K6JHU said:
I believe I heard a few of them on KKJZ (which Saul manages for Cal State). KKGO used to be a jazz station as well (add that to the format list if you're keeping score).
This thread started to address the vagaries of AM1260 so technically KKGO isn't included in this discussion of Saul's formats. But for the record he seems to have programmed the FM to fill unserved or underserved music formats. 105.1 went on the air in 1959 as KBCA playing jazz. A legal challenge from KABC (go figure) prompted the change to KKGO which then remained as a jazz station until September 1989 when KFAC dropped Classical Music and Saul flipped to Classical as KMZT. There it stayed until February of 2007 when it flipped to country and reassumed the KKGO calls.
Now there was some cross formatting withe the AM at 1260 and until recently 540. The country format was on am 1260 and simulcast on 540 as KKGO from October 2006 until February 2007. When country went to FM the AM adopted both the KMZT calls and Classical music. KGIL using a variety of calls has been pretty much anything but Macedonian bag pipe music over the years. Some of them were pretty out there and others more mundane. It was even jazz for a couple of years in the early part of this century. The most recent format flip seemed to have been prompted by a decision by Talk Radio Network to pull their premier Laura Ingraham show in favor of KFWB. After that there is not too much confirmed detail but my impression is the Mr. Levine told them where to go and since they provided much of his syndicated programing there went News-Talk 1260.
There was a side story that John Ziegler was anticipating a deal with TRN with KGIL as the flagship. So when they pulled the programming or Saul pulled it over Ingraham, his deal went out the window so he packed up and left. Remember also at the start of News Talk they also served as the flagship for Dr. Drew's brief foray into conventional talk at noon weekdays. That was through Westwood One though not TRN.
When 1260 as KSUR was playing standards right after the Jazz period he pulled the standards in favor of Oldies when KLAC-570 went to standards so that was another battle with the big guys. He went back to standards before news talk when Clear Channel dropped standards.
So without Mr. Levine's own statements there is no real explanation for all of the changes, the ones noted above notwithstanding. They all utilized better than average talent and the content in my opinion has always been good. Going into news-talk was one that I never figured though, given the market saturation. Originally it began as a kind of balanced format with some Conservative (Boortz and Larson) with some Liberal (Michael Jackson, Ed Shultz, and Alan Colmes). Then it shifted to all conservative with Ingraham, Beck, Crowley, Savage and John Ziegler as the local show instead of Michael Jackson. I think that Lars Larson was the only survivor from the original lineup. So in that period it had several sub shifts within the format.
In the end you might be best going with the "odd duck' theory, although I don't think he has lost money and now KKGO seems to be doing better than ever on FM. Perhaps over the years it has financed the AM experiment. If he was a total skinflint he could not have gotten the talent he has had over the years, even out of work DJs will only go so low. On the other hand I doubt that he is anything but frugal however the AM site has been considerably upgraded since his acquisition so I assume he spends what he needs.
If I owned it I would have probably stay with either oldies or standards mostly automated to keep costs down. If not that then lease it to some kind of ethnic or religious programmer and just sit back and cash the checks. He can not sell it for anywhere near what he might want or need to get out of it so why not just settle for the best he can do and not lose his shirt.
