Radio This Week Back Then: Week Ending February 24
What was on the radio this week…back then: WHTZ New York, KRBE Houston, KTUX Shreveport, format change at KHYS Houston, a new image for WBSB Baltimore, and KQID vs KZMZ Alexandria LA
What was on the radio this week…back then. If you enjoy these weekly audio rewinds, please do me a favor, subscribe, and share and pass it on. Thank you!
It is the end of another week and time to revisit what was on the radio this week…back then. This week, it’s all about the 1990s. “In 60 seconds, you’ll hear this:” WHTZ “Z100” New York and KRBE Houston were rockin’, KHYS/KJOJ-FM Houston ditches smooth jazz for top 40 “Kiss 98-5/Kiss Again 103-3”, WBSB “B104” Baltimore adds 1970s gold and relaunches its hot AC format as “Variety 104.3,” and top 40s KTUX “Tux 99” Shreveport, KQID “93QID” and KZMZ “Power 96.9” Alexandria LA are playing the hits of 1992…most of which were forgotten by 1993 as it was very weak year for pop songs.
Aircheck: WHTZ 100.3 New York “Z100” February 18 1994
History
WHTZ “Z100” debuted at August 2 1983 6:08AM, changing from easy listening/jazz WVNJ-FM. Licensed to Newark NJ, the transmitter was in New Jersey at the time of launch, but the new site atop the Empire State Building lit up shortly thereafter — allowing Z100 to begin “serving the universe from the top of the Empire State Building.” 40 years later, Z100 is still the biggest top 40 station in the USA.
About This Aircheck
This is perhaps my favorite era of Z100. With the top 40 format having fragmented in the early and mid-1990s, rival WPLJ 95.5 “95-5PLJ” had moved to hot AC, WQHT 97.1 “Hot 97” had the dance and R&B spectrum covered, and Z100 had evolved to a rock and modern rock-leaning top 40.
Human Newman is the midday DJ on this Friday afternoon audio. “Tune in your head…”
Yaz/“Don’t Go”
Van Halen/“Jump”
Billy Idol/“Rebel Yell”
Legal ID: WHTZ 100.3 Newark-New York
Aerosmith/“Amazing”
Candlebox/“You”
Rod Stewart, Bryan Adams, and Sting/“All For Love”
U2/“Sunday Bloody Sunday”
Pearl Jam/“Jeremy”
Mariah Carey/“Hero”
Depeche Mode/“Strangelove”
10,000 Maniacs/“Because The Night”
Soul Asylum/“Black Gold”
Spin Doctors/“Two Princes”
Mr. Big/“Wild World”
The Breeders/“Cannonball”
UB40/“Can’t Help Falling In Love (With You)”
Legal ID: WHTZ 100.3 Newark-New York
Gin Blossoms/“Hey Jealousy”
Stone Temple Pilots/“Plush”
Aerosmith/“Cryin’”
Aircheck: KRBE-FM 104.1 Houston February 18 1995
History
Like Z100 above, KRBE has been playing the hits for four decades…since 1984. Originally branded under its calls and “Houston’s Hottest Hits,” it would rebrand as “Power 104” from the mid-1980s until 1991. In 1991, it re-imaged as “104 KRBE, Hits Without The Hype”…a sort of no-frills top 40 format where the DJs were more mellow, never talked over the music, and identified every song. As Houston lacked an alternative station at the time, KRBE added an evening modern rock block in 1992. KRBE evolved to essentially being a modern rock/top 40 hybrid soon after. It kept that modern rock lean for about three years before shifting back to mainstream top 40, which it remains today.
About This Aircheck
This audio comes from the modern rock-leaning era. Like the Z100 aircheck above, this is one of my favorite eras of KRBE. Some of the no-frills changes made for the “Hits Without The Hype” era remain: back announcing all the songs, not talking over the songs, etc.
The imaging is great and the station is well produced and sounding big market. “Wire into today’s music,” “wire in,” and “you’re wired in” were omnipresent liners. Technology has changed where we are all connected wirelessly — “unwired” — today, so it’s funny to remember when we weren’t. The other reason to call out KRBE’s imaging is for some context for the KHYS aircheck in the next section. So, listen to this audio before listening to the KHYS audio.
