I don't know if this means anything but WZZW was beautiful music before it was rock. Maybe someone at Broadcasting Yearbook got confused. Wikipedia is no help as to the dates of formats.
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Top-40 AMs transition in the 80s.
- Thread starter CentralFL
- Start date
Around 1990, several stations popped up under the general terms of "rock/AC hybrid" or "male adult contemporary". (See links at the end of this post.) The example I'm most familiar with is Kansas City's KRVK, "The River", which was on from 1989 to 1992. Unfortunately, I never airchecked it (stupid me). The presentation was very low key, even going so far as to avoid segues. On holiday weekends, "The River" would play album sides. While explicitly not an album-rock station, it played quite a few softer songs from album-rock artists. It had a little bit of ratings success, but the oversupply of AC in the Kansas City market at the time eventually got to it. In April 1992, it became KQRC, "The Rock", what we would now call active rock. Giving credence to the theory that you should never put me in charge of programming a radio station, I predicted at the time that it wouldn't last. Thirty-three years later, it ain't dead yet.
Links to Billboard articles by Sean Ross on "rock/AC hybrids" in general, and KRVK specifically, including examples of songs played on KRVK.
Rock/AC hybrids: https://www.worldradiohistory.com/h...x/IDX/1989/1989-11-18-Billboard-Page-0012.pdf
KRVK profile: https://www.worldradiohistory.com/h...x/IDX/1991/1991-09-14-Billboard-Page-0017.pdf
(Edit to fix mangled URL)
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WFIL (Famous 56) in Philly first transitioned to an adult contemporary format in the late 70s then switched to unsurprising formats of country then oldies in the 80s. But before being sold and going religious there was one format change that I think was surprising for an AM station - beautiful music.
Nobody at the Broadcasting Yearbook organization "got confused". They sent out a form to every station every year, and most stations returned them. Broadcasting just compiled what was on the forms, with no editing. If you did not send the form back, they used the data from the prior year.
WMEX is a little too before my time, but WRKO went through a similar transition as WABC. It steadily trended from top 40 to AC throughout 1980. By the beginning of 1981, it was AC and had begun to air talk in evenings before going 24/7 talk by May 1981, I believe.
From June, 1981. PD Charlie Van Dyke explains how WRKO is an AC station with talk elements and that he doesn't expect it to go further than that:
September, 1981: WRKO goes all-talk. GM explains the rationale:
January, 1982: Van Dyke leaves WRKO for KOY, Phoenix:
Thanks for the additional clarifying information!
But how in the world did a station end up as "Btfl. rock"?
I recall that in the late 70s The Charlotte Observer had an annual guide which I guess was intended for people new to the area. WBT was AC but was listed as Top 40. WAYS was definitely Top 40 and listed that way. I know WAYS didn't change format but the next year both stations were listed as AC.
Because the stations self-reported. There was no list of formats from which to choose, like we have with Nielsen. Stations would fill in the format box on the survey as they saw fit; if they called their format "Beautiful rock", that's what they'd put in. For example, in 1979, WCBS-FM's format is listed as "Solid Gold Rock". That wasn't a "format" per se... we all know they were Oldies at the time, but that's what they listed as their format. Maybe they thought it sounded more appealing to buyers who might be reading the Yearbook, maybe the just wanted to stand out, but that's what was printed in the Yearbook.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Which is why a lot of stations persisted in calling traditional MOR as "good music" in the Yearbook well into the 1970s. They thought continuing to identify as such was going to get the notice of the agencies and get them more national ad buys.
Where they erred was in thinking those listings were driving the buyers, who have always dictated the terms of their buys ("no news-talk stations", "best performance in 18-34 in the ratings", "no 12-17 focused", etc.). Eventually, the stations started adopting standardized format descriptors such as Adult Contemporary or CHR, but it still didn't matter to the agencies, who were using Arbitron/Nielsen as the primary information source on stations.
It probably didn't help that so many stations made up their own descriptions, as @Huff said. If the Yearbook had ever been any kind of guide, that "tactic" created more confusion than it was worth ... and got worse when stations failed to send in the update each year.
TM Productions had a syndicated format called "Beautiful Rock":
Brace yourself.
There once was a format called "beautiful country". Syndicated by Darrel Peters.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
I remember that. Somewhere around here I have an unscoped hour of it that TM sent as a demo to the station I was programming.
It sounded a lot like KNX-FM.
KNX-FM peaked ratings-wise ( @Huff , feel free to double-check me on this ) around '76-'77 and spawned some imitators, including TM.
So, my guess is the station Chimp's referring to was a TM client running that format.
If it was in the Yearbook issue, that is what the station filled in on the form and, thus, that is what Broadcasting published.
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It was a long time ago, and I don't remember who was on the air. However, I did a bit of research via WorldRadioHistory, and the Street Talk column at Radio and Records for February 6, 1981 noted that the switch was to happen that day at 3PM. As I was in college in Atlanta at the time I couldn't have been there, and could only possibly have been visiting my brother during Spring Break, which would have been at least a few months after a February change. It was curious that WAPE would have changed, as that R&R issue noted that 690 had done 8.3 in the ratings. They must have been able to read the writing on the wall for Top 40 AM.
The same issue noted that New Orleans 1060 WNOE also changed to Country, however their rating had slid downward to 2.4. WNOE-FM was Country at 9.9.
The same issue also reported that Ross and Wilson 'resigned' from Atlanta's Z93. That's not exactly how I recalled it - although I did not hear it directly, a friend who did winced at their dedication of "Another One Bites the Dust" to the missing and murdered children that was plaguing Atlanta at the time. I think the DJ's were suspended (or maybe fired?) before the record finished playing, and the General Manager issued a public apology. A lot of rough stuff happened on the radio that was not appropriate - then or now.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
For those who don't want to wade through that entire issue of R&R, here's a link to that specific page: