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Monster FM

JackBenny said:
Well, here is a link to the article highlighting the debut 97K Monster FM. I have no recollection of this event/format and I guess I was tuned to other stations at the time.

https://books.google.com/books?id=L...=onepage&q="monster fm" san francisco&f=false
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If you blinked at any point during 1979, you missed it. Debuted in January, gone by December. Replaced by a more traditional Top 40/AC hybrid with John Mack Flanagan in the morning...which itself lasted only two years until KCBS-FM became KRQR and JMF went to overnights.
 
I still remember the cool TV commercials for Monster FM 97-K!

michael hagerty said:
If you blinked at any point during 1979, you missed it. Debuted in January, gone by December. Replaced by a more traditional Top 40/AC hybrid with John Mack Flanagan in the morning...which itself lasted only two years until KCBS-FM became KRQR and JMF went to overnights.
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Kcbs-f

LKellerIII said:
No - it wasn't. KCBS-FM was struggling, and tried "Monster FM" as a brand for awhile. IIRC, they ran a TV commercial showing a cartoonish monster laying waste to San Francisco. It was a floperoo.
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It was known as "97K" Monster-FM in late 78/early 79 with an all Disco format going head to head with KSFX, "Disco 104". When the Disco era crashed and burned at the end of Summer in 1979, the station was relaunched as CBS-FM 97. They had promos on the air saying that radio in Northern California had gotten stale and they were guilty of "sitting on our butts". KSFX reverted back to Top 40 as 104 KSFX which of course evolved into AOR a year or so later.


The Disco craze was big in the Bay Area with KCBS-FM, KSFX, KIQI (10 AM to Sundown) and KLIV.
 
I remember 97.3 rebranded as Monster FM right after the 3-way frequency switch of KCBS-FM, KMPX and KEAR (I think it happened in 1978). KCBS had a somewhat-puny 4kw or so on 98.9, so they paid big bucks to move to 97.3's 82kw. This gave them (in their minds) a "monster" signal, hence the rebranding.
 
Michael Rivers Kramer said:
It was known as "97K" Monster-FM in late 78/early 79 with an all Disco format going head to head with KSFX, "Disco 104". When the Disco era crashed and burned at the end of Summer in 1979, the station was relaunched as CBS-FM 97. They had promos on the air saying that radio in Northern California had gotten stale and they were guilty of "sitting on our butts". KSFX reverted back to Top 40 as 104 KSFX which of course evolved into AOR a year or so later.


The Disco craze was big in the Bay Area with KCBS-FM, KSFX, KIQI (10 AM to Sundown) and KLIV.
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If you drove down Castro St. in the mid-late 70s, you'd hear "Disco 104 KSFX" coming out of every bar, store, and restaurant. KIQI was K-101 AM. I remember them as just a repeater of K-101 FM, but I guess they must have experimented with Disco.
 
Signal Geek said:
I remember 97.3 rebranded as Monster FM right after the 3-way frequency switch of KCBS-FM, KMPX and KEAR (I think it happened in 1978). KCBS had a somewhat-puny 4kw or so on 98.9, so they paid big bucks to move to 97.3's 82kw. This gave them (in their minds) a "monster" signal, hence the rebranding.
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September 13, 1978 was the day of the frequency switch. "Monster FM" was largely used in off-air advertising beginning in January of 1979. By Christmas of 1979, the disco was gone and the branding had switched to "97 CBS-FM".
 
LKellerIII said:
If you drove down Castro St. in the mid-late 70s, you'd hear "Disco 104 KSFX" coming out of every bar, store, and restaurant. KIQI was K-101 AM. I remember them as just a repeater of K-101 FM, but I guess they must have experimented with Disco.
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Llew: Simulcast rules in those days said you couldn't do more than 50% of your programming, so KIOI and KIQI had separate programming for half the day. There's an aircheck from November 2, 1979 of KIQI in the afternoon with IDs calling it "Your Imagination Station". Gary Taylor (editor of the Gavin Report) was doing an oldies show---"The K-101 Time Machine"---and at the end of that hour, 5 p.m. I believe, the simulcast resumed.
 
Yes, Michael. I can still remember the jingle that sang "CBS-FM ninety-seven." I suspect that on my death bed in the throws of dementia, I'll be singing radio jingles, perhaps in chronological order from "KFWB Channel 98" forward.
 
LKellerIII said:
Yes, Michael. I can still remember the jingle that sang "CBS-FM ninety-seven." I suspect that on my death bed in the throws of dementia, I'll be singing radio jingles, perhaps in chronological order from "KFWB Channel 98" forward.
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"We think it was the long "You" image jingle that killed him, doctor..."
 
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