Radio This Week Back Then #31: August 18-24
This week: KITY "Power 93" and KSAQ "Q96" San Antonio, KSFM Sacramento, and KHTT Santa Rosa. Enjoy them hour after hour after hour after hour after ...
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!
Have cassette Walkman, will travel and record. A couple of early 1990s trips provided these airchecks I recorded on the road way back then…
San Antonio | KITY 92.9 “Power 93,” KSAQ 96.1 “Q96”
Sacramento | KSFM 102.5
Santa Rosa | KHTT 92.9
The KITY and KHTT ones are right before their top 40 format days ended. Happy reading and listening!
Related: San Antonio
At the time of this aircheck, San Antonio had a 3-way CHR battle that was about to begin reducing down to a field of one. The start of this KITY aircheck signals KITY’s days are numbered. The promo calls out "the rumor that the Power is going to be turned off" during a visit at the “rock quarry.” Why the rock quarry it asks? Who knows…long time rocker KISS 99.5 made the surprise flip to oldies the month before leaving a format hole. That did not get filled by KITY; instead, two weeks after this aircheck, KITY became “Star 93,” an AC sort of between a traditional AC and the emerging hot AC format that later took the KSRR-FM calls.
KITY’s transformation to KSRR-FM was not all that successful (see the chart above). Ratings in the first book dropped and did not really recover.
KITY, like crosstown rival KTFM 102.7, had been a dance/R&B/top 40 hybrid. Both reported to Billboard’s then-Crossover chart. At this point, KITY had softened up a bit to shift a back towards the center with the additions of tunes like Heart’s hit “All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You,” but it still had plenty of dance tracks that never really popped on the Hot 100 chart.
In a fun bit of rivals paying attention, KITY has omnipresent imaging around “the music is great, hour after hour after hour…” and “continuous music, hour after hour after hour…” Rival KSAQ has its own spin on its aircheck further below of the “hour after hour after hour after hour…” liners.
Presently, 92.9 San Antonio is home to regional Mexican KROM “Que Buena 92.9.”
Related: San Antonio
KSAQ was largely the perennial third place finisher in the three-way top 40 race. This was actually the second time in San Antonio that the KSAQ calls and “Q” handle were attached to a top 40 format. The 100.3 facility (currently country KCYY “Y100”) ran a top 40 format as KSAQ “Super Q” for a couple of years in the 1970s.
This KSAQ began its run as “Q96” in January 1984, initially as adult top 40 that shifted to top 40. For a brief bit, it simulcasted with sister KSJL 760 and its large 50,000 watt South Texas signal as “Super Q” and reverted back to “Q96” after the simulcast ended when KSJL flipped to SMN’s Z-Rock. Confusing a lot of trade magazines during the “Super Q” days, KSAQ changed calls to KSJL-FM — and then back to KSAQ on the same day. I don’t think they ever used them on air…but the quirk shows up in the legacy FCC CDBS database as a double call sign change on 14 January 1987.
At this point, with KITY and KTFM being heavily dance and R&B, KSAQ was playing a mix of pop, rock, and new wave/modern rock — “all the killer songs without the disco.” Of all the airchecks I have, KSAQ is the only station that used “killer music” as imaging…they had been using it all year at this time. Kudos to some originality and not being one of a 100+ outlets using “Today’s Best Music.” I loved it myself…and it was pretty impressive as well they had been spending the year tossing out trips to go to concerts around the world with Prince’s concert in Japan as the current one up for grabs in the aircheck. A trip to Tokyo kind of dwarfs a trip to Houston to see Phil Collins that KITY was teasing above.
Although KITY did not opt to fill the AOR format hole with KISS changing to oldies in July, KSAQ would. Six months after this aircheck, they shifted to “96 Rock” to fill the void — which was short-term as KISS would later correct course and return to AOR.
Presently, 96.1 San Antonio is home to top 40 KXXM “Mix 96.1.” In KXXM’s coverage map below, you might notice that its transmitter site is about 30 miles away from KROM’s above. Unlike many markets where the main full-market signals have long consolidated to one or two sites, the San Antonio big FMs haven’t. Dallas/Fort Worth and Houston, for example, have long consolidated the big FMs and TV channels to a common tower farm (Cedar Hill for the D/FW market, Missouri City for the Houston market). In San Antonio, the big TV stations consolidated to near Elmendorf to the southeast of San Antonio, where KROM is located along with KISS 99.5, KSMG 105.3, KVBH 107.5. However, KQXT 101.9, KJXK 102.7, and KZEP 104.5 broadcast from Hemisphere Tower in downtown San Antonio. KXXM is on the northwest side of San Antonio. Another collection of stations is located to the west near Helotes (KAJA 97.3, KBBT 98.5, KCYY 100.3, KONO-FM 101.1).
In recent weeks, I have put up a few airchecks of top 40 outlets that have had long 40+ year runs. KSFM almost fits into that club as the flip from rock to top 40/disco occurred in 1979. KSFM has long had a rhythmic lean to it. Although its always been classified as “rhythmic CHR” for the last 40 years, in the last two decades, it has had some years where one could argue it was really more of a R&B station…particularly during its “#1 for Hip Hop & R&B” days.
Related: KHTT
This is not the first week for KHTT airchecks in this weekly dispatch, except all the previous ones I’ve posted were for Tulsa market top 40 KHTT 106.9 “K-Hits.” Before the KHTT calls found there way to Tulsa, the calls belonged to this station in the Santa Rosa market, an embedded market inside the sprawling San Francisco radio market.
In Tulsa, the calls represent “Hits,” but they were picked up here in 1989 when top 40 KREO rebranded as “the Heat.” By the time of this aircheck, that branding was gone and the station imaged around the call letters as “92.9 KHTT.” The early 1990s collapse of the CHR format nationally was soon to claim them…a couple of months after this aircheck, KHTT shifted to hot AC. Radio And Records dropped them as a CHR reporter 15 November 1991. KHTT changed calls to KVVV in 1993 to match its then “Variety 92.9” brand, freeing them up for use later in the year in Tulsa on the former KAYI.
Presently, the station is country KFGY “Froggy 92.9.”
As always, the logos and other intellectual property belong to the stations. The recordings were made from over the air broadcasts.