I (just a humble listener mind you) was one of the very first people to ever use the then new identitifier of "95.5" instead of "95 1/2" on air.
That would be KMPC-FM, which then changed to KEDG a few months before their early demise in 1989.
An interesting experiment, and a case study in how what works in one market won't in another. KMPC was considered to be the West Coast equivalent of New York's WNEW. Both big, well-regarded personality MOR stations that by the 80s had become nostalgia/adult standard outlets.
They had too much competition, and in my experience, whenever there are too many stations in one or several comparable formats, the one that plays the most variety of them all will be the loser. It's competition included:
And Pirate Radio didn't sign on until March 17 of 1989. It was K-Lite during the time we're talking about.
The other thing, Flip, is that Golden West chose that timing. KLOS had been in the format since 1971 (1969 if you want to count "Love" on KABC-FM). KROQ had been around since its return in late 1975. KKHR went back to KNX-FM in May of 1986. KLSX debuted in September of '86.
You could absolutely count KRTH as competition as they absolutely shared a certain % of the playlist. KMPC-FM/KEDG played lots of 60s oldies, and remember KRTH's playlist was was much more expansive at the time.
GWB always had a much harder time with its FM properties than 710 AM, KMPC. The "Station of the Stars", which was considered the Gold Standard in radio broadcasting for many years.
Not just when rock had already started going downhill, but when five stations (six if you count KRTH) were already occupying some part of the format they were aiming at.
Yes, 710 KMPC, and 560 KSFO were the MOR stations by which all others would judged...thank you Jim Lange!
My apologies to Portland, I forgot to include 1190 KEX ! And I just realized I also forgot 570 KVI ! Although I must admit I had never listened to KVI.
Please... it was "K-LIT" and never KLIT. Firings were threatened each time the hyphen was removed from the letters mounted on the wall of the building!
Dyslexia kicked in, I read that and thought it was what Scottish guys wear.....KILT.
Three of us, Richard Heftel, Bill Tanner and I sat in the office of the manager of KSCA (appropriately located almost next to the entrance to Forrest Lawn / Hollywood Hills) on the day of the transfer. We were wished good fortune, but told that the station had never been successful because the signal was just not good enough to "come down off the mountain".
KSCA was under a multi-year LMA that was part of Gene Autry's estate planning. So the gear at the transmitter was initially theirs, but it was reset for the new Regional Mexican format.
I was told back in the day by a well-known chief engineer of a competing station that after the 101.9 KUTE xmitter was moved off of Flint Peak to Mt. Wilson and therefore had to reduce that great 82 kW from Flint down to just 600 Watts or so to operate from Wilson, the audio processor was set so that the dynamic range of the station would not exceed about 4 dB. This meant that the needle on the modulation monitor would indicate essentially 100% modulation almost 100% of the time, and supposedly make the station stand out easier (louder) as you tune across the band looking for something to listen to. Unfortunately, this type of setting has been shown to create terrible listener fatigue...but alas, I guess if the listener can make it past 5 minutes for the book, that's all that matters.
How was the launch after the laugh track stunt?
The fact that I need a car to travel within Los Angeles is enough for me to not want to go there.
Depends on what you want to do and where you're trying to go.