Scott Sparks followed by Ryan Chase are your KRBE DJs on this Saturday afternoon audio guiding you through “what’s happening in today’s music…”
Real McCoy/“Run Away”
Counting Crows/“Rain King”
Counting Crows/“Round Here”
Hootie & The Blowfish/“Hold My Hand”
Wang Chung/“Dance Hall Days”
Legal ID: KRBE 104.1 Houston
Pearl Jam/“Better Man”
Pearl Jam/“Daughter”
Collective Soul/“Gel”
Legal ID: KRBE 104.1 Houston
Stone Temple Pilots/“Big Empty”
New Order/“Blue Monday”
New Order/“True Faith”
The Flaming Lips/“She Don’t Use Jelly”
Dionne Farris/“I Know”
Live/“Lightning Crashes”
Tom Tom Club/“Genius Of Love”
Green Day/“When I Come Around”
Green Day/“Basket Case”
Better Than Ezra/“Good”
Legal ID: KRBE 104.1 Houston
Pearl Jam/“Yellow Ledbetter”
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Aircheck: KHYS 98.5/KJOJ-FM 103.3 Format Change February 24 1997
History
90 miles east of downtown Houston is Port Arthur, one of the cities that make up the Texas “Golden Triangle” of Beaumont, Port Arthur, and Orange. KHYS was one of Clear Channel’s (now iHeart) original properties, during the days when owners were capped nationally to 24 stations — no more than 12 FMs and 12 AMs nationally and no more than 1 FM and 1 AM in a market. Licensed to Port Arthur, R&B KHYS served that market until 1988 when it moved to a 1955’ tower near the small town of Devers in rural Liberty County and began “rimshooting” Houston. Similar to the situation in Dallas/Fort Worth I touched on a couple of issues ago with move-in KDGE there, all the big Houston FMs and TV channels were broadcasting from 1900+ foot towers in the tower farm in suburban Missouri City TX, southwest of downtown Houston (see KRBE’s coverage map above). With Houston signals at 97.9 (then KFMK, now KBXX) and 99.1 (KODA) located there, KHYS was site-restricted to a location 65 miles from Missouri City. As such, its city grade contour did not fully cover the Houston city limits and the western half of the market.
KHYS targeted Houston with a dance-leaning R&B format as “Kiss 98-5.” In 1991, it shifted to adult R&B as “Y98-5.” KHYS would then change to Houston’s first commercial smooth jazz outlet as “Smooth FM 98-5.” With ownership caps relaxing, during that time, Clear Channel acquired KJOJ-FM 103.3 Freeport, which was the FM simulcast of religious KJOJ 880 “Joy of Jesus” Conroe, and paired it with the 98.5 facility to try to reach more of the Houston market. Similarly, with the Missouri City tower farm hosting signals on 102.9 and 104.1, KJOJ-FM was site restricted to a location along the Texas coast well south of Houston.
On February 24 1997, they changed to top 40 “Kiss 98-5/Kiss Again 103-3,” which is the audio below. The format was short-lived given the difficulty going up against KRBE and its full market monster signal with two facilities missing city grade signal coverage over a large portion of the metro population (see coverage map above). In 1999, it jumped on the rhythmic oldies format bandwagon so trendy at the time in the industry and became KTJM “98.5 The Jam.” Clear Channel spun off the signal impaired pair after acquiring other FM properties in Houston based at the Missouri City tower farm. KTJM/KJOJ-FM then became regional Mexican “La Raza.”
On December 14 2020, KJOJ-FM went silent after it “suffered a catastrophic tower failure.” It never never returned to the air. The FCC cancelled the KJOJ-FM license June 22 2022. Owner Estrella Media flipped co-owned KNTE 101.7 Bay City TX from simulcasting its KEYH 850 Houston to simulcasting KTJM. However, KNTE, which is licensed a less powerful C1 facility and whose tower is well west of KJOJ-FM’s location, covers even less of the market than the KJOJ-FM facility did (see coverage map below). KTJM and KNTE are still “La Raza” currently.
