Radio This Week Back Then #28: July 28-August 3
KVIL Dallas/Fort Worth, WQUE-FM/AM "Triple The Music Q93" New Orleans, WGGZ "Red Hot Z98" Baton Rouge
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!
ICYMI, earlier this week I published a look at the old rock AC format, including 6 airchecks. If you missed it, you can read — and listen — to it here.
For this week’s regular RTWBT, there is audio for 3 stations via 5 airchecks:
Dallas/Fort Worth | KVIL 103.7 (2016) x 2
New Orleans | WQUE-FM/AM 93.3/1280 “Q93” (1987)
Baton Rouge | WGGZ 98.1 “Z98” (1987) x 2
The 2016 KVIL airchecks cover its last day as a hot AC and the following day as its first with top 40. The Z98 airchecks are from three days apart from this week back in 1987.
The KVIL calls are synonymous from its legendary run as an AC, particularly at its peak in the 1970s and 1980s. In April 1987, Infinity Broadcasting (which folded into CBS Radio and then into Audacy) announced it was purchasing KVIL — for $82M, the highest ever price for a single radio station at the time, and an amount even more impressive in that Dallas/Fort Worth was just the 10th largest radio market at the time. Despite not being in a top 5 market, KVIL was consistently one of the highest billing stations in the country. Adjusted for inflation, $82M in 1987 would be a mind-boggling $226M today. The market cap for Cumulus today is $33.6M, and iHeart is $243M (as of market close 1 August 2024); Audacy, in chapter 11, has a market cap somewhere around a combo meal at Chick-fil-A…
KVIL knew its audience and perfectly served its listener avatar. In a 4 March 2005 article in The Dallas Morning News reflecting on KVIL on the occasion of Ron Chapman’s retirement, longtime KVIL personality Jody Dean summed it up best on KVIL’s powerful relationship with its audience during those days…
"The first rule was that this is your listener and you will treat her like the lady she is… Our job was to go on the air every day to encourage her dreams and allay her fears, so that if no one else was there for her that day, we were."
I bet a lot of stations don’t have an image of who their perfect listener is and even less could some up how they will engage them in two powerful sentences…
Alas, a brand so strong for 30 years can have perceived negatives. The call letters were banished on air, except for the legal ID, in September 1998 as the station rebranded as “Lite Rock 103.7.”
The rationale, explained in the 13 November 1998 Radio & Records…
For years, KVIL has been the definitive, prototypical mainstream AC with huge personality and contest images. Also known for its massive news and information commitment. KVIL has boasted dual news anchors in morning and afternoon drive and flies its own traffic helicopter in both those dayparts. Dallas Cowboys play-by-play was recently added to the station's extensive menu.
But PD Bill Curtis has been extremely sensitive to the CBS Radio outlet's broadness. "This station has been many things to many people. We were truly 'department store' radio. You couldn't find another station in America with as many different departments as KVIL. We've pulled it off for a long time and are the eighth-highest biller in the country. Revenues have been terrific, and we've had a great run."
But Curtis came to the realization that today's adults are different from their parents and that stations have to do what the audience wants. "When you're 'all things to all people,' you're just `okay' for everybody and not `perfect' for anybody. As the market fragmented and the audience aged, the new young adults weren't so tolerant of KVIL's wide spectrum. Their idea of a perfect KVIL was very different from that of our typical 50 -year -old listener?'
The calls would make it back a few years later. They would be ditched again in 2005 on another rebrand to “103-7 Lite FM.” In May 2013, KVIL became “KVIL” again, for the last time. KVIL would soon start to evolve to hot AC and again dropped the calls for just “103-7” on air. Which brings us to the two airchecks from this week back in 2016…
KVIL Aircheck #1: 31 July 2016
When someone finds a job at another company or announces an upcoming retirement, sometimes they get “short-timer’s syndrome” — i.e. just doing the minimum to get by because they are about to go and don’t really care anymore.
Welcome to short-timer’s syndrome radio. This is the last day of KVIL’s hot AC format before officially changing to top 40 on the next day (aircheck #2 below). No DJs, a little bit of imaging, and on auto-pilot since the relaunch is the next day…this is not your mom’s KVIL at all.
KVIL Aircheck #2: 1 August 2016
This is the first day of KVIL’s new top 40 format. KVIL actually tried top 40 in the 1960s, making it the market’s first FM top 40 outlet. Alas, with not all radios, particularly car radios, equipped with FM tuners, it did not compete well against the AMs. Dallas and Fort Worth were separate radio markets back then. On the Dallas side, legendary top 40 KLIF 1190 was dominating the market with shares in the 20s. On the Fort Worth side, KFJZ 1270 and KXOL 1360 were at the top of the ratings heap. So, KVIL’s foray into top 40 was relatively brief…but it flipped to AC and became its own legend.
