Under Appreciated LA Radio Stations

[Yabadabado1]

has there ever been a radio station to flip from a religious format to something else? That seems like a first

I'm sure there are but everyone I've ever encountered always sold it off to some other religious outfit. I don't know if any of these dollar-a-holler outfits are publicly traded companies and have shareholders but if they did, I'd be rather pissed if they didn't sell it to the highest bidder to maximize shareholder value. I remember when Jim & Tammy Faye Baker got their knickers in a knot when it came out there were financial shenanigans going on; I always said that PTL stood for Pass The Loot. So their empire crumbled down around them and I'm not really sure what ever happened when that nightmare was said and done.
Oops, as I posted this David popped up with an example of which I totally forgot about.

 

[bturner1]

Although I was not a fan of beautiful music, I liked KSRF in Santa Monica with the waves fading into orchestration for their ID and weather on the hour. They were 3 instrumentals (usually 4) with a vocal in the middle, typically group vocal, very traditional format with more standards versus recent covers of hits.

 

[Bongwater]

I wasn't in LA much during the 1970s (Just once to vist an aunt when I was a kid.) so most of my opinions came from the airchecks I've heard over the years.

My nominations for this would be the early KROQ 1500 out of Burbank in the early 1970s. Yes, it was proof that everything that sounded good on the radio was a pain in the manager's office. But this was kind of self inflicted; Their original Top40/Rock format had no commercials. It was a gimmick gone bad because they let it run on too long and instead of wiping out KHJ and KRLA, they almost wiped themselves out,

Ten-Q was another favorite. I loved the energy of it. And the fact they were willing to give airplay to the Ramones at a time when most Top 40s wouldn't touch anything labelled as "Punk". Usually because of all the parental/media hysteria over it at the time made Ten-Q particularly outstanding. They knew what they were doing. And who was listening. They passed the Ten-Q torch to KHTZ 97.1, but the Ten-Q spark was gone. It was your conventional CHR musically, sans the edges that made Ten-Q a legend.

Late 1970s/Early 1980s KROQ-FM was just amazing. At the time, it was an AOR/early Alternative hybrid. But I guess through trial and error they knew which songs went and which ones didn't. So it had a continuity. J. Geils? Great. Molly Hatchet? Not so much.

 

[radiofan2023]

KGIL in 2008-2009 when it was talk with Michael Jackson, Dr. Drew, Leo Terrell, etc. I'd never heard Michael Jackson before and didn't know anything about him, so when he stayed on to guest on Dr. Drew's show and talked about his stroke and learning to walk and talk again, it was incredible to listen to. In my opinion it was a lot better at being live/local/entertaining, but not necessarily political, than KABC was.

 

[deepstblu]

Sure. Big example is Family Station's WFME in Newark sold to Cumulus in 2012 with a closing in 2013.

1000 in Chicago was another--Mutual sold WCFL to a religious operator, it didn't work for them, they sold it on to the Loop's owner who flipped it to WLUP (AM), and now it's sports as WMVP.

 

[Mark Roberts]

has there ever been a radio station to flip from a religious format to something else? That seems like a first

A few I can think of:

KHKI Des Moines - now country but was religious preaching until the start of 1994. Bonus: Grandfathered FM superpower!

KMXV Kansas City - then-KWKI was bought by Jimmy Swaggart in 1978 - sold to Sandusky in 1982, becoming AC KLSI.

KDAZ Albuquerque - daytimer AM that went from religion to conservative talk with no ownership change.

KOSC Angwin, CA - KNDL was bought by USC and now part of the KDFC classical network. This was in 2011, part of the deal that moved KDFC from 102.1 to 90.3.

(edited to clarify KWKI dates)

 

[CTListener]

1260 Boston -- Has gone through a variety of formats and calls. Was WEZE "Album 1260," a soft-rock/album-rock hybrid, in the '70s when sold to Salem and flipped to Christian music as WPZE. It was then flipped to Disney, which changed the call to WMKI. I won't bore you with all the other sales and formats this station had been involved in -- including a resale back to Disney and yet another sale to an on-the-cheap Godcaster -- but it's now operating as WBIX (a call it's retained from its time as a right-wing talker, and is running a Portuguese talk and secular music format piped in from somewhere else.

 

[gr8oldies]

98.7 in Detroit went from the Trinity Broadcasting Company (not TBN) as WBFG to Doubleday which flipped to WLLZ, Detroit's Wheelz in 1980, and there have been numerous ownership and format changes since then.

 

[fybush]

There are actually a lot of examples out there - the other Family Stations FMs (106.9 in SF, 100.5 in Sacramento, 106.9 in Philly), for one thing. There's 94.7 in Reno, which was KNIS until the calls and religious format moved to 91.3, and 95.5 in Vegas, which was religious until what's now KSOS moved to 90.5.

And there's 100.3 in Minneapolis, a big class C that was WCTS until the seminary there sold it to iHeart and ended up on 1030, the old WMIN, instead.

 

[Mark Roberts]

There are actually a lot of examples out there - the other Family Stations FMs (106.9 in SF, 100.5 in Sacramento, 106.9 in Philly), for one thing.

Dayum, I left out the Family Radio trade of KFRC (610) with CBS - which is how what's now KFRC-FM is simulcasting KCBS radio - after first trying a "Free FM" talk format and then classic hits. The classic hits format lived on through KFRC-FM-HD2 until Audacy ditched most of its HD-2 channels last year.