KHYS was just the first of the Golden Triangle stations to ditch their much smaller home market and head westward to rimshoot Houston. Country KYKR 93.3 “Kicker 93.3” Port Arthur followed right behind in 1990. It kept the Kicker handle — which was awfully close to long-time Houston country outlet KIKK-FM 95.7 “Kick 96” at the time. It would transition to “K93.3” until the 93.3 frequency was sold and the KYKR calls and format moved back to the Triangle on then-silent KZZB-FM 95.1 Beaumont, which also restored the “Kicker” handle with the move. 93.3 is today Spanish-language sports KQBU-FM. Album rock KWIC 107.9 Beaumont made its move in 1991, and after its sale in 1993, it relaunched as Tejano KXTJ. It is currently regional Mexican KQQK “El Norte.” Country KAYD 97.5 “KD97” Beaumont would also move west to target Houston, via a new tall stick near Winnie at the beginning of 2002 as R&B “Power 97.5.” The KAYD calls and country format remained in the Beaumont market by relocating to the much weaker 101.7 Silsbee TX facility. 97.5 is now sports KFNC and its city of license changed to Mont Belvieu to make it “in market” to Houston.
About This Aircheck
This is the smooth jazz to top 40 flip. The smooth jazz format ended unceremoniously as the last song ends and it moved straight into a 6 hour stunt of “radio sucks!” interspersed between music from TV shows and the like.
The new top 40 format had a Hispanic audience focus with a mostly dance and rhythmic pop hits playlist. It evolved to a more mainstream top 40 format before the flip to rhythmic oldies.
The audio of this launch makes several indirect swipes at KRBE via KRBE’s imaging — “It’s what’s happening in today’s music…Shut up!” “Wire into today’s music….Blah, blah, blah.”
End of smooth jazz format and some of the stunting before launching the new top 40 format
Legal ID: KHYS 98.5 Port Arthur-Houston/KJOJ-FM 103.3 Freeport-Houston
Toni Braxton/“Unbreak My Heart” (Remix)
Proyecto Uno/“Tiburon”
Spice Girls/“Wannabe”
Angelina/“Release Me” (Remix)
Keith Sweat/“Twisted” (“Sexual Healing” Remix)
Planet Soul/“Set U Free” (Remix)
No Doubt/“Don’t Speak”
No Mercy/“Where Do You Go”
Debbie Deb/“When I Hear Music”
Az Yet/“Last Night”
Le Click/“Tonight Is The Night”
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Other articles including Houston stations
Other articles including Beaumont/Port Arthur stations
Aircheck: WBSB 104.3 Baltimore Format Relaunch February 18 1992
History
In 1990, hot AC was the new hot format in the industry with many long-time top 40 outlets making the shift to the more adult top 40 sound. Down I95 in the adjacent Washington DC market, WRQX 107.3 ended its long run as top 40 “Q107” in 1990 with the shift to hot AC under the new “Mix 107.3” handle. The same thing happened in Baltimore when top 40 WBSB “B104” made its shift in 1990. Unlike Q107, however, it kept its heritage name.
In 1992, it finally jettisoned the B104 identity more associated with top 40 and relaunched as “Variety 104.3.” More on that — and the audio — below. The format change was not at all successful, and it became the start of more than a half dozen changes to follow in the next 15 years. WBSB would change calls later to WVRT to match the “Variety” handle. In 1994, it became short-lived soft AC WSSF “Soft 104.3,” which then led to classic hits WOCT, which itself evolved to classic rock. After a couple of rebrands of the classic rock format (including briefly as “B104.3” WXFB), it became smooth jazz WSMJ. In 2008, it changed formats again to modern rock WCHH “Channel 104.3,” which would flip formats again and become top 40 WZFT “Z104.3” a year later, which it remains today.
