A question about RKO radio

[dgendvil]

Hello to all you, I just wanted to let you know about the RKO stations, the same guys that brought you Boss Radio in the mid-1960's. I miss that radio station group a lot, so as Metromedia, which had also KSAN in San Francisco, WNEW in New York, & a few more radio & TV stations across the country. I also miss the days of more music jingles & had fewer commercials than what they've got today. I wish those those licenses would have never been revoked in the 1980's due to their deregulation, which brought to end the ownership of a motion picture company that had been around since the 1930's. I would've wished that RKO would've owned more stations, but that company had to go anyway. I think RKO was the Clear Channel of that day, but it was the largest station group owner between the 1960's & 1980's. Yes radio is a business, but I'm not the telecommunications act of 1996 of which a single group owns up to 8 stations per market.

Here's some stations from the RKO family that is now owned by another licensee:

New York: 98.7 (WRKS) now owned by Emmis, (was WOR-FM, WXLO "99X", WOR 710) (now owned by Buckley)

Los Angeles: 930 (KHJ), where Boss Radio used to be, now owned by Lieberman, KRTH 101.1 (now owned by CBS)

Chicago 103.5 (WFYR), now WKSC, owned by Clear Channel

San Francisco (610), where KFRC used to be, now KEAR, Family Radio, also had owned an FM requency & sold it in 1977

Washington: 570 (WGMS), now WTNT & owned by Clear Channel, 103.5 (WGMS), now owned by Bonneville

Boston: 680 (WRKS), where Now Radio was, 98.5 (WROR), now WBMX, owned by CBS

Memphis: 560 (WHBQ-AM), now owned by George Flinn. I don't know if they had owned a FM frequency during the RKO days.

Tell us what you think. Thanks.

 

[kirkiefan]

You forgot CKLW in Windsor,Ontario "The Big 8" which to this day is dearly missed by Top 40 fans. CRTC regs eventually forced The Big 8 to shut down it's format geared to the metro Detroit market in favor of serving the Windsor area...at first nostaligia,now news/talk.

 

[DavidEduardo]

I think RKO was the Clear Channel of that day, but it was the largest station group owner between the 1960's & 1980's. Yes radio is a business, but I'm not the telecommunications act of 1996 of which a single group owns up to 8 stations per market.
.

RKO, which had to dispose of its stations due to its parent company's bribery of foreign government officials, was not the largest station group from the 60's through the 80's.

It had, I believe, 12 stations in an era when 14 (7 FM and 7 AM) was the maximum.

Groups like Storer, ABC, CBS, NBC, Roy Park, McLendon, Pacific & Southern, Metromedia, Golden West, Lotus, and many others had 13 or 14 stations, many of them having to sell a station every time they bought a new one in a bigger market. And there were many others, like Fetzer, Gilmore, etc., that had 9 or 10 stations, too.

 

[dgendvil]

Sorry I meant to say I'm not against the Telecom Act of 1996 of which bigger companies were starting to buy radio stations.

 

[pqgeorge]

>>Boston: 680 (WRKS), where Now Radio was, 98.5 (WROR), now WBMX, owned by CBS<<

Don't forget that Boston's 98.5 (before WROR) was WRKO-FM ("ARKO-matic"), the FIRST full-time Rock and Roll FM station that was NOT a simulcast. It predated WRKO/680 by 6 months in 1966. It started the FM Revolution in Boston!