Albany is quite a ways upstream from Westchester. You'd know if you'd been there.When I lived in NYC and Westchester County I tried my best to stay on the Eastern side of the Hudson river. Not sure if I ever got into All-bany.
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San Francisco Radio in 2022
- Thread starter CassChopper96
- Start date
I saw that in the news the other day! Quite tragic and sad!
Random violence strikes again!
93.3? I actually listened to that off and on during 1997-2000, when it played country music. Until just now, I never realized that it was KYA I was listening to!On one of my 90's biz trips to SF (don't remember exactly when) I jumped in my rental car, flipped on the radio to 93.3 (I think) and found KYA had flipped and was now Country. ARRGGGHHH!!!!! We had cable in CP and KYA was listed but it was never on when I tried listening.
Well, it changed its call sign in 1994 though, so technically it wasn't KYA anymore by the time I was listening (it would've been Young Country KYCY-FM), but it's nevertheless probably the closest thing to a vestige of KYA I'll have ever heard live on the air in my lifetime.
Oh, well.
KFRC, for what it's worth, managed to outlive KYA by almost ten years, despite KYA's early success, so I'm glad I was at least able to enjoy The Big 610 for awhile.
Speaking of KFRC, I remember in 2004, they ran a promo/contest in honor of The Beatles' then 40th anniversary, and they were offering a chance to win a VW "Beatle Beetle", perhaps as an effort to save itself from a "death by demographics" situation. Apparently it didn't work; they went off the air about a year or two later.
c
Some history is in order here.
KYA-FM simulcast KYA-AM until 1966, when it became KOIT and played beautiful music. Outgunned by KABL and KFOG, in 1971, under the call letters KOIT. It was automated (using the same system as the beautiful format) and an aircheck survives: Bill Holley - KOIT 93.3 FM, San Francisco (1971) | Bay Area Radio
It returned to KYA-FM in '72 and tried various forms of rock, including album rock, through the 70s. King Broadcasting of Seattle bought the station from AVCO in 1977, and it then settled into an adult-leaning Top 40, simulcasting certain dayparts of the AM. It split away from 1980 to 1982 as a light rock station with the calls KLHT, failed and returned to KYA-FM.
On December 12, 1983, there was an ownership shuffle. Gene Autry, respecting the terms of his first wife's will, began divesting certain stations owned by Golden West Broadcasting (Ina wanted the proceeds given to charity), including KSFO.
King Broadcasting bought KSFO and sold KYA-AM to Bonneville, which had picked up the KOIT call letters for 96.5 FM when it bought that frequency in 1975. But King kept the KYA call letters for the FM, and so 1260 became KOIT-AM. That was effectively the end of KYA in terms of any connection to the AM. But KYA-FM continued, as an oldies station, until the 1994 flip to KYCY "Young Country".
I guess who "outlived" who depends on the metric. If we're talking about just having an AM signal with a certain set of call letters, then, yeah---KYA vanished from that band in 1983 and KFRC stayed until 2005. But if we're talking about surviving as a certain type of radio station, then KYA-FM was playing oldies---the records that put KYA on the map in the early days---until 1994, while KFRC went Adult Standards as Magic 61 in 1986 (coming back to challenge KYA as an oldies AM/FM combo in 1993).
By the way, in 2004, KFRC-AM was an afterthought. It wasn't just 610 giving away the Beetle. It was 99.7 FM and 610 AM, at that point doing very well, having run all oldies competitors out of the game.
KFRC wasn't divested because of ratings. CBS/Infinity, which owned the station at the time, wanted to buy KOVR-TV, its affiliate in Sacramento, but FCC rules said that to do that, the company needed to dump one of its bigger AM signals. So CBS engineered a swap with Family Radio, giving it 610 in exchange for 106.9, which had no effective signal in Sacramento.
In 1966 the Beatles held a concert (in Candlestick Park IIRC) sponsored by KYA. The place was virtually empty.
Not exactly. Candlestick sold 25,000 tickets, and 7,000 went unsold. While the venue typically holds 47,000, the seating for this concert was only set for 32,000.
Ticket sales for the 1966 tour were lower because of John Lennon's statement comparing the Beatles to Jesus. For example, they sold out Shea Stadium in 1965. The next year, they sold 10,000 fewer tickets in the same venue.
There's a number of us here on the board that are current or former Sacra-tomato residents. Myself living there from 1989 to 1994. I don't miss the place or the extreme weather, the fog and cold in the winter, and summers with temps well over 100, and all that rain Jan to March, but I do miss the friends I made there. The close proximity to San Fran and Lake Tahoe made living there bearable. I rented a house on C St by McKinley Park, which was a GREAT area. Maybe Michael can update if it still is
When I moved there KYA and KSFO we're simulcasting, which was interesting because the identity for both stations was kept in tact on air, as they were branded as KYA/KSFO. That ended when 93.3 went Country, and KSFO Talk.Too bad those KYA calls weren't at least parked somewhere. I always cringe when three letter calls disappear for good.
When I moved there KYA and KSFO we're simulcasting, which was interesting because the identity for both stations was kept in tact on air, as they were branded as KYA/KSFO. That ended when 93.3 went Country, and KSFO Talk.Too bad those KYA calls weren't at least parked somewhere. I always cringe when three letter calls disappear for good.
A little better than half empty---42,500 seats in those days, 25,000 tickets sold. (Just saw Big A's post about the seating decisions made).
In the days before powerful amps, the idea of having a rock concert at Candlestick----bone-chilling offshore winds and jets on approach to SFO---was epically dumb.
McKinley's still terrific. And yeah, even if you can't fall in love with Sacramento on its own terms, being less than 2 hours from San Francisco and less than 2 hours from Lake Tahoe is pretty great.
I never understood the KSFO/KYA-FM branding. It seemed clunky, and while KYA had an image compatible with oldies, KSFO certainly didn't. But Bob Hamilton was one helluva programmer, and he made it work until KFRC's new owners decided to go after it with their own AM/FM combination---and stole Bob Hamilton to do it.
The Beatles' Boston show on that 1966 tour was at Suffolk Downs racetrack in East Boston, only a mile or so from Logan International Airport and constantly under sonic assault from approaching jets.
Going by what I have read over the years, KYA had signal issues on both bands. I think in SF, 93.3 has the most issues of a class B in the market.
I remember the video shown on the news at that time of all the empty seats but I don't remember the media mentioning the seats being taken out of service nor in all the years since.
That was always the knock on Candlestick. "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco" - Will Rogers.
Makes sense, though. You don't want to seat people so they're looking at the backs of the Beatles' heads.
I remember Garth Brooks running all around the stage at the New Haven Coliseum, including behind the stacked amps, so everyone in every seat would get the chance to see him sing while facing them. He was also known for scouting out the worst seats in arenas he played before the crowd was allowed in, just to make sure he'd know one place he absolutely had to look up at during the show.
And, when posible, Garth uses an open stage that is visible from every angle where there is a sold seat.
Can someone change the Title to San Francisco Radio in 2022
It's bugging me out
It's bugging me out
How about Radio in The City in 2022?
Eather 1 is fine
I cured the bugging. Title changed. 🏆
IIRC, it was the last live concert the Beatles ever gave. DJ Emperor Nelson of KYA was closely associated with it. - D.
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