Radio This Week Back Then #26: July 14-20
KMYZ "Z104.5" and KAYI "Kay 107"/KHTT "K-Hits" Tulsa then (1989), then again (1994), and again (1995); KISM Bellingham; KFBQ-FM "Q98" Cheyenne
What was on the radio this week…back then. This is a weekly visit back to 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!
If you ever used to visit my 100000watts.com online radio and TV directory back in the 1990s and early 2000s, you know I like to constantly tweak things to see if I can continuously refine the experience. I am still learning the Substack platform; one thing it lacks is the ability to have native tables. So, I was listing the corresponding song list for each aircheck in a bulleted list. This week, I am trying to putting that in a table graphic to import since it takes up a little less space and allows for a little more information. For each song, I put the year the song was released. For the CHRs, I also added columns for each song’s chart position on the Billboard Hot 100 for the week of the aircheck and a column on what that song’s eventual peak on the Hot 100 was. Those chart position is also color coded on a scale to visualize the entire song list. Songs not in the Hot 100 that week (usually recurrents or gold) or never on the Hot 100 are colored with a black background. Let me know what you think — interesting or not?
On to this week’s edition…
With a few thousand airchecks, some weeks when I pull the potential candidate list of airchecks within this week’s date range, there are some quirks. One this week is that I have airchecks of Tulsa top 40s KMYZ-FM/AM 104.5/1570 “Hot New Z104.5” and KAYI 106.9 “Kay 107” from this week back in 1989. I also happened to have recorded both of them via a road trip this same week back in 1994 and have another set of airchecks from this week in 1995. So, I included the three pairs of them to listen how those stations evolved over the course of those years. As well, I included two more smaller market stations since histories of small market radio tends to get lost.
This week:
Tulsa:
18 July 1989: Top 40s KMYZ-FM/AM 104.5/1570 “Hot New Z104.5” and KAYI 106.9 “Kay 107”
16 July 1994: Rock KMYZ-FM/AM “Z104.5” and top 40 KHTT 106.9 “K-Hits 106.9”
17 July 1995: Modern rock KMYZ-FM/AM “Z104.5, the Edge” and top 40 KHTT “106.9 K-Hits”
Bellingham WA: Top 40-rock KISM 92.9 “92.9 Kiss’em FM,” 14 July 1993
Cheyenne: Top 40 KFBQ-FM 97.9 “Q98,” 19 July 1992
Up first, the Tulsa audio, but a little background beforehand…
Z104.5 Vs KAYI
When Z104.5 came into the top 40 format from classic rock in 1988, KAYI was the established incumbent. Here are some highlights from the 12 August 1988 edition of industry trade Radio & Records, which ran a profile on the dueling CHRs.1 Then-new KAYI PD Steve Stucker on KAYI having been playing a lot of R&B product…
“‘…and have thinned out that image to bring us more to the middle ground. KAY107 is still the leader in adding that type of product, however, while KMYZ is the leader in adding rock crossovers. Still, with the help of (MD) Duncan Payton, I’ve eaten into their arena by being faster on rock records than KAY107 used to. This was a pretty soft station before I got here.’”
On KAYI’s use of gold…
“‘We’ve cut the gold to around 30%, including recurrents … These music changes have made a major difference in the book. Our teens are really strong with better than a 43 share, while KMYZ and (AOR) KMOD (97.5) each have almost a 19 share.’”
On KAYI’s view of rival Z104.5…
“‘KMYZ’s inconsistency is a plus for us. They’re AC in the day and too rock-oriented at night.‘“
KMYZ’s then-PD Mel Myer’s on Z104.5 versus KAYI…
“‘I’m not tied down with improper input from a consultant,’ he added, taking a shot at KAY107’s situation. ‘As a result, we hand back on the Urban stuff until local research proves it right or wrong. We’re earlier on the rockers. I’m more comfortable playing stuff for heartland listeners. We balance the music so that if we play something too adult then we play something more mass appeal next.’”
At the time of the first aircheck, KAYI was ahead of Z104.5 in the Spring 1989 Arbitron ratings, as published in Billboard in the 12 August 1989 edition:
Now, let’s have a listen…
In this first aircheck from 1989, Z104.5 included some classic rock tracks from Foreigner and Boston, living up to its reputation of playing more rock tracks than KAYI in the R&R profile above. The aircheck is a 90 minute tape recorded right before the KAYI aircheck later below on the same evening. Once you get out of the local nightly countdown shows on each station, the song selection on both stations becomes really recurrent and gold-heavy.
