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Identifying a mystery tape

Mark Roberts

Mark Roberts

While going through a box of tapes I made when visiting San Francisco in 1995 (four years before I moved there), I found a few scattered tapes from around 2005. One of them, of KLOK San Jose, was unlabeled and undated. It was of a format change, stunting with a continuous loop of a tune called "El buey de la barranca", along with this announcement: "Gracias por su apoyo. Este jueves, Radio Tricolor, once setenta AM, se va." (Thanks for your support. This Thursday, Radio Tricolor, 1170 AM, goes away.) I remembered there was a little bit of discussion about it in ba.broadcast at the time, but I can't find that thread now, whether on Google Groups or my personal archive. I also had the habit of setting X-no-archive, so a lot of things I posted to ba.broadcast aren't available through Google Groups. So here's my question: does anyone know when KLOK switched from its Radio Tricolor format to whatever followed it. I'm guessing this is around 2005 or 2006 judging by the other tapes I found in the box, but I just don't remember when the format change occurred.

The tape itself was recorded off my hi-fi tuner with about a 5 kHz audio bandwidth, and the quality is very good.

Thanks in advance!
 
Mark Roberts said:
Thanks, but, I'm sorry, I don't trust Wikipedia at all when it comes to radio-station histories.
Click to expand...
Entravision's annual report for 2003 shows KLOK as Cumbia.


Broadcasting Magazine January 10, 2000 shows the Entravision purchase:


So, the answer is somewhere between 2000 and 2003.

Given how little coverage there was of format changes in languages other than English in trades and local newspapers, it may be difficult to impossible to narrow it down from that. Good luck, Mark.
 
michael hagerty said:
Entravision's annual report for 2003 shows KLOK as Cumbia.


Broadcasting Magazine January 10, 2000 shows the Entravision purchase:


So, the answer is somewhere between 2000 and 2003.

Given how little coverage there was of format changes in languages other than English in trades and local newspapers, it may be difficult to impossible to narrow it down from that. Good luck, Mark.
Click to expand...
Thanks, Mike. I went through the copies of Radio & Records at worldradiohistory.com and found a little more but not enough to pin it down. In 2002, R&R's ratings lists described KLOK as regional Mexican. By 2004, R&R stories on Spanish-language formats referred to KLOK as a cumbia station and, at the end of 2005, R&R reported that KLOK changed to a news/talk station. Two pages from the January 6, 2006 issue of R&R are missing from the site and unfortunately, the story that mentioned KLOK's change to N/T jumped to one of those pages. In any event, so 2002 or 2003 are the most likely candidates for the format switch promoted by the station; the stunt music definitely wasn't cumbia.

Adding to the confusion is KLOK-FM, licensed to Greenfield and covering Salinas and Monterey, which, judging by references in R&R, retained the regional Mexican format.

Ultimately this tape will probably have to be labeled with a bunch of question marks.
 
Well, I've given up. I just labeled the file as from 2002 or 2003 and was done with it. As it is, I truncated the recording considerably. That was one annoying tune, especially the whistling at the end.
 
michael hagerty said:
Still waiting for you to find our discussion of Cowpoke Radio...
Click to expand...
Oh -- I missed this thread last week ! Is this the guy who made up KWPX Cowpoke Radio AM/FM in Banta, Califl, , with the extensive website, with a physical address for the station, an aerial map of the station showing the physical streets, and a photo of the station building.......which is all just imaginary?

And the website says, "With studios in the landmark Brichetto Building, right across bustling Seventh Street from the historic Banta Inn in downtown Banta, California, KWPX Cowpoke Radio broadcasts locally on AM and FM, and all around this cotton-pickinā€™ planet via the Interwebs." And, he wrote on the website that if nobody was at the Brichetto building, then they were probably across the street at the bar at the Banta Inn, and to come over and find them there.

And, there's a playlist of about 500 old songs?
That has to be the most elaborate charade ever in radio. That's kind of like Welles' historic "War of the Worlds" broadcast .

That website has a big button saying "Click here to get in touch with us right now". So I wrote him a brief, but professional, serious message (not a vacuous fan girl message), and sadly, he never replied.


cowpokeradio.com

World Famous KWPX Cowpoke Radio - Classic Country & Western Music

From the heart of the San Joaquin Valley, the legendary KWPX Cowpoke Radio from Banta, Calif. (the Cowpoke Capital of the World) plays Classic Country Music
cowpokeradio.com cowpokeradio.com
 
BossRadioDJ said:
...But I'd love to have a copy for the archives, just for historical purposes.

DJ
Click to expand...
Is this you? Is this your so-called "station" KWPX in Banta with the old honky-tonk music? I totally fell for this. You have people out there believing this, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one.

cowpokeradio.com

World Famous KWPX Cowpoke Radio - Classic Country & Western Music

From the heart of the San Joaquin Valley, the legendary KWPX Cowpoke Radio from Banta, Calif. (the Cowpoke Capital of the World) plays Classic Country Music
cowpokeradio.com cowpokeradio.com
 
Last edited:
Daryl Lynn L.A. said:
They even have t-shirts for sale ! T-shirts for a pretend station.
Click to expand...
I'm pretty sure that tee shirt doesn't exist in real life. I mean, it's a real tee, and it's on a real woman, but when I blow the image up and look closely, it looks like he photographed his daughter (I'm guessing) wearing a blank white tee, and then digitally superimposed the "Cowpoke Radio" graphic over the photo. The cowboy graphic might be clipart.
 
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