Radio This Week Back Then #73: June 29-July 5
Beginnings and endings: First day of modern KDGE "the Edge" and adult hits KJKK "Jack FM" D/FW and the San Francisco format shuffle ending country KSAN "K-San" to make way for KYLD "Wild"
What was on the radio this week…back then. This is a weekly visit of radio audio from this week in past years for those that enjoy radio history, those working in radio looking for promotional ideas, or stations looking to re-find lost audio of their heritage. If you enjoy these weekly audio rewinds, they take a lot of time to put together, so please do me a favor, subscribe, and share and pass it on. Thank you! A searchable and sortable index of all the audio is located on the Aircheck Index page.
This week:
D/FW | modern rock KDGE “94.5 the Edge” (first day, 1989) and adult hits KJKK “100.3 Jack FM” (first day, 2004)
San Francisco | country KSAN “94.9 K-San” sign-off and flip to R&B-dance KYLD “Wild” (1997)
Happy reading and listening!
Related: D/FW, 94.5 Dallas/Fort Worth, KDGE
Presently adult R&B KZMJ, we go back this week to the decade long run of modern rock KDGE on the 94.5 D/FW rimshot facility.
Aircheck
This aircheck comes from KDGE’s first day on 30 June 1989. After being sold, the new owners dropped SMN’s hard rock Z-Rock network and flipped KZRK to modern rock KDGE “94.5 the Edge, the Cutting Edge of Rock.”
Like the San Francisco stations further below, KDGE would end up being part of Chancellor Media and similar to the situation in San Francisco, Chancellor found itself with too many FMs to fit under ownership caps in D/FW. Like the San Francisco situation below, Chancellor also spun off a weaker FM to get back under the caps. In this case, it spun off 94.5, but moved the KDGE intellectual property to the stronger 102.1 Fort Worth-Dallas signal it was keeping. KDGE’s “Edge” modern rock format would continue there until the end of 2016.
Audio
Aircheck Log
Related: D/FW, 100.3 Dallas/Fort Worth
After two less-than-successful attempts (“Hot 100” and “Wild 100”) with CHR, KRBV finally found success flipping to the then-fast-growing “playing what we want” adult hits format and “Jack FM” brand on 1 July 2004, which is still remains running today.
Aircheck
KJKK began stunting the morning of the 1st and flipped to the new format midday. I recorded this aircheck from that first afternoon. As with most “Jack FM”s, KJKK ran jockless. It did add DJs more than a decade later. The constant since its 2004 debut has been Howard Cogan’s voice for the clever, and often snarky, liners.
Audio
Aircheck Log
Related: San Francisco
In the merger mania of the 1990s, Evergreen Media and Chancellor Communications were combining to form Chancellor Media in 1997. Evergreen was also purchasing Gannett’s last remaining stations, including classical KDFC-FM 102.1 San Francisco, as it exited radio completely. As a result, the newly combined Chancellor had to spin off some Bay Area stations to stay within ownership caps, so KDFC-FM 102.1 was spun off to Bonneville and R&B KYLD 107.7’s lesser facility was to be sold off to Susquehanna, with Chancellor keeping the KYLD intellectual property to move it down to the better signal of country KSAN 94.9.
July 1997 turned out to be a busy month for format changes in the Bay Area with the former KPIX-FM 95.7 also flipping to top 40 “Z95.7” (under the KOYT and later KZQZ calls) the week after 94.9 and 107.7 got new formats up and running.
Aircheck
This aircheck is the final 20-25 minutes of country KSAN “94.9 K-San KSAN” and then the flip to simulcasting dance-leaning R&B KYLD 107.7.
The KSAN sign-off includes farewells from staff and listeners and a brief retrospective on KSAN’s history, including some audio of its rock-to-country flip in November 1980. KSAN then played its last song, Garth Brooks’ “The Dance.” After that, right after midnight on 4 July 1997, KSAN just broadcast silence for 8 minutes (edited down here) before it joined a KYLD simulcast mid-song and KYLD’s late night slow jamz “Turn Off The Lights” show.
The pair simulcasted for several days. Afterwards, the “Wild” format and KYLD calls remained on 94.9, and the KSAN calls moved to 107.7 and that frequency flipped to classic rock “107.7 the Bone.”
Audio
Aircheck Log
As always, the logos and other intellectual property belong to the stations. The recordings were made from over the air broadcasts. Similarly, other data (charts, ratings, etc.) belong to their respective owners.