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Worst and possible longest station flip in History?

vchimpanzee said:
Then a man doing an impression of Ted Koppel came on and said the listeners chose "none of the above". The previous format was oldies, and no one was doing CHR at the time in the market, so the new format, called Double Q, was an alternative leaning version of CHR.

CHR had been one of the choices.
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1991 would have been the beginning of what the industry has come to refer to as the "fragmentation of CHR" era, where different "flavors" of the format emerged.

Using your example of "Double Q", that would have been one of the options. There were also Rhythmic/Urban CHR (which was largely rap and hip-hop, although some stations just went more R&B without those genres), CHRock (no pop songs here ... emphasis on the heavy metal and other hard rock), Mainstream CHR (something of the opposite of CHRock, mostly the pop songs and with some stations including the crossovers from Rhythmic/Urban), and ... well, you get the picture.

This has made it more difficult to do a 90s-focused Classic Hits format, because there are relatively few songs that please the majority ... because there isn't a majority. The audience preferences are based on which version of CHR they listened to in that decade. Play a mainstream song and the rock aficionados will change stations. Play a rock song and the opposite happens. Play anything non-Rhythmic/Urban and those listeners go away.

Taking your example again, I would imagine that the CHR "choice" was a Mainstream version.
 
K.M. Richards said:
1991 would have been the beginning of what the industry has come to refer to as the "fragmentation of CHR" era, where different "flavors" of the format emerged.

Using your example of "Double Q", that would have been one of the options. There were also Rhythmic/Urban CHR (which was largely rap and hip-hop, although some stations just went more R&B without those genres), CHRock (no pop songs here ... emphasis on the heavy metal and other hard rock), Mainstream CHR (something of the opposite of CHRock, mostly the pop songs and with some stations including the crossovers from Rhythmic/Urban), and ... well, you get the picture.

This has made it more difficult to do a 90s-focused Classic Hits format, because there are relatively few songs that please the majority ... because there isn't a majority. The audience preferences are based on which version of CHR they listened to in that decade. Play a mainstream song and the rock aficionados will change stations. Play a rock song and the opposite happens. Play anything non-Rhythmic/Urban and those listeners go away.

Taking your example again, I would imagine that the CHR "choice" was a Mainstream version.
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Kiss 102 was doing rhythmic CHR at the time. WAQQ was doing something called "Rock 40" in the 80s.

As for the CHR choice, here's the ad:

www.newspapers.com

Article clipped from The Charlotte Observer

Clipping found in The Charlotte Observer published in Charlotte, North Carolina on 10/7/1991.
www.newspapers.com www.newspapers.com

And "back by popular demand":

www.newspapers.com

Article clipped from The Charlotte Observer

Clipping found in The Charlotte Observer published in Charlotte, North Carolina on 10/9/1991.
www.newspapers.com www.newspapers.com
 
Last edited:
davideduardo said:
We did not get calls about the wrong music stunt.

We got horrible reaction from old listeners when we flipped. We turned off the Beautiful Music and shut off the transmitter on the Friday ahead of New Year's Day, a Monday. I had planned on coming back on at 6 AM, but by 7:40 PM when I was listening to one of the jocks doing a dry run, I decided that I could not hold my patience for another ten hours, so I hit the transmitter ¨plates on" and we were back as Zeta 93, with an all salsa format. Except that salsa was written "Zalza" with a Z.

View attachment 9537

The Percy Faith listeners went ape s--it. The most common call was "your new listeners make less in a month than I make in a day" and that nobody would listen to that crap anyway. We had to have staff come in all day Saturday and a few on Sunday to answer the calls. We did that because the station owner was the Island's largest supermarket chain and we wanted to defuse as much negativity as possible.

Whole story at David Gleason launches Z-93 WZNT All Salsa in Puerto Rico 1978

And ratings at https://davidgleason.com/Archive PR Z93/San_Juan_Mediastat 1979_all.pdf
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I'm suddenly reminded of a couple of WKRP in Cincinnati episodes
 
gr8oldies said:
I'm suddenly reminded of a couple of WKRP in Cincinnati episodes
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Remember, there were several "consultants" to WKRP who were experienced managers and programmers who had either made a crazy mistake themselves or heard one on a competitor. The famous Turkey Drop promotion actually happened!
 
K.M. Richards said:
In Dallas, no less.

973thedawg.com

WKRP Turkey Drop Episode Was Based on Real Incident

Here's the real-life story that inspired this iconic Thanksgiving episode.
973thedawg.com 973thedawg.com
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Actually, under Jay Blackburn at Keener.

When Jay was running Hope-Bennett-Blackburn (Yes, Bob Hope was partner) in Puerto Rico, he told me the whole story. First turkey bomb ripped the awning off a strip mall that sponsored the event. The guy in the helicopter had a two way radio, but before he heard the bad news, he dropped a second one and it went right through the roof of a car in the lot. No more turkeys were dropped, and the station apparently rushed to buy frozen ones to give away to the crowd.

