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Something different -- Seattle/Tacoma radio ratings from 1977

TexasTom

TexasTom

For something a little different, I thought it might be interesting to some folks to see a flashback on what the stations in the Seattle/Tacoma market were back in the spring of 1977, and what their ratings looked like. For stations that no longer exist under the call letters listed below, I've included the frequencies that they were on to the best of my memory. 28 stations showed up in the ratings for that book:

1. KOMO(AM): 8.9 share (listed as PA, which I believe stood for Pop Adult, but was more commonly known as "Middle of the Road" at the time)
2. KVI(AM) : 8.3 share (PA, ie, Middle of the Road)
3. KIRO(AM): 7.6 share (listed as PA/T, for Pop Adult/Talk, which I'm guessing means "Full Service Middle of the Road". But my memory is that it was actually newsradio in this time frame)
4. KJR(AM): 6.8 share (listed as R, for rock, which is how they still categorized Top 40 stations in 1977. This was before album rock got big)
5. KING(AM) 1090: 6.7 share (Top 40 -- much of the seventies was a battle for Top 40 dominance between KING and KJR, a battle that KJR generally won. But at this point they were very close in the ratings)
6. KSEA(FM) 100.7: 6.3 share (BM, for Beautiful Music; this was the areas dominant beautiful music station for a long, long time)
7. KZOK(FM): 4.7 share (A, for Album Rock)
8. KVI-FM 101.5: 3.6 share (Top 40 -- they'd switched to the format the previous summer. A couple years later they changed the calls to KPLZ to reduce confusion between this and their AM MOR station)
9T. KISW(FM): 3.4 share (Album Rock, and still in that form today)
9T. KIXI-FM 95.7: 3.4 share (Full Service Middle of the Road, probably at least partially simulcast with its AM counterpart)
11T.KIXI(AM): 3.2 share (Full Service Middle of the Road)
11T.KEUT(FM) 94.1: 3.2 share (Beautiful Music)
13. KTAC(AM) 850: 2.9 share (Top 40 station for Tacoma; highest rated of the Tacoma stations and quite popular there, but with a limited signal at best in Seattle)
14. KAYO(AM) 1150: 2.7 share (Country Music)
15. KEZX(FM) 98.9: 2.2 share (Beautiful Music)
16T.KING-FM: 2.1 share (Classical, which it still is)
16T.KBIQ(FM) 105.3: 2.1 share (Listed as Beautiful Music. I recall a Christian music format on this station, but maybe that came a couple years later)
16T.KZAM-FM 92.5: 2.1 share (Album Rock, but had more of a laid back progressive music feel when compared to KISW and KZOK. It was also a partial simulcast with its AM counterpart)
19. KYAC(AM) 1250: 1.8 share (Black music; due to a shared time arrangement with KWSU in Pullman, this station broadcast from midnight to sunset)
20. KMPS(AM) 1300: 1.6 share (Country Music)
21T.KGDN(AM): 1.5 share (Listed as Beautiful Music, but I recall a Christian format of some sort on this station. I believe this was the AM counterpart to KBIQ)
21T.KMO(AM) 1360: 1.5 share (Country Music station for Tacoma, don't think it had much of a signal in Seattle)
23T.KBRD(FM) 103.9: 1.2 share (Beautiful Music station for Tacoma. At the time, this was a class A so it did not make it anywhere near Seattle. Upgraded to class C and moved to 103.7 in 1980 or 1981)
23T.KRKO(AM): 1.2 share (Middle of the Road station for Everett -- I can't remember the frequency, and couldn't receive it in the south Tacoma suburbs where I lived)
25. KXA(AM) 770: 1.1 share (Classical -- yes, there was a classical station on the AM band, and a minor controversy a couple years later when it flipped formats)
26T.KNBQ(FM) 97.3: 1.0 share (Incorrectly listed as RL for religious. This was actually automated Top 40 for Tacoma using the Drake-Chenault XT40 format, which it had just switched to a few months earlier. Previous format was soft pop as "mellow sounds in contemporary music")
26T.KYYX(FM) 96.5: 1.0 Share (Top 40 -- had just switched to the format and was actually broadcasting in mono at this point. Previously had been Black music as KYAC-FM)
28. KZAM(AM): 0.9 share (Album Rock -- partial simulcast with KZAM-FM)

As you can see, almost everything has changed in the market over the years. If anyone finds this interesting, I can put together another compilation for a few years later.
 
