingles for the music transition. A a young DJ, I LOVED listening to TM/Century Jingle demos (on disc) where early jingle to song segway was perfect and awe inspiring.

How the stations kept in sync? Were the spot sets the same? Did a song have to be droped every so often. You can tell I've been in operations.

THese are questions with no answers probably. Still, I'm fascinated by the tremendous effort to get around situations in business. Here's another example. ABC Network TV is originated in NYC, but the actual videotape machines that roll the show (and intergrated commercials) actually were fed from a facility across the river in NJ to the NYC plant FOR THE SOLE PURPOSE of avoiding paying NY tax on the network revenue.

SoCal Tom, what automation service did your station use? In 1978, our FM went Disco/Top40 from TM Century but was fully announced by TM. The FM across town went with Drake-Chenault which brought a lot of great urban music (ex. Papa was a Rolling Stone) into our midwestern market. I was a kid (17) in high school working weekends on the AM Top 40. When the FM went automated, I got to do the live news in the morning before school and cart the weather for the rest of the day along with the weekend shifts. I was in HEAVEN.

 

[gr8oldies]

Louisville KY was another market that did this, playing the songs 15 minutes apart. (You can go to the AM and hear it again!). Tampa with WRBQ AM and FM with different jocks (the AM side was the former WLCY, which at one time was co-owned with then-top 40 WYNF, known as Y-95, and they ran identical top 40 formats with different jocks and imaging).

 

[oldiesfan6479]

Here's another example. ABC Network TV is originated in NYC, but the actual videotape machines that roll the show (and intergrated commercials) actually were fed from a facility across the river in NJ to the NYC plant FOR THE SOLE PURPOSE of avoiding paying NY tax on the network revenue.

I heard that story, from someone who worked at ABC NY in the '60s, in a
slightly different manner--the tape machines were in Manhattan, it was
the film chains that were in NJ, fed over I assume by either a local Telco
loop or via microwave.

It did indeed have something to do with lower NJ taxes on film, and I
vaguely also recall something about the union scale for projectionists
being a lower rate in NJ.

 

[gcreedle239]

I worked freelance for ABC in the 80s on sports trucks. NYC master control had about 30 Ampex One Inch VPR80s that they used for live sports commercial break playback, backup for primetime playback from the NJ facility in case of microwave failure (common during very heavy rain) and to build "air reels" for the NJ facility. ABC was unique in that they edited the commercials into shows so the entire hour ran off of one one-inch reel.
CBS and NBC used computer switching and two-inch videocart machines that was glitchy and error prone.

In the 60s and early 70s, networks may have been airing directly from film, but telecine-to-tape (Film to tape transfer) rapidly took over to allow for better color than the old RCA TK26 film chains could provide and for the safety of no on-air film breaks (which happened to me a few times at the local level). ABC was 100 percent one-inch videotape in the 80s, save for a small insert camera used to shoot typewritten 3x5 card during station breaks with late info for affiliates.

The NY entertainment tax at the time was something like 3 or 4 percent so no a small sum with millions of dollars of revenue. BTW I was at ABC Master Control on a Saturday when they were providing commercial insertion for 4 nearly simultaneous college football games and studio shows. This was before automation and digital playback. It was quite a rush.