Musically, it is not at all much different from the day before as the hot AC format was very current-based and bordering an adult top 40. In fact, quite a few songs from the aircheck above appear on this one as well. A few months later, it would pick up the “Amp” brand shared with its corporate top 40 siblings in other markets. For now, it was just “103-7, More Hits, Less Commercials.” The aircheck starts after a commercial break — that was 8 minutes in length.
“Make Me” had an odd chart run. It debuted really strong — first week on the Hot 100 was this week back then at #17. It cratered to #52 the following week and spent several weeks outside the top 40 to bounce back to the 17th spot again in its 7th week, before falling again. So, it debuted and peaked twice at the 17th spot.
Today, KVIL is modern rock “Alt 103-7.” In the profile below, there is no call letter history since KVIL is the only set of calls to be used on the 103.7 facility. One FCC radio geekdom item: the 103.7 facility has a dual city of license. In early 1961, before it signed on the air, the FCC granted amending the 103.7 allocation from Dallas to Highland Park-Dallas. Elsewhere in the market, the 102.1 allocation (currently AC KDGE “Star 102.1”) also maintains a dual city of ID of Fort Worth-Dallas.
In the year prior to this aircheck, WQUE shifted from mainstream top 40 towards being a dance and R&B-driven CHR slotted musically between rival CHR WEZB 97.1 “B97” and R&B WYLD-FM 98.5. From the 20 September 1986 edition of Billboard:
JAY STEVENS heads south to take on the programming duties at top 40 hit outlet WQUE "93Q" New Orleans next week. He leaves oldies / top 40 pair WBBF /WMJQ Rochester, N.Y., where he developed a great track record during his 2 1/2 -year tenure. Says Stevens, "I'd been looking around for a major market position, and this kinda fell in my lap." WQUE VP /GM Dale Madison gives a more detailed explanation of the move. "His [ratings] track record is very appealing, but equally important are his people skills." With Stevens' arrival, you can expect 93Q to lean a little more urban, says Madison. "What I'm trying to do is couple Jay's CHR experience with that of my consultant Jerry Clifton, who really understands the urban format," Madison explains. "We will go right between [CHR] WEZB and [R&B] WYLD. When I became VP/GM three months ago, we made the decision that we could easily be a CHR in Seattle. With New Orleans' heritage of jazz and urban music, we're going to evolve the format into one that's more indicative of the market. We've done our research and the hole is there." WEZB is the top 40 leader and WYLD is the market-leading urban station in New Orleans.
Sure enough, from this aircheck from this week back in 1987, it is between top 40 and R&B. The aforementioned PD, Jay Stevens, is the DJ in this audio. For the song log, I added columns for how the songs peaked on Billboard’s Hot R&B singles chart and the Hot Dance play chart, in addition to the usual Hot 100 peak. From the chart, a couple of observations: (1) it has a lot of recurrents — only 3 songs off the current Billboard Hot 100 were played in this drive time aircheck; (2) songs generally appeared on the pop, R&B, and dance charts (with “Rumors” and “Kiss” both being winners across all three charts), but a few came solely from pop or dance charts that did not crossover to the R&B chart and vice versa.
(Note: I didn’t record this one; it was one traded to me 35 years ago. However, it was dated as being August 3 1987, which was a Monday. Since the aircheck is on a “Winning Wednesday,” it clearly wasn’t recorded on August 3. It no doubt is in other aircheck collections, likely incorrectly dated there as well. An ad I scoped out noted the sale in the ad will end August 1st. It was also the aircheck on the cassette on the opposite side of the 7/30/1987 WGGZ aircheck further below. I can’t be 100% sure…but it would seem highly likely this was recorded Wednesday 7/29/87, which is what I listed it below).
Baton Rouge had a pretty good battle of CHRs in the second half of the 1980s between Z98 and cross-town rival WFMF 102.5. Both were pretty good stations I would periodically catch when visiting relatives in New Orleans. Of the two, Z98 was more rock-driven, particularly noticeable in the second aircheck audio below.
Z98 Aircheck #1: 30 July 1987
With live and locally staffed evening shows largely a thing of the past in most markets these days, gone is the local nightly countdown show. A local “Top 8 at 8,” “Top 9 at 9,” “Top 5 at 9,” or “Top 10 at 10” show was pretty much a staple of most CHRs back in the day. Z98 is the only one I recall with a “Top 15 at 9,” which is what this audio captures.
Z98 Aircheck #2: 2 August 1987
This second aircheck was recorded three days after the one above on a late Sunday afternoon. Z98’s rock lean is really evident on this one — only one purely pop song from Glenn Medeiros in the mix that even includes two classic rock tracks from the 1970s and two from the early 1980s.
Currently, the 98.1 frequency is classic rock WDGL “Eagle 98.1.”
As always, the logos and other intellectual property belong to the stations. The recordings were made from over the air broadcasts.