Farm raised turkeys do not fly. Wild ones do, but not particularly far. They are basically like a ham with wings.

Jay told that and some other stories to Jerry Blum, the manager at WQXI who, as I mentioned, was an advisor to WKRP's writers.
 
K.M. Richards said:
And it was only the seventh episode of the series!
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And that is, of course, one of the funniest shows they ever did. I did not know it was based on a real contest, but as a radio person who had a few contests run wild, it made sense.

Mine was worse in so many ways. On "Canal Tropical" in Quito around '67 I did "The Battle of the Neighborhoods" (Batalla de los Barrios) where the named neighborhoods would compete for a completely reconditioned children's park with swings and slides and all the other stuff, worth about S/. 100,000 back then (about 15 times the average annual salary).

The contest was done with paper votes and phone votes. No limit. But when it got down to two neighborhoods, someone from the losing one chopped the telephone trunk line into the other one.

We had traded the playground with a maker of metal furniture, so we rushed to double the trade and gave a playground to each. The phone company was more than pissed, but since we did give two "blue collar" neighborhoods a playground, they did not do anything further.
 
davideduardo said:
And that is, of course, one of the funniest shows they ever did. I did not know it was based on a real contest, but as a radio person who had a few contests run wild, it made sense.

Mine was worse in so many ways. On "Canal Tropical" in Quito around '67 I did "The Battle of the Neighborhoods" (Batalla de los Barrios) where the named neighborhoods would compete for a completely reconditioned children's park with swings and slides and all the other stuff, worth about S/. 100,000 back then (about 15 times the average annual salary).

The contest was done with paper votes and phone votes. No limit. But when it got down to two neighborhoods, someone from the losing one chopped the telephone trunk line into the other one.

We had traded the playground with a maker of metal furniture, so we rushed to double the trade and gave a playground to each. The phone company was more than pissed, but since we did give two "blue collar" neighborhoods a playground, they did not do anything further.
Click to expand...

One of the most memorable (and in a good way) contests I heard on radio came from local rock outlet KDKB during, I believe, the late 1980s. The contest involved first the right number caller getting a key. One of those keys would start a new automobile.

The day came to find out which key started the car, and the station broadcast it live. A winner was announced, and the stationwent back to playing music.

Two days later, during KDKB's morning show, more of the story was revealed. It turned out that the person with the winning key was a paraplegic--he didn't have the use of his legs. So, on the morning show, it was announced that KDKB and the dealership had come to terms in outfitting one of the dealer's automobiles with the necessary equipment so that this disabled person (if I remember correctly, he was a disability rights advocate) could drive the car himself.
 
The station referred to earlier was 96.5 Houston, I believe the calls were KNRJ. They did a well-presented modern rock format before becoming Hot AC as KHMX “Mix.”

In terms of extended stunting, after 102.7 WNEW dropped talk they spent about three months stunting with a roughly 50 song loop of contemporary hits and a simulcast of the Late Show with David Letterman before becoming “Blink 102.7.”
 
CTListener said:
As I mentioned way back in the 7th post in this thread. Repetition is a sure sign that the thread has run its course.
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The problem is that too many people do not read the entire thread before deciding that whatever they have to add is something new to the thread. In this case, the duplication is from only as deep as post #7 ... which was posted by CTListener, so I totally understand his frustration.

And to those who say that they don't have time to do that, I say that your participation is not needed urgently enough for us to put up with the duplication. Pretty much the same goes for those who say "I post when I see something I want to reply to and don't want to wait" ... by creating duplication (including re-asking questions that were already answered, if only you would read through everything first), you are essentially being rude to everyone else by implying you are more important than everyone else who already posted.

A little common courtesy goes a long way ... or at least that was what my mother always taught me.
 
Central FL said 93.7 from Hartford, Conn. played NOAA radio for maybe months in the early 1990s.

I believe that was due to the station selling. It my have been delayed. I spoke with a lady who was in charge of the station when it was doing NOAA nd she seemed to indicate the staff knew of the sale and left. I may be confusing this with another station.
 
b-turner said:
Central FL said 93.7 from Hartford, Conn. played NOAA radio for maybe months in the early 1990s.

I believe that was due to the station selling. It my have been delayed. I spoke with a lady who was in charge of the station when it was doing NOAA nd she seemed to indicate the staff knew of the sale and left. I may be confusing this with another station.
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Not a full time format but a radio station where I live had NOAA for a short time during the noon hour between the big band show and the beautiful music show.
 
WJSR in Lakeside, Virginia began playing Christmas music on October 13, 2020... and then kept playing it well until March 4, when it flipped to classic hits. I'm guessing the owner was buying the staff some time while they tried to figure out what format to flip to.
 


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