If I recall correctly, KQED bought what's now KQEI North Highlands-Sacramento from Family Radio, too.

 

[fybush]

Dayum, I left out the Family Radio trade of KFRC (610) with CBS - which is how what's now KFRC-FM is simulcasting KCBS radio - after first trying a "Free FM" talk format and then classic hits. The classic hits format lived on through KFRC-FM-HD2 until Audacy ditched most of its HD-2 channels last year.

If I recall correctly, KQED bought what's now KQEI North Highlands-Sacramento from Family Radio, too.

That's correct - KEBR went from 100.5 to 89.3 before landing on AM.

 

[fybush]

And here's another: what's now the flagship of Vermont Public Classical, WOXR 90.9, was purchased from a regional religious network.

 

[CTListener]

And here's another: what's now the flagship of Vermont Public Classical, WOXR 90.9, was purchased from a regional religious network.

I love the story behind those call letters -- they're an homage to New York's WQXR. Another station on the classical network, WVXR Randolph, also refers to the New York station, but its history is very different. It went through a variety of commercial music formats -- country, rock, classic rock -- and a few owners before VPR (as it was then known; the "Radio" was banished from the name about a year ago) added it to its classical network.

 

[Gregg.]

has there ever been a radio station to flip from a religious format to something else? That seems like a first

David mentions the original WFME 94.7 Newark-NYC, which went from Family Radio to Country. But there were others.

In the early days of FM radio when few people owned FM receivers, there were religious groups and churches that owned FM stations when they couldn't afford to buy an AM. Then when FM became popular, they eventually sold for a boat-load of money. One was WRVR, owned by Riverside Church in NYC. It didn't program exclusively religious shows. It played a lot of jazz music and had discussion shows, in addition to some Christian content. It eventually was sold and today is 106.7 WLTW, owned by iHeart. To this day, WLTW runs an hour of last Sunday's religious service from Riverside Church every Sunday morning at 5 o'clock, a practice still in place since the 1976 sale.

Now, with the decline of listening to all radio stations, religious groups can come in and buy an underperforming FM station for the right price. Or even a good-performing station from an owner who's having money problems.

 

[BLA]

has there ever been a radio station to flip from a religious format to something else? That seems like a first

It's funny how things seem to go full circle. Here is one, I think; KPPC-FM in late Sixties. Now known as KROQ.

There are television examples too, WIHS(TV) to WSBK, Boston. This is perhaps fodder for a different thread but related to religious broadcasters. The legal underpinning for the revocation proceeding for KHOF/KVOF/WHCT was a dispute over the disclosure of the names of congregational financial supporters to FCC, maybe a first. WHCT was gifted to a religious group from RKO. I think.

P.S. With the expenses of operating a broadcasting station being very high, actual churches couldn't wait to unload them back then. Does this church-of-the-air concept work better now? Are today's religious broadcasters really churches at all? Maybe just expert fundraisers? Where does the real money come from? All listener supported?

 

[Mark Roberts]

That's correct - KEBR went from 100.5 to 89.3 before landing on AM.

OK, at least I remembered that. But as often as I listened to KCBS, I'm astonished that the KFRC swap wasn't the first thing that came to mind.

 

[powers]

has there ever been a radio station to flip from a religious format to something else? That seems like a first

I know of at least three examples that have not been mentioned yet, and I know I'm violating the rule that this should probably be going to its own forum by now:

KECR 93.3 (El Cajon-San Diego) - Family Stations sold it to Clear Channel, later iHeart, which first flipped it to a simulcast of CHR WFLZ in Tampa, Florida in 1996 before staffing it up as Channel 93.3 (CHR)

1150 AM (Los Angeles) - KRKD/KFSG had some religious programming before becoming KIIS-AM with pop music, then it later became KPRZ with religious programming before going Adult Standards, then ultimately KIIS-AM again, then Sports, now Conservative Talk as KEIB

89.7 FM (Monterey Bay Area) recently did a rare shift FROM an EMF K-Love format to non-religious programming when they flipped to KSQT, a simulcast of KSQD Community Radio in 2023

 

[BLA]

It's funny how things seem to go full circle. Here is one, I think; KPPC-FM in late Sixties. Now known as KROQ.

There are television examples too, WIHS(TV) to WSBK, Boston. This is perhaps fodder for a different thread but related to religious broadcasters. The legal underpinning for the revocation proceeding for KHOF/KVOF/WHCT was a dispute over the disclosure of the names of congregational financial supporters to FCC, maybe a first. WHCT was gifted to a religious group from RKO. I think.

P.S. With the expenses of operating a broadcasting station being very high, actual churches couldn't wait to unload them back then. Does this church-of-the-air concept work better now? Are today's religious broadcasters really churches at all? Maybe just expert fundraisers? Where does the real money come from? All listener supported?

The Catholic stations, KHJ, are controlled by a politically and doctrinally conservative lay group, but not the actual church.

 

[TomásEstefan]

What was on 93.5 before KDAY? I remember when the format arrived in 2003-04. But, had no idea the signal existed before then. Even looking up the 93.5 signal in L.A., I can’t find any history on it

The station was originally KKOP Redondo Beach, and among other things they presented German language programming on weekends in the 1960s...

 

[Brandon1993]

Power 106 during their time as LA’s Party Station in 1996 and 102.3 KJLH the trusty urban underdog.