Radio This Week Back Then #39: October 13-19
First days of KODZ (KSNN) “Sunny 95” and KLRX (KRRW) “Arrow 97.9” D/FW plus “Power Cow” WKXX Birmingham and KAFX-FM/AM “K-Fox 95” Lufkin/Nacogdoches
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:
D/FW | first day of classic country KODZ 94.9 “Sunny 95” and classic hits KLRX 97.9 “Arrow 97.9”
Birmingham | CHR WKXX 106.9 “Kix 106, Power Cow 106.9”
Lufkin TX | CHR KAFX-FM/AM 95.5/1260 “K-Fox 95”
Happy reading and listening!
Related: Dallas/Fort Worth, 94.9 Dallas/Fort Worth
The “Oldies 94.9” format and KODZ calls only existed for a year; it debuted in October 1991 when top 40 KHYI flipped to the format to take on incumbent oldies outlet KLUV 98.7 “K-Love.” An expensive marketing campaign that included bringing in legendary DJ Wolfman Jack for some shows on the new station didn’t resonant with enough listeners to bring the ratings. D/FW listeners stuck with “K-Loving the oldies” on KLUV. A year later, back this week in 1992, country KYNG 105.3 “Young Country” took over KODZ via a LMA and flipped it to “Country Favorites Sunny 95.” The calls changed to KSNN a few weeks later. With KYNG running a hot country format, leasing KODZ and flipping it to — essentially — “old country” allowed for selling both ends of the demo.
KSNN became the 5th major country outlet joining WBAP 820, KSCS 96.3, KPLX 99.5 “K-Plex,” and KYNG. The flip of KODZ timed with WBAP picking up Rush Limbaugh’s syndicated conservative talk show, creating a 3 hour block of talk outside the country format…the first step to eventually flipping to news/conservative talk full-time as WBAP would go on to phase out country in the AM and PM drive shifts next and then add another midday talk show the following year.
This aircheck was recorded a few hours into the new format. KSNN’s classic country format ran until 1996 when it flipped to all-news KEWS.
Presently, the station is contemporary Christian KLTY.
Related: Dallas/Fort Worth, 97.9 Dallas/Fort Worth
The same week, a year later, came with another D/FW format change. Then-owner CBS was rolling out a 1970s-based classic hits format branded as “Arrow” across several of its markets that fit musically between oldies and classic rock. The “Arrow” name was derived from the first letters of the slogan “All Rock and Roll Oldies.” CBS’ KCBS-FM 93.1 Los Angeles flipped to “Arrow 93.1” in September. A month later comes this D/FW aircheck from the first day of “Arrow 97.9” on the former soft AC KLRX 97.9 “Lite 97.9”. The calls were later changed to KRRW.
For the concept’s debut in LA, Radio and Records (17 September 1993) profiled the concept:
VP/GM Dave Van Dyke told R&R, "We're staying in the oldies arena, but we've set up a different category of oldies. We felt it was time to address a large segment of music people can't find in one place. This truly different format has elements of Gold and Classic Rock and is somewhere between the two. We're playing only the most popular and familiar music from a Classic Rock library."
Aside from LA and D/FW, CBS put it on in DC (soft AC WLTT 94.7 to WARW) and Houston (AC KLTR 93.7 to KKRW) a month later in November. Numerous non-CBS stations would go on to launch classic hits formats with the “Arrow” brand soon after. Salt Lake City rocker KRSP 103.5 flipped to classic hits “Arrow” in early 1994 and still uses the brand today for its present day classic rock format…making it the longest-surviving “Arrow.”
In D/FW, KRRW fit musically between oldies KLUV and classic rock KZPS 92.5. KRRW ran until May 1997 when it flipped to AC KBFB “B97.9.” In 2000, the station was spun off to Radio One, which flipped KBFB to its current R&B “97.9 the Beat” format.
This aircheck is about two months following the return of the “Kix 106” branding to CHR WKXX. On 31 July, WKXX dropped its “X106” branding and ran a stunt for about a week with a different format of the day. Once the stunting ended, the station returned to its previous “Kix 106” handle with the additional “Power Cow” branding.
