Radio This Week Back Then #60: March 16-22
'80s Flashback: rock CHR KQLZ-FM "Pirate Radio" Los Angeles debut, San Antonio CHRs KSJL (in AM stereo!) and KITY, and rock CHR WLRS "LRS102" Louisville
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: Radio audio, history, and musings from radio this week back then…
Los Angeles | rock CHR KQLZ “Pirate Radio” (1989 debut and following day)
San Antonio | CHRs KSJL “All Hits 76 KSJL” and KITY (1985)
Louisville | rock CHR WLRS “LRS102” (1986)
Happy reading and listening!
Related: Los Angeles, KQLZ, 100.3 Los Angeles
Presently the Los Angeles market K-Love affiliate KKLQ, these airchecks go back to March 1989 for the debut of top 40-rock KQLZ-FM “Pirate Radio 100.3.”
100.3 History
“Pirate” and its rock-leaning top 40 approach made industry waves with former WHTZ 100.3 New York’s Scott Shannon behind it, but it didn’t catch on with listeners. It shifted two AOR two years later and then flipped to soft AC KXEZ “EZ100.3” in April 1993. More than a half dozen formats would come over the next two decades before it was sold to Educational Media Foundation (now K-Love) and flipped to its flagship national contemporary Christian format as KKLQ in 2017.
Aircheck: KIQQ To KQLZ-FM Change
This aircheck features the sign off of soft AC KIQQ and the flip to KQLZ-FM. The format change includes a montage of clips from classic LA radio stations. The 18 March 1989 The Los Angeles Times’ story on the launch:
Westwood One’s $54-million gamble in the hotly competitive Los Angeles radio market went on the air at 5:03 a.m. Friday. “Pirate Radio” KQLZ-FM (100.3), featuring a mix of classic hard rock, Top 40 and dance music, ended the 16-year reign of KIQQ-FM, which for the past three years had been calling itself K-LITE Radio.
With KQLZ and the premium price it paid to buy the station from Outlet Communications, Westwood One has entered the Los Angeles ratings race in a bombastic way. Westwood One president Norman Pattiz hired New York’s top morning deejay, Scott Shannon, to program and staff his new station.
Shannon, who will act as morning drive-time deejay as well as KQLZ’s programmer and a Westwood One vice president, denied reports that his contract with the company is worth $15 million initially, but did say that it could be worth that much it the station is successful.
“Ladies and gentlemen, at this time K-LITE signs off the air forever,” said an announcer who recommended that easy-listening music fans tune to four other Los Angeles FM stations: KTWV (94.7), KJOI (98.7), KSRF (103.1) and KOST (103.5).
With that, K-LITE / KIQQ played its last soft hit: the 1958 chestnut “The End” sung by Earl Grant.
Times have changed. As noted in the Times article, KIQQ sold for $54M in 1989 — that would be $137M adjusted for inflation in today’s dollars. As of Friday’s stock market close, $137M is the combined market cap of Cumulus Media and Townsquare Media, who collectively own over 770 radio stations in the US today.
Audio
Aircheck Song Log
Aircheck: The Next Day
This aircheck comes from the day after the format flip.
Audio
Aircheck Song Log
Related: San Antonio
760 History
Presently sports KTKR, the 760 facility first signed on the air 1 April 1984 as 50 kw KSJL. Although the migration of CHR nationally from AM to FM was well underway, KSJL signed on with a top 40 format. Even more remarkable was that there were already two FM top 40 competitors in KITY 92.9 “the Next #1, 92-9 KITY” and KTFM 102.7 “Hot KTFM 103.” A third FM would come along by year end in future sister KSAQ 96.1 “Q96.”
From the 2 March 1984 Radio & Records on the future KSJL’s debut…
KSJL President/GM Charles C. Andews Jr. explained to R&R, “We’re building this station from the ground up, and with our 50kw AM stereo signal, we’ll not only serve San Antonio, bit the regional population as well. … KSJL will be very involved with all three of this community’s major ethnic groups, and we’ll provide what I think will be some very innovative programming.”
Alas, the top 40 format only survived a couple of years as KSJL would go on to simulcast KSAQ as “Super Q.”
In October 1988, KSJL broke the simulcast to carry SMN’s Z-Rock network. In 1992, it flipped to SMN’s The Touch adult R&B service. In the following year, that format was moved to FM on KSAQ, and KSJL flipped to talk as “WOAI 760,” taking on the branding of new sister news/talk WOAI 1200. It took the KZXS calls shortly after that and then flipped to the present day sports format as KTKR “the Ticket” in 1994.
Aircheck
This aircheck is from the week in 1985, about a year after KSJL signed on the air. It features the morning drive duo Leo Vela and Blanquita Cullum. At this point, San Antonio was up to 4 CHRs with KSJL, KITY (below), KSAQ, and KTFM.
Audio
Aircheck Song Log
Related: San Antonio, KITY, 92.9 San Antonio
92.9 History
Presently, 92.9 is regional Mexican KROM.
Aircheck
This aircheck comes from the same morning as the KSJL one above. At this point, KITY was generally the #2 rated CHR behind KTFM. KITY would rebrand as “Power 93” in 1986 and use that branding until it flipped to AC KSRR-FM “Star 93” in 1990. A KITY aircheck from a few weeks before that flip is in RTWBT #31.
Audio
Aircheck Song Log
Presently, 102.3 Louisville is soft AC WXMA “102.3 the Rose.”
102.3 History
102.3 signed on back in 1964 as a class A FM operated by the Louisville Radio School, which is where the original WLRS calls derived from. In the early 1980s, WLRS moved from rock to a rock-leaning top 40 format, which is the era from this week’s aircheck.
The station has had a number of formats since then. The current calls were assigned in 2002 when soft AC WULV “Love 102.3” became hot AC WXMA “102.3 the Max.” Since then WXMA has been adult hits “102.3 Jack FM” (2017-2022) and its current soft AC format (2022-present).
The WLRS calls have enough appeal attached to them that they have never really left the market, shuffling from one Louisville market signal to another since they moved off 102.3 in 2000. From 102.3, they were temporarily moved to the 96.1 Stamping Ground KY facility for a few weeks and then to 105.1 Shepherdsville for a 13 year run. From there, the WLRS calls spent three years on 1600 Eminence before moving in 2016 to its present day home on 1570 New Albany IN and its translator W223DK 92.5 Louisville.
Aircheck
Technically, this aircheck falls outside the March 16-22 date range for this week. The cassette was labeled at “17 March 1986,” so I pulled it to include this week, but digitizing it this week and re-listening to it, it was apparent the date was not correct since it clearly is recorded on a weekend rather than a Monday. I was able to pin it down to 15 March 1986 after researching some of the ads and references (i.e. the Loverboy concert date referenced in the audio) in the Louisville newspaper archives.
Audio
Aircheck Song Log
As always, the logos and other intellectual property belong to the stations. The recordings were made from over the air broadcasts. Similarly, other data (charts, ratings, etc.) belong to their respective owners.
Oh my gosh! You're THE radio Chip Kelley! I've seen your name all over the aircheck trade sites of the 2000's. This is so stupid but can I contact you to trade or something? I'm 17 and a KQLZ geek. I would love to talk to you about that station!
Do you have the unscoped March 18th, 1989 KQLZ recording?