KUOW wasn't listed in the book? Or was it because they didn't subscribe to the ratings? I figured KJR Channel 95 and KING-AM would be right at the top, #1 and #2, but it seems as though KOMO, KVI and NewsRadio 71 were on top. Interesting! The country stations had a lower share even though there were w-i-d-e open spaces in large portions of King, Snohomish and Pierce County at the time, and more farmers/rural residents at that time. Few strip malls or even stores, and a lot of horse and pasture land along Bothell-Everett Hwy in the '70s and '80s.
 
This is an amazing list! Thank you for sharing it. One thing we’ve learned for sure, there was no shortage of “middle of the road” programming. What kind of music would you even classify as middle of the road, and why was it so popular? At this stage, I have to assume it was essentially AC.
 
fordranger797 said:
This is an amazing list! Thank you for sharing it. One thing we’ve learned for sure, there was no shortage of “middle of the road” programming. What kind of music would you even classify as middle of the road, and why was it so popular? At this stage, I have to assume it was essentially AC.
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There are Jim Duncan's Arbitron ratings report compilations from 1976 to 2002 at DUNCAN'S AMERICAN RADIO - Arbitron ratings 1975 - 2002 - All Markets

And R&R ratings reports up to 2009 at RADIO and RECORDS RATINGS REPORT: 90's and 00's ratings results

Adult Contemporary became a used term in the early to mid 70's. Those of us who programmed AC back then (I did WERC in Birmingham around '72-'73) saw our format to be a modified Top 40 without the hard rock, heavy R&B and country crossovers. I saw MOR as being more Sinatra and Andy Williams and some of the charting songs that were movie themes or the like. But most of what one format played was not played on the other.

Some early ACs were very gold-heavy, like WGAR in Cleveland under John Lund, and others, like WJDX in Jackson and WERC were much more current based with weekly adds and a bit slower rotation than Top 40 stations.
 
Your memory is correct- KIRO was indeed Newsradio 710 by this timeframe. "The FM KVI" rode the disco wave hard, and when it crashed they jumped on the CHR pile and the bandwagon of every third station in that format at that time calling themselves "Z". KBIQ and KGDN were (and are still) sister stations. KBIQ was still beautiful music (though interspersed with occasional Christian messages) while KGDN was Christian talk/ preaching.

KRKO Everett was, and still is, on 1380. At that time they were in transition from MOR to Top-40. They were 5K and directional at night away from Tacoma. Now they are 50K and even more directional away from Tacoma. Though likely almost all of their listeners are on the FM translator at this point.
 
DavidEduardo said:
There are Jim Duncan's Arbitron ratings report compilations from 1976 to 2002 at DUNCAN'S AMERICAN RADIO - Arbitron ratings 1975 - 2002 - All Markets

And R&R ratings reports up to 2009 at RADIO and RECORDS RATINGS REPORT: 90's and 00's ratings results

Adult Contemporary became a used term in the early to mid 70's. Those of us who programmed AC back then (I did WERC in Birmingham around '72-'73) saw our format to be a modified Top 40 without the hard rock, heavy R&B and country crossovers. I saw MOR as being more Sinatra and Andy Williams and some of the charting songs that were movie themes or the like. But most of what one format played was not played on the other.

Some early ACs were very gold-heavy, like WGAR in Cleveland under John Lund, and others, like WJDX in Jackson and WERC were much more current based with weekly adds and a bit slower rotation than Top 40 stations.
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Sounds like MOR was appealing to people who comprise of the “greatest generation.” Funny enough, it doesn’t seem like this music had much appeal to people who are baby boomers or belong to generation x. At the same time, many people who identify as millennials and gen Z like the music their parents listen(ed) to. I’d say that music from the 60’s/70’s/80’s (which received airplay on stations like KJR and KING) have stood the test of time.
 
Very interesting and brings back so many memories. I worked at KOL/KMPS/KEUT from 1969 to 1979 as Chief Engineer, and still remember the day we flipped KOL-AM to KMPS, and KOL-FM to KEUT. We had tried, but never could catch up to KJR, and KING muddied the waters. Before the Boston Globe later bought the stations from Manning Slater (who had bought them from Dick and Rick Buckley), we had morphed the FM into KMPS-FM, and essentially put "Country KAYO" out of business. The good ol' days... no social media, no internet...
 
fordranger797 said:
Sounds like MOR was appealing to people who comprise of the “greatest generation.” Funny enough, it doesn’t seem like this music had much appeal to people who are baby boomers or belong to generation x. At the same time, many people who identify as millennials and gen Z like the music their parents listen(ed) to. I’d say that music from the 60’s/70’s/80’s (which received airplay on stations like KJR and KING) have stood the test of time.
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I was born five days into the Baby Boomer generation. Yet not a single one of my contemporaries in school had any interest in the big band music, the crooners, and the artists like Patty Page and Andy Williams. It was exclusively top 40 music among everyone I knew, in my generation.
 
