Radio This Week Back Then #38: October 6-12
Road trippin' through Fresno (KOKO-FM, KMGV, KRZR), Grand Junction (KKNN, KSTR-FM), and The Four Corners (KKDG, KAZX)
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, I picked some airchecks from a couple of October road trips: a 2010 trip to Yosemite National Park via flying into and out of Fresno and a 2017 road trip through western Colorado (with a detour to Arches National Park in Utah).
Fresno | rhythmic AC KOKO-FM 94.3 “Hit Radio Koko 94,” rhythmic oldies KMGV 97.9 “Mega 97-9,” rhythmic oldies KRZR 103.7 “103-7 the Beat”
Grand Junction | rock KKNN 95.1 “95 Rock,” classic rock KSTR-FM 96.1 “96-1 K-Star”
Four Corners | top 40 KKDG 99.7 “99X,” top 40 KAZX 102.9 “Star 102.9/107-7”
Happy reading and listening!
Fresno
In 2010, Fresno had quite a few rhythmic choices — two rhythmic CHRs (KBOS 94.9 “B95” and KSEQ 97.1 “Q97”) and the three stations below.
The 94.3 facility started out as country KTAA in 1990. It made the interesting choice later to add a block of rap from 5-8PM while maintaining country the rest of the time. KTAA flipped to full-time R&B in February 1992. KTAA went off the air a year later and the station returned with a regional Mexican format. In late 1997, it flipped to rhythmic top 40 “94.3 the Party.” In 1998, Art Laboe purchased the station, and it rebranded as KKPW “Power 94.” In 2001, it became “Killer Oldies,” taking the present day KOKO-FM calls. After that came the rhythmic AC “Hit Radio Koko 94” format that this an aircheck of.
After this aircheck, KOKO-FM flipped to 1960s-1980s classic hits in June 2012. In 2018, it went back to its rhythmic roots as rhythmic oldies “Jammin’ 94.3.”
Presently, KOKO-FM is owned by Radio Punjab and runs its programming aimed at listeners with a South Asian heritage. Recently, Radio Punjab agreed to swap KOKO-FM in exchange for Lotus Communications’ KGST 1600 that will pair KOKO-FM with Lotus’ four other FMs, including KSEQ.
In the summer of 1998, longtime country KNAX became one of the early adopters of the rhythmic oldies format that was emerging and beginning to spread across the US based on the early success of KCMG 100.3 “Mega 100” Los Angeles. Like KCMG, the new KMGV took the “Mega” handle for its rhythmic oldies format. Most “jammin’ oldies” stations flamed out pretty quickly, but KMGV is still around today
What was 20 year rocker KRZR flipped to rhythmic oldies a few days before I flew into Fresno. This aircheck is from October 9 — KRZR dropped rock and flipped to rhythmic oldies “103-7 the Beat” on October 6. The KRZR calls were traded in for the present day KFBT calls a week later on October 13.
The flip created a rare rhythmic oldies format battle with both KMGV and now KRZR/KFBT in the mix. The new Beat branded as “Your Generation’s Old School” and had a playlist that was less “old” than KMGV’s “Jammin’ Oldies.” Although the sample size is small, between the two airchecks, KMGV’s song list averages to 1978 as the release year, while KRZR’s averages to 1990. Today, KFBT is still “103-7 the Beat” and positioned as the “throwbacks” station.
Grand Junction CO
To mix up formats somewhat, here are a couple of rock outlets from a Colorado and Utah road trip starting out in Grand Junction. Both rock KKNN and classic rock KSTR-FM transmit from midway between Grand Junction and Montrose.
As a side note, Arches National Park and the other national parks nearby in Utah get the limelight in this part of the country (and they are spectacular), but Colorado National Monument on the outskirts of Grand Junction is a hidden gym worth a visit if out that way as well.
“95 Rock” signed on the air in 1999 when KKNN flipped from country. The KKNN calls were established in 1994 when the station flipped to country from hot AC KKLY. The hot AC format was short-lived as it had debuted the year before when KKLY shifted from “K-Lyte,” the only “K-Lite”-branded station I’ve come across that spelled it “K-Lyte.”
KSTR-FM has been classic rock for a while now, but it shuffled through a few formats to get there. In 1999, it flipped from classic rock to classic hits with a 2 week stint playing country in there. It then flipped to modern AC soon after that and that quickly shifted to CHR “Star” in the spring of 2000 and then it flipped to 1980s classic hits in 2001.
Four Corners (Farmington NM/Durango CO)
To the Four Corners area for the two CHRs in the area: KKDG 99.7 and KAZX 102.9. KKDG is limited to Durango as a class C2. KAZX, as a C0, covers both the Farmington area and Durango; as well, until recently, it used FM translator K299AJ 107.7 Durango at the time to supplement the coverage. The translator no longer exists as the license was canceled last year.
KKDG traces its beginnings to 1995 when it signed on as KWXA and running the Satellite Music Network’s Real Country feed. It flipped to modern AC KPTE “99.7 the Point” in 1998. KPTE evolved to hot AC “99-7/99-3 the Point” (with the addition on translator K257DQ 99.3 Farmington NM). Circa 2012, KPTE flipped to top 40 “99X.” In 2014, 99.7 changed calls to KKDG and the KPTE calls shifted to the 92.9 signal licensed to Bayfield CO to bring back “the Point” brand.
Last week, KKDG dropped the “99X” top 40 format and flipped to AAA “Radio Free Durango.” For this aircheck, the station was running automated with no DJ and, for “Durango’s Hit Music Station,” it had an odd playlist that was half comprised of unfamiliar, non-hit songs that never charted on the Billboard Hot 100. Some of the songs made it to the “Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles” chart… Compare the song log to KAZX’s further down.
Presently, KAZX is sporting KOLZ as its call letters, which iHeart stashed on the frequency after previously using them in their Albuquerque market cluster. It is still running the “Star” CHR format it was running this week back in 2017. With the 107.7 translator gone, the branding has changed from “Star 102.9/107-7” to just “Star 102.9,” though curiously the logo on their website has never been updated to drop the 107.7 reference.
Unlike KKDG, Star was playing songs that actually had a run on the Hot 100 chart.
As always, the logos and other intellectual property belong to the stations. The recordings were made from over the air broadcasts.