As noted in the station profile graphic above, Z104.5 would shift to top 40-rock, maintaining the “Hot New Z104.5” imaging. How that sounded from 1992 is featured in RTWBT #2. By 1994, for this next aircheck, it had evolved all the way to rock, dropping any remaining pop/CHR titles. As well, on this aircheck from then, KMYZ finally dropped the “Hot New” from the title for just “Z104.5.”
Forward one year to this week back in 1995 and KMYZ is now about four and half months into its new modern rock format as “Z104.5, the Edge, Tulsa’s Modern Rock.” Now 29 years later, it is still running modern rock as “Z104.5, the Edge.” The only change is that its one time, long time AM simulcast finally broke away in 2001 as religious KMUR. The pair are no longer co-owned, and the 1570AM is now regional Mexican KTUZ “La Z.”
Licensed to Muskogee, KAYI upgraded its facilities and began targeting Tulsa as top 40 “Kay 107” (not “K107”) at 12:03AM on 4 September 1982. It’s first promotion was to have listeners to tune to the station and rip the knob off — literally — and mail in the knob for a prize. According to the 15 October 1982 edition of Radio & Records, they got over 700 knobs in the first 8 days…
Fast forward to 1989 and this aircheck was recorded right after the 1989 KMYZ aircheck above on the same night. Included in the aircheck is the full edition of the local nightly “Top 10 10” countdown. I kind of dig the big band-sounding theme for it into the 1980s-era jingle for the legal ID. The weather forecast is courtesy of meteorologist Travis Myer, then at ABC affiliate KTUL 8. In terms of longevity, Myer is still on Tulsa TV, now on CBS affiliate KOTV 6.
KAYI would shift to hot AC and then return to top 40 as KHTT “K-Hits 106.9” in 1993, which leads us to the next airchecks…
This week back in 1994, KMYZ had already shifted to rock, while 106.9 was back to playing top 40 as KHTT. I recorded this aircheck at the same time as the KMYZ one above. For a station using the line “All the Hits,” this aircheck is “all the duds,” as there was very few current songs active on the Hot 100 chart that week spinning and most tracks are recurrents or gold. What 1994 songs that were spinning, outside the “When Can I See You,” were duds.
Forward to 1995 and not much has changed in terms of the song choices being pretty heavy on recurrents and gold and light on songs trending on the Hot 100. The branding subtly changed from “K-Hits 106.9” to “106.9 K-Hits.”
The KISM calls and “Kiss’em” branding date back to January 1971 when the calls and brand debuted under essentially a gold-based AC format of hits from the 1957 to present. Ads at the time called the format “olde golde” (see the station profile graphic above). KISM then moved to AOR and then to top 40.
At the time of this aircheck, it was a few weeks away from flipping to “92.9FM Independent Rock.” At this point, musically, it had already largely evolved to rock, but it was still carrying the old imaging (and jingles) from their top 40 days and a few tracks that didn’t get played much on AOR outlets (i.e. Rod Stewart/”Have I Told You Lately” on this aircheck, which charted on the AC and Hot 100 charts). As such, I had always classified it as top 40-rock, as that variant was alive in some markets at the time (i.e. KMYZ Tulsa in 1992 at this time). Musically, KISM is a pretty good listen to here.
KISM has a fully maxed out class C behemoth of a signal from high atop Mount Constitution, about 18 miles from Bellingham and 41 miles to the south of the much larger Vancouver metro. It does not really target Vancouver, but IDed at this time with both Vancouver and Seattle in its legal ID. Seattle is 77 miles to the SSE of the transmitter location and Tacoma even farther; so it is not really a factor in the Seattle/Tacoma radio market.
Presently, 97.9 Cheyenne is part of iHeart’s Northern Colorado cluster running country as KXBG “Big 97.9.” Before it moved into that market via a new transmitter site in Northern Colorado, it was focused on serving Cheyenne. This aircheck is from its days as top 40 KFBQ-FM “Q98.” The station’s pre-1990 history is not well-documented in newspaper archives or on-line, but the CHR format seemed to have had a run of about a decade before it flipped to classic hits KIGN in 1996.
Of the thousands of airchecks I have, this is the only one that has a station remote involving bungee jumping from 18 stories above the ground. The big event in Cheyenne in late July is the annual Cheyenne Frontier Days Western celebration even and outdoor rodeo, which is referenced a couple of times.
As always, the logos and other intellectual property belong to the stations. The recordings were made from over the air broadcasts.
“Tussle In Tulsa,” Radio & Records, 12 August 1988.
Oh, wow, I had totally forgotten about the Kay-107 big band Top 10 at 10 theme...and yet I recognized it instantly!