Radio This Week Back Then #37: September 29-October 5
"Stopless Music" as KBTS "B93 Jamz" in Austin
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.
I included 10 airchecks last week; this week is a little less…just one. With a busy week at work spilling into the evenings when I usually work on digitizing the tapes and some travel this week as well, I ran out of time to get more tapes converted.
So, this week is a trip to Austin and the 93.3 frequency to this week in 1991 — or an era about 18 format changes ago (really, 18)…
Related: Austin, 93.3 Austin
Originally serving the Killeen/Temple market, top 40 KIXS “Kicks 93” moved to a big stick between Killeen and Austin and began targeting Austin in late 1986 as top 40 KBTS “B93.” While B93 had a competitive run, including beating incumbent CHR KHFI 98.3 “K98” before it upgraded to a full market signal at 98.1, the frequency has seen a dozen and a half format changes and rebrands since moving in (see the station profile below for all of them).
This aircheck from this week in 1991 was after they shifted to a dance-leaning approach of playing dance, R&B, and remixes of pop tracks as “B93 Jamz.”
At the beginning of 1991, MTV — still playing music videos — began using the phrase “stopless music” in its imaging. A few months later, a lot of top 40 radio stations all over the country were all of a sudden running with “stopless music” sweeps. Here, B93 is one of those followers…
Presently, the station recently flipped to rhythmic throwbacks KGSR “Vibe 93.3.”
As always, the logos and other intellectual property belong to the stations. The recordings were made from over the air broadcasts.