Radio This Week Back Then #35: September 15-21
WAPP "Hot 103 WAPP, the Apple" New York City, KKBQ Houston "93Q" to "92.9 Easy Country" flip, KHFI Austin move from 98.1 to 96.7 "K96.7," KTSR "Star 92" Bryan/College Station
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:
New York | top 40/rock WAPP 103.5 “Hot 103 WAPP, the Apple”
Houston | KKBQ-FM/AM 92.9/790 flip from top 40/rock “93Q” to country “92.9 Easy Country”
Austin | top 40 KHFI 98.1 migration to KQFX 96.7 “K96.7”
Bryan/College Station | AC KTSR 92.1 “Star 92.1”
Happy reading and listening!
Related: New York
The WAPP era on NYC’s 103.5 was fairly brief — just about 4 years (1982-1986) split between rock and top 40. This audio is from 1985, not too long after a shift to top 40/rock. At this point, it was using “Hot 103 WAPP” as its branding. Unable to make much of a dent against CHR rivals WPLJ 95.5 and WHTZ 100.3 “Z100,” WAPP rebooted in 1986 as rhythmic CHR WQHT “Hot 103,” which would be the start of a far more successful run for the “Hot” brand.
In September 1988, WQHT and country WYNY 97.1 swapped intellectual property and the WQHT calls, format, and “Hot” brand moved to 97.1, where, of course, it continues today. 103.5 is presently rhythmic AC WKTU “103.5KTU.”
Having top 40/rock KEGL 97.1 Dallas as my top 40 outlet of choice in high school, I fully embrace this brief era of WAPP. Musically — even “Another Brick In The Wall” — this could have been a 45 minute music log of KEGL at that time.
Related: Houston, KKBQ, 92.9 Houston, 790 Houston
18 September 1991: End of CHR “93Q”
This week in 1991 marked the end of the first run of “93Q” in the Houston market as its CHR days came to an end. KKBQ’s run began in the summer of 1982 on the AM dial when sister full-service AC KULF 790 flipped to top 40 “79Q,” which was featured in RTWBT #24. As I covered last month, on the 17th of August 1991, KKBQ flipped to a temporary rock 40 format as “93Q, Houston’s Rock Hits.”
The first aircheck is from late evening of 18 September 1991 when that temporary rock 40 format and the first run of the “93Q” brand came to an end. Earlier that day, the DJs disappeared, and the station became jockless. So, it seemed pretty apparent the flip was coming, so I got a blank 90 minute cassette and started rolling in case the flip happened at midnight.
At midnight, after playing the Scorpion’s “Wind Of Change,” KKBQ gave a legal ID and started stunting with the sounds of ocean (or Gulf of Mexico, perhaps) waves crashing ashore. That seemed to be the end of it…except, maybe a board op wasn’t ready to see 93Q go as 48 seconds into the stunting, we get an abrupt “93Q rocks!” into Guns ‘N Roses/”Paradise City.” A few more rock tracks came after that before it was cut-off and the stunting of the waves resumed…
19 September 1991: Debut of “92.9 Easy Country”
This aircheck picks up the following morning when the stunting came to an end and the debut of the new “soft country hits” format began. It was branded as “92.9 Easy Country.” The kick-off features a montage of songs with “easy” in the lyrics. Honestly, it is a bit joyless in execution. So, it was not a surprise the format did not last very long. KKBQ shifted directions the following year and got on the “hot country” format bandwagon and brought back the “93Q” brand by relaunching as “93Q Country, Houston’s Fresh Country Hits.” Presently, KKBQ-FM remains country “93Q” today.
Related: Austin, KHFI, 98.3 Austin
1990 was an interesting time period for Austin’s top 40 KHFI. KHFI had long been on a weak class A facility at 98.3 MHz. The signal proved to be a disadvantage against 100 kw class C rival KBTS 93.3 “B93,” which, although a rimshot that moved into the market in late 1986, still reached more people than KHFI did. KHFI gained the upper hand when it moved to 98.1 and jacked up to 100 kw as a C1 — and a full market signal compared to KBTS’s rimshot signal — in the spring of that year. The move helped KHFI to quickly overtake B93 in the ratings.
