Radio This Week Back Then #34: September 8-14
This week: Z-Rock, another format change at KFMK Houston, WZPL Indy in 1991 and 2017, and WZZQ Terre Haute
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’s airchecks yield another format change, the old Z-Rock satellite format, two from CHR WZPL 99.5 Indianapolis (26 years apart), and an aircheck from a station whose license was later revoked by the FCC after the owner was convicted of disturbing sex crimes and was incarcerated.
Houston | KFMK 97.9’s 1990 flip from AC to oldies
Houston | SMN Z-Rock affiliate KKZR 106.9, 1992
Indianapolis | top 40 WZPL 99.5, 1991 and 2017
Terre Haute | rock WZZQ 107.5, 1991
Happy reading and listening.
Related: Houston, KFMK, 97.9 Houston
KFMK ran an oldies format in the 1980s and evolved to a gold-based AC and then to mainstream AC. This aircheck is their format flip back from AC to oldies “97-9 KFMK, Houston’s Original Oldies Station” this week back in 1990 and features long time Houston voice Lee Jolly. The return to oldies took them out of a crowded AC field with AC KLTR 93.7 “K-Lite” and soft AC KODA 99.1 and put them up against oldies KLDE 94.5 “Oldies 94.5.” As well, sort of in the mix was KQUE 102.9 “FM103, KQ” with its eclectic standards/soft AC mix.
I was not in its demographic for either format being a college student at the time, but I always thought KFMK was fairly well executed and had a pretty solid line up of air talent. With the flip, a lot of things remained the same — “97-9 KFMK” handle, jingles, some of the air staff.
The return to oldies was relatively short-lived as KFMK flipped to rhythmic top 40 KBXX “97-9 the Box” the following April. I posted the audio from the first day of that move earlier this year. Today, 97.9 is still R&B KBXX “the Box.”
Related: Houston
Starting in the 1980s, Satellite Music Network (SMN), later purchased by ABC, offered live 24 hour full-time satellite formats to local stations. The selling point to small or rural radio stations was that SMN’s formats allowed those stations to provide a 24 hour format staffed with DJs and with local branding at a significantly less cost than the station hiring a full-time staff of local talent.
It typically worked with SMN’s formats having DJs in the the SMN studios to host shifts and an inaudible tone would trigger a tape machine at the local station to play pre-recorded station-specific content, like DJ-recorded liners with the station handle (say “Smallville’s Z100”) that would get inserted before the DJ spoke live on the network feed. The idea being of it being programmed remotely but trying to appear local — in a pre-voice tracking era.
The problem was that it wasn’t always flawlessly executed on some local affiliates. Sometimes the recored DJ liner ran on top of the DJ talking live, for example. It was not uncommon to have dead air for several seconds multiple times an hour switching between local content (ads, etc.) and network content.
There was also the issue of “generic talk” since the DJ in the SMN studios (moved to Dallas at the end of the 1980s) would be heard on stations scattered all over the rest of the country — so no reference or call out to any particular town was made. So, for example, the former Waco rimshot KRXX 92.9 “K-Rocks” at one point ran SMN’s CHR format up against the full market signaled — and fully local (at that time) — CHR KWTX-FM 97.5. If Baylor University’s football or basketball program had a huge win or loss, for example, the DJs on KWTX-FM could talk about that on the air, take listener phone calls, etc. That would not be case for KRXX, since the national feed was also on other stations around the country and local Waco references would not make sense for other affiliates, like, say SMN CHR affiliate at the time WLUN 95.3 Lumberton MS, to air.
One exception to SMN’s model was its Z-Rock format. When launched in the 1980s, it was programmed on air as a national format with no attempt to fake-out the audience that it was local. The only automation was only to insert liners for the local frequency, which, as in this aircheck, wasn’t always flawlessly inserted. That being said, IMHO, it was probably SMN’s best format because there was energy from the live jocks not being constrained with “generic talk.” Originally, Z-Rock was all hard rock/metal when it first launched and then eventually broadened out somewhat.
This aircheck was recorded in September 1992, one week after the former short-lived talk and oldies format of KKHU “You 106.9” ended, and it flipped to Z-Rock KKZR. This was the second time Z-Rock was picked up in Houston and the second round with the KKZR calls attached to it as KRBE 1070 Houston flipped to Z-Rock under the KKZR calls in 1988 and ran with it until it flipped back to simulcasting top 40 KRBE-FM 104.1 at the end of January 1991. At this point, Z-Rock had mellowed a tad — still fairly hard-edged, but mixing in some classic tracks from Boston and Pink Floyd rather than its earlier all-metal and hair band days.
Presently, the 106.9 facility is KHPT and runs a classic rock format simulcast with KGLK 107.5 as “Houston’s Eagle.”
Bonus audio: WZRZ
Coincidentally, the WZZQ aircheck I included this week below came on a cassette I was sent in 1991, and the WZZQ aircheck ended with a minute left on the tape, and the last minute was filled with the legal ID of Cincinnati Z-Rock affiliate WZRZ 96.5. I don’t have any other recording of that station from its Z-Rock days, so I included that audio of the legal ID here…
Fun Facts: When the station first flipped to Z-Rock, it changed calls to WZRQ, which seemed too close for comfort for the market’s WKRQ 101.9, who protested. So, the calls flipped to WZRZ. The city of license in the legal ID is Hamilton OH. The 96.5 facility was re-licensed from Hamilton to Lebanon OH in 2002, which is its current allocation.
Related: Indianapolis
So far, the only previous trip on here to Indianapolis was to feature the debut of top 40 “Radio Now 93.1” WNAP-FM (later WNOU) earlier this year. Top 40 WZPL existed well before — and outlasted — WNOU’s lifetime across two frequencies (93.1, and later 100.9). ‘ZPL is another CHR featured here this year that has reached heritage status from being in the format more than 30 years now.
This week, I happen to have audio from them during the late night shift from this week back in both 1991 and 2017.
1991
First up, is late night Monday shift from this week back in 1991.
2017
Skipping ahead 26 years, here is the late night shift from Friday this week back in 2017. Between the 1991 aircheck and this one, WZPL had a few branding changes along the way including a brief run as “Z99.5,” before returning to branding around the calls.
This is my one and only WZZQ aircheck as the station and others under the same ownership had their licenses revoked by the FCC. In 1997, an administrative law judge at the FCC ruled that the license of WZZQ and co-owned stations be revoked under the FCC's character policy. In the FCC orders and public notices, the FCC outlined that the then-owner had been convicted on felonies related to sexual assault of minors and began serving prison time for it in 1994. The full FCC affirmed the ruling in 1998 and the licenses and calls were deleted in 1999. The fate of the stations ended up in the court system with the US Supreme Court declining to hear the case in 2001. With the appeals process ended, the stations were taken off the air later that year.
After the stations were taken off air, the 107.5 Terre Haute frequency went unused for more than a decade and a half until the FCC awarded a new license to what is now WYLJ 107.5 Terre Haute, which runs a feed of the Three Angels (3ABN) religious network.
Back in happier times in 1991, WZZQ was rockin’ the (Wabash) Valley…
Fun Facts: The WZZQ calls have a long connection to rock radio. The first radio station to pick them up and use them was 102.9 Jackson MS in the 1970s, which was one of the earliest AOR stations in that state. When that WZZQ changed to country WMSI “Miss 103” in 1981, the WZZQ calls quickly landed on 107.5 Terre Haute for its new rock format.
As always, the logos and other intellectual property belong to the stations. The recordings were made from over the air broadcasts.