About This Aircheck
Many sites on the Internet note incorrectly WBSB changed from top 40 “B104” to hot AC “Variety 104.3” on February 18 1992. As I mentioned above, B104 had already been hot AC at this point. If I have the stamina to keep digitizing cassettes and doing this each week, I have a cassette from October 1990 with WRQX “Mix 107.3” on one side and WBSB on the other side and WBSB is already established as the “All New B104 with no rap and no hard rock” and a 1980s recurrent-heavy hot AC playlist. So look for that in a future October edition…
What did happen on this date was the name change and playlist adjustment with adding more gold, particularly from the 1970s, under the positioner of “Today’s Hits, Yesterday’s Favorites.” This audio is basically the final 25 minutes of the B104 brand with morning host Chris Emory, a montage of audio and jingles from B104’s run as a top 40 station, the introduction of the new Variety 104.3 handle, and the first hour under that brand with the adjusted playlist.
Shanice/“I Love Your Smile”
Steve Winwood/“Higher Love”
John Mellencamp/“Small Town”
Vanessa Williams/“Save The Best For Last”
Legal ID: WBSB 104.3 Baltimore
Format relaunch
The Doobie Brothers/“Listen To The Music”
Paul Young/“What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted”
Billy Joel/“Only The Good Die Young”
Whitney Houston/“All The Man That I Need”
Genesis/“No Son Of Mine”
Stevie Nicks & Don Henley/“Leather And Lace”
Curtis Stigers/“I Wonder Why”
Dire Straits/“Sultans of Swing”
Bonnie Raitt/“I Can’t Make You Love Me”
Van Halen/“Dance The Night Away”
Simply Red/“Stars”
Tina Turner/“What’s Love Got To Do With It”
Foreginer/“Feels Like The First Time”
The Rembrandts/“Just The Way It Is, Baby”
Aircheck: KTUX 98.9 Shreveport “Hot Hits Tux 99” February 23 1992
History
Licensed to Carthage TX, KTUX signed on the air in 1985 and the KTUX calls are the only calls the 98.9 facility has ever had. Its first format was top 40 “Fun Radio Tux 99.” As discussed in previous editions, the early 1990s were unkind to the top 40 format nationally. The music was not all that strong and the format was splintering with top 40 outlets moving to hot AC, rhythmic, or more rock-based. KTUX would evolve by the end of 1992 into “Tux 99 Rocks” and something not easily classified — a little bit of pop, current rock, and a good dose of classic rock. It went all the way to album rock as “99X, the Rebel Rocker” in 1994. In 2018, KTUX became classic rock “Highway 98.9,” its current format.
Unlike the other big Shreveport FMs and TV stations which broadcast from towers north of Shreveport, KTUX’s tower is about 15 miles WSW of Shreveport. As advertised in the aircheck below, that 1049’ “Tux Tower” was on “a high hill on the Texas/Louisiana border” and was available for rent if your business needed a place to locate a two-way antenna.
About This Aircheck
Like the WBSB audio above, this aircheck also dates back to this week in February 1992. 1992 was definitely not a strong time for quality hits that would stand the test of time. There were a lot of familiar acts on the charts — Styx, Robert Palmer, Bryan Adams, Heart, Richard Marx, MC Hammer — just with a lot of their long-forgotten D-list hits. Though, as the owner of a Dodge Challenger Shakedown, the Bob Seger song regularly pops up into my brain when I take it out for a ride… DJs Kevin McCormick followed by Kevin Clay for the start of the local Tux 99 weekly countdown show are in control of Tux 99 on a Sunday during a “couch potato weekend.”
Radio nerd stuff: Until it became 99X, Tux 99 alternated its legal ID each hour between Longview/Marshall and Shreveport/Bossier City in its ID list after its city of license, Carthage TX. As the aircheck spans 90 minutes, both are heard. Although KTUX was based in Shreveport, with its tower location, half of its coverage area is in East Texas.