Then, both the owners of KHFI and the owners of oldies KQFX 96.7 “the Fox” sold their properties with both sets of new owners readying to close on them about the same time. KHFI’s new owners bought it in order to lease it out to the owners of country KVET 1300 “K-Vet” and country KASE 100.7 “Kase 101” to allow KVET a FM simulcast. Seeing a top 5 station getting killed off led KQFX’s new owners to work out an arrangement to take the intellectual property of KHFI and move it to KQFX.
This aircheck is from the temporary simulcast between KHFI and KQFX to move the K98.1 listeners to 96.7, now rebranded as “K96.7.” After the brief simulcast, KHFI flipped to simulcasting KVET. A station in California had tried to get the KHFI calls, so the process of moving the call letters took longer — the KHFI calls moved to 96.7 and 98.1 became KVET-FM a month later at the end of October.
Presently, 98.1 remains country KVET-FM, although the AM, KVET, broke from the simulcast and flipped to sports in the late 1990s. 96.7 remains KHFI, though it was rebranded to “96.7 Kiss FM” in 2001.
Note: I recorded this while in college — 92 miles from KQFX’s transmitter and 85 miles from KHMX 96.5 “Mix 96.5” Houston’s. I got the 96.7 signal to hold for about 98% of the 90 minute tape, but it sometimes faded briefly, allowing KHMX’s maxed out full class C booming signal to bleed in. So, KHMX briefly makes an appearance in the audio…
Related: Bryan/College Station, 95.1 Bryan/College Station
This aircheck of AC KTSR “Star 92.1 KTSR” comes a few weeks before it dropped the AC format and flipped to AOR. It initially kept the “Star 92” handle with the rock format, but dropped it shortly after the flip. The AC format had only lasted about 3 1/2 years, debuting in February 1987 after a decade as a CHR (WTAW-FM “92W” and then KTAW “92K”). Before top 40, WTAW-FM had several formats, dating back to its sign on in the summer 1964, making it the longest-running FM outlet in the immediate Bryan/College Station metro (see the footnote on the reasoning, if interested in obscure and nerdy Texas radio history).1
CHR returned after both the rock format and the 92.1 signal signed off in February 2003. KTSR had been granted by the FCC an upgrade by moving off the class A 92.1 facility and moving to 95.1 as a 50 kw C2. On 3 March 2003, the station signed back on as CHR KNDE “Candy 95,” which remains its present format.
As for this aircheck from this week back in 1990, like many smaller market outlets, it was quick to jump on newly released material. There are quite a few tracks on here that have been long forgotten; heck, I don’t even remember hearing some of these — and I must have since I recorded this four days after I taped the KHFI/KQFX one above. Some of these songs appeared only the AC charts, but never crossed over to the Hot 100.
Some of these took a bit of effort to identify as lyric searches and even Shazam were no help. I learned some obscure music trivia going down a few rabbit holes. So, here’s a fun trivia question: Which one of the songs in KTSR’s aircheck log below never charted, yet was remade in 1994 by a former Bangles lead singer, who never released it? Add a comment with your answer…
As always, the logos and other intellectual property belong to the stations. The recordings were made from over the air broadcasts.
Country KTTX 106.1 Brenham TX also covers Bryan/College Station, and it traces its first air date also to 1964, when it was KWHI-FM. The FCC actually shows it licensed earlier than WTAW-FM, but license date in the old FCC cards does not equate to sign on date. The old Broadcasting Yearbook shows KWHI-FM as signing on a month after WTAW-FM, but it often was wrong on first air dates. WTAW-FM’s testing and sign-on is well-documented in the archives of the local paper; KWHI-FM, no so much. So, it is not clear who came first…but, either way, KWHI-FM signed on as a class A on 106.3 and did not cover Bryan or College Station. It upgraded to a 50 kw C2 and moved to 106.1 in the early 1990s, giving it coverage over the market. So, the former WTAW-FM/now KNDE has the longest tenure of actually serving the market.