DavidEduardo said:
I was born five days into the Baby Boomer generation. Yet not a single one of my contemporaries in school had any interest in the big band music, the crooners, and the artists like Patty Page and Andy Williams. It was exclusively top 40 music among everyone I knew, in my generation.
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I usually am an aficionado for anything classic, but most of those classics don't do much for me. My parents were both in the late 50's and early 60's, and they don't care for it either. It was top 40 (on KTAC or KJR), rock (on KISW), or bust.
 
DavidEduardo said:
There are Jim Duncan's Arbitron ratings report compilations from 1976 to 2002 at DUNCAN'S AMERICAN RADIO - Arbitron ratings 1975 - 2002 - All Markets
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I did get the information that I posted from your website (albeit not from Duncan's), but what I posted was rather extensively reformatted -- the particular listing that I found (from one of the trade publications, I think) listed the stations alphabetically, so I sorted them by rank as well as translating some of the format information. I picked this particular book because it was when I was in junior high school and I'd really just started listening to the radio heavily about a year earlier. What made this particular book fascinating is that it was a time of major change for Top 40 radio in the Seattle/Tacoma market.
 
crainbebo said:
KUOW wasn't listed in the book? Or was it because they didn't subscribe to the ratings? I figured KJR Channel 95 and KING-AM would be right at the top, #1 and #2, but it seems as though KOMO, KVI and NewsRadio 71 were on top. Interesting! The country stations had a lower share even though there were w-i-d-e open spaces in large portions of King, Snohomish and Pierce County at the time, and more farmers/rural residents at that time. Few strip malls or even stores, and a lot of horse and pasture land along Bothell-Everett Hwy in the '70s and '80s.
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As already noted by another commenter, non-comms were not included in the ratings until many years later.

But regarding KJR and KING-AM, this was around the time that FM Top 40 came along in the market and that really started slicing into their ratings.

Consider that in this particular book there were three FM Top 40 stations: KVI-FM with a 3.6 share, KNBQ with a 1.0 share, and KYYX with a 1.0 share. At this point, KVI-FM was the oldest FM station in the format, having flipped the previous summer, KNBQ had followed by flipping from a weird AC-like format ("Mellow sounds in contemporary music") at the beginning of 1977, and KYYX had followed just a couple months later. KNBQ and KYYX were both automated, while KVI-FM launched with a full set of live DJs from the very beginning. KNBQ was also not receivable in Seattle (it was very Tacoma-centric until sometime in the eighties), and KYYX was still broadcasting in mono -- so both of those stations were realistically pretty minimal competition. But the bottom line is that between those three FM stations, that was a total of 5.6 share points and when I compare with the ratings from a year earlier, it looks like about half that came at the expense of the legacy AM Top 40 stations.

Notably, looking at Spring 1976 ratings, I see that KJR was in second place, KING-AM in fourth place, and KTAC in eighth place.
 
Speaking of the 70's and 80's, who was the flagship radio station for Casey Kasem's American Top 40 during it's original run from 1970 to 1988? I'm assuming that it was KJR 950 in the 70's, but how about the 80's?
 
fordranger797 said:
Speaking of the 70's and 80's, who was the flagship radio station for Casey Kasem's American Top 40 during it's original run from 1970 to 1988? I'm assuming that it was KJR 950 in the 70's, but how about the 80's?
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It was on KJR 950 from the 1970s to 1986, well after they left mainstream Top 40 and just a couple years before they went all sports. It used to air Sunday nights at 7pm, then it moved to Sunday mornings at 7am

KUBE, then KNBQ and then KHIT were next for it. It went back to KUBE briefly after KHIT became KNUA. Then it went north to KNWR 104.3 (KAFE today) KPLZ never had the program. It was Rick Dees' and Shadoe Steven's countdown heard there.

(Remember Shadoe Steven's brief acting career in 1990 as Max Monroe; Loose Cannon on CBS-TV? Here's the entire series. Not a bad actor or show, just not in the demo of CBS at that time, which was 65+. It only lasted eight episodes.) I remember Shadoe Stevens filling in for both Casey Kasem and Rick Dees on their respective programs.
 
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