Styx/“Love At First Sight”
Big Audio Dynamite/“The Globe”
Robert Palmer/“You’re Amazing”
Legal ID: KTUX 98.9 Carthage TX-Longview TX-Marshall TX
Robert Tepper/“No Easy Way Out”
John Mellencamp/“Again Tonight”
The La’s/“There She Goes”
David D./“I Go Crazy”
Roxette/“Spending My Time”
Kathy Troccoli/“Everything Changes”
RTZ/“Until Your Love Comes Back Around”
Jon Bon Jovi/“Miracle”
Bryan Adams/“Thought I’d Died And Gone To Heaven”
Heart/“I Didn’t Want To Need You”
Chris Cuevas/“You Are The One”
Bob Seger/“Shakedown”
Paul Young/“What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted”
Legal ID: KTUX 98.9 Carthage TX-Shreveport LA-Bossier City LA
Tux 99 Hot Rockin’ Top 30 Countdown
Last Week’s #1) Right Said Fred/“I’m Too Sexy”
30) Atlantic Starr/“Masterpiece”
29) The Williams Brothers/“Can’t Cry Hard Enough”
28) Richard Marx/“Hazard”
27) Van Halen/“Right Now”
26) MC Hammer/“Do Not Pass Me By”
Aircheck: KQID 93.1 Alexandria LA “93QID” February 22 1992
History
KQID signed on the air September 17 1978. Like KTUX, the KQID calls are the sole calls to ever be assigned to this facility. It branded for a long time as “93QID” before changing handles to “Q93” in the mid-1990s, which it remains today.
KQID has a big, full class C signal. Unlike the other big FMs in the market, which broadcast from south of Alexandria, KQID broadcasts 28 miles northeast of Alexandria.
About This Aircheck
I recorded the KTUX aircheck above, this one, and the KZMZ one that follows on a road trip. Both this one and the KZMZ one are from Saturday evening.
Bad Company/“Walk Through Fire”
One 2 One/“Peace Of Mind (Love Goes On)”
Soho/“Hippy Chick”
Boyz II Men/“Motown Philly”
George Michael & Elton John/“Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me (Live)”
Def Leppard/“Pour Some Sugar On Me”
Kenny Loggins/“The Real Thing”
Legal ID: KQID 93.1 Alexandria
Prince/“Diamonds and Pearls”
Tina Turner/“Love Thing”
Londonbeat/“I’ve Been Thinking About You”
Roxette/“Church Of Your Heart”
Michael Bolton & Kenny G/“Missing You Now”
Color Me Badd/“I Wanna Sex You Up”
Aircheck: KZMZ 96.9 Alexandria LA “Power 96.9” February 22 1992
History
KZMZ is Alexandria’s oldest FM, signing on in the 1940s as KALB-FM, the FM sister KALB-TV 5 and KALB 580. It changed calls to KSLI in the early 1970s. On July 1 1980, KSLI changed from easy listening to R&B KTIZ. By the end of the decade, it would become top 40 KZMZ “Power 96.9.” KZMZ would flip to rock several years afterwards. These days, it is classic rock and is now co-owned with KQID.
KZMZ had a full class C signal at the time of this aircheck.
It has since slightly downgraded as a class C0 and now broadcasts from a tower that it shares with co-owned KKST 98.7 and KRRV-FM 100.3 18 miles south of Alexandria.
About This Aircheck
Taped on the same Saturday night as the KQID aircheck above, here is how the former format foe to KQID sounded.
Mr. Big/“To Be With You”
Michael Bolton & Kenny G/“Missing You Now”
The La’s/“There She Goes”
Bad Company/“If You Needed Somebody”
Legal ID: KZMZ 96.9 Alexandria
Natural Selection/“Hearts Don’t Think (They Feel)”
Huey Lewis & The News/“It Hit Me Like A Hammer”
Stevie Nicks & Don Henley/“Leather And Lace”
Eddie Money/“I’ll Get By”
Shanice/“I Love Your Smile”
Kylie Minogue/“The Loco-Motion”
Depeche Mode/“Personal Jesus”
Nia Peeples/“Kissing The Wind”
As always, the logos and other intellectual property belong to the stations. The recordings were made from over the air broadcasts.
Have to ask a question: How long did they run the "Radio Sucks/Whatever" sounders? Was it something that they thought would piss off the target audience's parents?
Have to ask a question: How long did they run the "Radio Sucks/Whatever" sounders? Was it something that they thought would piss off the target audience's parents?