Country
“93Q” KKBQ becomes “92.9 Easy Country”
KKBQ stopped playing CHR/Rock at midnight September 19, 1991 and stunted with the sound of the ocean for 6 hours straight with a time check to “Houston’s newest radio station” every 15 minutes. (actually a few minutes after the ocean sounds began it appears that maybe the board operator rebeled against the flip because the music starts again, he manages to play about 4 songs before the sound of the ocean returns… I’ll send this one later) This file picks up on the minute before the launch. Then at 6am in a live remote from The River Oaks Country Club, the general manager says a few words (the same old spiel about “doing months of market research” and “this is what you asked for”) then does a countdown thats followed by a montage of coun...
97.1 WYNY Becomes Hot 97 WQHT
Previous Format: Country “Country 97” WYNY New Format: Dance CHR “Hot 97” WQHT Date & Time Of Change: September 22, 1988 at 5:30pm More Info: Wikipedia In 1988, as part of the purchase of RCA by General Electric, NBC was required to sell off their radio holdings. Emmis Broadcasting acquired NBC’s two frequencies in New York City to upgrade their holdings in the market, but were required to then sell the other stations. While 1050 WFAN moved to 660, Emmis moved its Rhythmic CHR WQHT “Hot 103” to the more powerful 97.1 signal in order to better compete against Z100 and Power 95. The 103.5 frequency was spun-off to Westwood One, along with the WYNY call letters and country programming. Related Changes: Hot 103 WQHT Becomes Country 103.5 WYNY
Hot 103 WQHT Becomes Country 103.5 WYNY
Previous Format: Dance CHR “Hot 103” WQHT New Format: Country “Country 103.5” WYNY Date & Time Of Change: September 22, 1988 at 5:30pm More Info: Wikipedia In 1988, as part of the purchase of RCA by General Electric, NBC was required to sell off their radio holdings. Emmis Broadcasting acquired NBC’s two frequencies in New York City to upgrade their holdings in the market, but were required to then sell the other stations. While 1050 WFAN moved to 660, Emmis moved its Rhythmic CHR WQHT “Hot 103” to the more powerful 97.1 signal in order to better compete against Z100 and Power 95. The 103.5 frequency was spun-off to Westwood One, along with the WYNY call letters and country programming. Related Changes: 97.1 WYNY Becomes Hot 97 WQHT
1050 WHN flips from Country to All-Sports WFAN
Previous Format: Country WHN New Format: Sports WFAN Date & Time Of Change: July 1, 1987 at 3:00pm More Info: Wikipedia Jeff Smulyan had an idea. What if you could recreate barroom discussion of sports on a 24 hour radio station. Lucky for Jeff, he happened to be the President of Emmis Broadcasting, which happened to have an AM outlet in New York that would be a perfect testing ground for the format. WHN had become a legend in the previous 15 years it had with the Country format, with many New York DJ’s that will go into any New York Radio Hall of Fame: Del Demontreaux, Lee Arnold, Dan Daniel, and Dan Taylor to name a few. Equipped with rights to the defending World Champion New York Mets, WFAN signed-on and without making much of a dent in the ratings it did make a name for its...
97.1 WYNY flips from AC to Country
With the publicly known flip of WHN from Country to All-Sports as WFAN taking place on July 1, 1987, it was known that there would be a void for country music in the New York Metropolitan Area. WYNY, was one of four AC stations targeting the same audience. Taking both into consideration, WYNY became “Country 97” 15 hours before the sign-off of WHN. Although Dan Daniel did make the move over to do mornings and later afternoons, WYNY’s future was not meant to be at 97.1 as the station moved to 103.5 in 1988.
KHJ Goes Country
Previous Format: CHR “93 KHJ” New Format: Country “93 KHJ” Date & Time Of Change: November 7, 1980 at 9:00pm More Info: SoCal Radio History, Wikipedia
KICT Becomes T95
Previous Format: Country “95 Country” New Format: Rock “T95” Date & Time Of Change: January 24, 1979 More Info: KICT, Wikipedia
KBLA Becomes KBBQ
Previous Format: Top 40 KBLA New Format: Country KBBQ Date & Time Of Change: June 16, 1967 at 12:00am More Info: Wikipedia, SoCal Radio History