During the stunting, Billboard (11 October 1990) profiled WKXX:
It may seem odd that, when ex-WRBQ (Q105) Tampa, Fla., staffers Mason Dixon & Brian Christopher launched their format modifications/lineup changes at WKXX Birmingham, Ala., this week, they seemed to borrow a page from the playbook of "Power Pig 93" WFLZ Tampa, which switched to top 40 last year by demanding money from WRBQ to stay out of top 40.
On Tuesday, July 31, WKXX became the country "Power Cow," begging for a $1.2 million loan from crosstown WZZK. The next morning, it was "the classic cow," targeting classic rock WZRR. On Thursday it became the "Magic Cow," parodying AC WMJJ for about four hours, then went back to classic rock. The real format was expected to hit on Friday.
So why would Dixon, who was so vocal about WFLZ's aggressiveness, employ similar tactics? "This is not a Power Pig turn-on," he says. "We're not condemning other stations. We're not being vengeful. We're not being dirty. We're not attacking other people's personalities. If anything, we're complementing other stations. I want to be in this market a long time and not be known as the jerk who came up here from Tampa."
R&R (9 November 1990) profiled its on-air sound once it got settled:
[WKXX’s Dixon:] "We're now doing a 'Cash Call Jackpot.’ Today's amount is $5.97; it's a spoof on big money contests. Listeners have been calling in to donate money to the jackpot…
The Power Cow is focused on 12-34s, with an emphasis curve on 18-30s. "We heavily daypart the music to put the best stuff where the available audience is. [CHR rival WAPI-FM 94.5] I95 has a teen image. We want adults to see us as a contemporary station that plays hit music, not as an AC. That's why teens are part of our focus in the proper dayparts.
"Unlike I95, we don't use liners and voicers too seriously. ‘The Best Music Mix' and ‘The Most Music' don't mean anything. Instead, we say something like ‘The Power Cow, serving Birmingham for at least three weeks,' 'It's not just cow, it's an attitude,' and 'Just because we're an adult station doesn't mean we have to be boring.’”
The return of “Kix” did not raise the fortunes of the station as WKXX’s then owner filed Chapter 11 a couple of months after this aircheck. In June the following summer, WKXX flipped to SMN’s Real Country feed as WBMH, with most of the staff existing with the flip to the satellite service. Several months later, WBMH brought back the “Kix” branding, though retaining a country format. With the WKXX calls already taken by another radio station up I59 in the Gadsden area, it settled for the WIKX call letters. In the following year, WIKX was leased to country WZZK 104.7, which flipped it to oldies WODL “Oldies 106.9.” In October 2001, it shifted to 80s oldies as “106.9 the Point” under the WBPT calls. WBPT shifted to classic hits “106.9 the Eagle” in 2005, and “the Eagle” later evolved to classic rock. In December 2022, WBPT and four other classic rock stations owned by current owner Summit were all moved to the same branding, playlist, and DJ line-up. Presently, WBPT is “Classic Rock 106.9.”
Aircheck note: WKXX’s city of license was Birmingham at this time. To allow its clustermate at 97.3 to upgrade from a class A licensed to Homewood AL to a C2 licensed to Gardendale, the 106.9 allocation was re-licensed from Birmingham to Homewood in 2004 to preserve “local service” to Homewood.
The 95.5 facility, licensed to Diboll TX, dates back to 1960 when it signed on as country KSPL-FM, the new FM offshoot KSPL 1260. It rebranded as KIPR-FM in April 1981. It’s long run with country ended in March 1986 when KIPR-FM became CHR KAFX-FM and the “K-Fox” brand is still running 38 years later.
This aircheck is of KAFX’s local morning drive show back then. Times have changed between KAFX no longer being locally owned and the realities of the radio industry in 2024. Today, KAFX is mostly voice tracked or syndicated and shares an identical music log with its corporate CHR siblings in other Texas markets.
I was living just north of Dallas at the time and recorded this aircheck of KAFX-FM from there. It’s about 160 miles between my home then and KAFX-FM, but the D/FW radio dial was not as full back then and KAFX-FM would periodically roll in. So, this ended up as the side A of a cassette that has the above KODZ aircheck as the side B since I recorded that aircheck when I came home from work later that day and heard KODZ had flipped midday from oldies to the new classic country format. Given the 160 miles distance, there’s a little background static at times, but the audio is still good.
As always, the logos and other intellectual property belong to the stations. The recordings were made from over the air broadcasts.