Variety Hits
101.1 WCBS-FM Returns
When Dan Mason returned as President of CBS Radio in the Spring of 2007, the first thing he did was make it clear that many of the blunders of the past few years needed to be fixed. The “Free-FM” brand was slowly dissolved, leading to the return of K-Rock. San Francisco’s KFRC was relaunched on a new frequency just a few months after that station had dropped its heritage format. All that remained was dealing with that pesky Jack in New York. On July 12, 2007 at appropriately 1:01pm, Jack shifted over to 101.1’s HD-2 signal and made way for the return of a slightly modified WCBS-FM. Dan Taylor and Bob Shannon were brought back, but were joined by newcomers Broadway Bill Lee, Joe Causi and more 80’s music. Note: This is quite long, running at almost 27 minutes, ...
95.7 KMAX-FM goes from Variety Hits to Country “The Wolf”
The 95.7 frequency in San Francisco saw its fair share of formats during its decade under Bonneville ownership. There was CHR “Z95.7”, Classic Rock “The Drive”, Country “The Bear”, and Variety Hits “95.7 Max-FM”. None of the formats ever saw great success, leaving the station as a perennial underperformer to sister AC KOIT and Classical KDFC. In early 2007, Bonneville agreed to swap its San Francisco cluster to Entercom in exchange for stations in Cincinnati and Seattle. With Entercom taking over, on February 28th at 12:30pm 95.7 Max-FM came out of a stopset into a countdown to 7:50 the next morning. “The Wolf” country brand has exploded across the country, however Entercom has seen the most success with the brand with recent laun...
Classical WGMS Becomes Variety Hits “George 104”
Previous Format: Classical New Format: Variety Hits Date & Time Of Change: January 22, 2007 at 3:00pm More Info: Wikipedia
100.5 KMZQ becomes Jack-FM
Throughout the spring and early summer of 2005, Infinity spread the highly publicized “Jack FM” brand to many of the company’s less successful FM outlets, citing early success at KJKK “100.3 Jack FM” in Dallas. Las Vegas was just one of many markets targetted by Infinity for “Jack FM”. One of Infinity’s stations in Las Vegas was KMZQ, which began as soft AC “Klassy 100” in 1989 before evolving into “Lite 100” a few years later. However, despite additions such as the John Tesh Radio Show and consulting by industry expert Gary Berkowitz, KMZQ was unable to beat Clear Channel’s market leader, KSNE “Sunny 106.5”. These factors and others led KMZQ to become Infinity’s weakest Las Vegas outlet, making...
101.1 WCBS-FM Becomes Jack-FM
Previous Format: Oldies “101.1 CBS-FM” New Format: Variety Hits “101.1 Jack-FM” Date & Time Of Change: June 3, 2005 at 5:00pm More Info: Wikipedia Related Change: 101.1 WCBS-FM Returns It was the day many never thought would happen. And when it happened, two of the top three radio markets would simultaneously wonder what had happened. At around 3:50pm WCBS-FM midday jock Bill Brown hinted at something about to go down in his final break. At 4:00 the station played a half-hour of songs with nothing but jingles in between. However, each song hinted ominously at what was to come. Songs like “Hit The Road Jack” and “Movin’ Out” led into Frank Sinatra’s “Summer Wind”. At 4:30, a 5 minute stunt loop led into the introdu...
92.7 WKIE & 92.5 WDEK begins simulcasting “Nine-FM” WRZA
Previous Format: Spanish CHR New Format: Variety Hits Date & Time Of Change: November 22, 2004 at 9:00am More Info: Wikipedia
Wild 100 KRBV becomes Jack-FM KJKK
Previous Format: Rhythmic CHR New Format: Variety Hits Date & Time Of Change: July 1, 2004 at 12:00pm More Info: Wikipedia Thanks to Bob Perry for submitting this aircheck. >
WRZA Becomes Nine-FM
Previous Format: Regional Mexican “La Raza 99.9” New Format: Variety Hits “99.9 Nine-FM” Date & Time Of Change: June 15, 2004 More Info: Wikipedia Aircheck Contributed by Jeremy Andrews
106.1 Bob-FM Debuts
The Classic Hits format known in most places as Jack or Bob had made great inroads in Canada after being developed as a Webcaster on Long Island, NY. It was only a matter of time until someone took a chance on the format in the United States. One of the first was WPYA in the Hampton Roads. Bob was such a success that just 6 months after its debut, it was moved to the stronger 93.7 signal in the market. Aircheck Contributed By Bob Corbin of VARTV.com
