KHJ--Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

[michael hagerty]

I can attest to no commercials for a good while when a station flipped formats back then. In Dallas/Fort Worth, KFWD 102.1 switched from beautiful music to top 40 and I suspect it was a good 6 months before the first commercial aired. Even some flips when there was a combo, the FM might not run a commercial for a month or so, or at best have perhaps a spot an hour at most. This was back in the last half of the 1960s thru at least about 1974 or 1975. Somewhere around 1977 KFJZ FM appeared as a Top 40 going commercial free (and announcing commercial free hour number xxx and then commercial free day number ??). As I recal they had a big contest for when the first commercial played.

In Kansas City about 1968, KXTR, an FM that seemingly aired only 'certain hours' ( i was a kid but I think evenings and then maybe 12 to 18 hours a day weekends) went 24/7 with Classical Noon to Midnight, Jazz overnights and Beautiful Music until noon. I knew a couple of the jocks. They knew I had a part 15 and let us grab all the AP ticker news stories from the trash can for that little part 15. I recall they got their first big advertiser about month 3 and within a year they were bragging they have about 20 commercials a day. They weren't cheap: open rate $25 in 1969!

The first commercial-free launch I ever heard was KFMB-FM, San Diego's B-100 launch in March of 1975---100 hours, commercial free. Prior to that, I can't think of one (though I certainly hadn't heard everything). I know some programmers had a philosophy that, even on day one, you wanted to sound big and established...though that approach fell out of favor as the 70s wore on.

 

[TheBigA]

No question the spotload was a lot lower at these FM station than it had been at AM radio. This is where the idea of playing several songs back-to-back began. You'd never hear that on a high power AM station. So it was not uncommon to hear a lot more music on FM in the early days, but it wasn't for lack of access to commercials. A lot of these stations had co-located AM stations that were very established. In the case of KLOS or KMET, its either ABC Radio or Metromedia. In both cases, they had access to sales and spots to run. Metromedia ran its AM top of the hour local news on WNEW-FM in New York for many years, even though it was an awful contrast to the music they were playing. ABC created its FM news network specifically for these stations. So while Tom Donohue may have done a very loose counter culture non-commercial approach when he was at KMPX, things changed quickly when he picked up and moved to Metromedia's KSAN.

 

[LKellerIII]

No question the spotload was a lot lower at these FM station than it had been at AM radio. This is where the idea of playing several songs back-to-back began. You'd never hear that on a high power AM station. So it was not uncommon to hear a lot more music on FM in the early days, but it wasn't for lack of access to commercials. A lot of these stations had co-located AM stations that were very established. In the case of KLOS or KMET, its either ABC Radio or Metromedia. In both cases, they had access to sales and spots to run. Metromedia ran its AM top of the hour local news on WNEW-FM in New York for many years, even though it was an awful contrast to the music they were playing. ABC created its FM news network specifically for these stations. So while Tom Donohue may have done a very loose counter culture non-commercial approach when he was at KMPX, things changed quickly when he picked up and moved to Metromedia's KSAN.

Actually, KHJ, and the Drake programmed stations in general, were an exception to this. KHJ would often run 2-3 songs back to back, punctuated by those "More Music" jingles. This was especially true at the top of the hour, when the competition was running news.

 

[michael hagerty]

No question the spotload was a lot lower at these FM station than it had been at AM radio. This is where the idea of playing several songs back-to-back began. You'd never hear that on a high power AM station. So it was not uncommon to hear a lot more music on FM in the early days, but it wasn't for lack of access to commercials. A lot of these stations had co-located AM stations that were very established. In the case of KLOS or KMET, its either ABC Radio or Metromedia. In both cases, they had access to sales and spots to run. Metromedia ran its AM top of the hour local news on WNEW-FM in New York for many years, even though it was an awful contrast to the music they were playing. ABC created its FM news network specifically for these stations. So while Tom Donohue may have done a very loose counter culture non-commercial approach when he was at KMPX, things changed quickly when he picked up and moved to Metromedia's KSAN.

It was three years before KMET began doing its own news---it ran a KLAC newscast every few hours up until 1971.

 

[michael hagerty]

Actually, KHJ, and the Drake programmed stations in general, were an exception to this. KHJ would often run 2-3 songs back to back, punctuated by those "More Music" jingles. This was especially true at the top of the hour, when the competition was running news.

Still quite a difference, Llew. Drake's rule was 14 minutes maximum per hour, with no more than 70 seconds and three units per stop set. You could do a :60 and a :10, you could do two :30s and a :10, but you couldn't do a :30 and four :10s. That meant you pretty much needed 12 stopsets an hour.

The FM stations BigA is referring to tended to break two, maybe three times an hour, for maybe three minutes at a shot. So they're maxing out at five minutes fewer commercials than the Drake Top 40s, with nine fewer interruptions.

When they started having a significant ratings impact in L.A. in the early 70s (KLOS beat KHJ at night in 1972), we began hearing the AMs push not just "more music", but "fewer commercials" ("KHJ, Los Angeles---now with up to 52 minutes of music an hour! It's six o'clock and I'm Danny Martinez!").

 

[asugeorge1]

Sunday:
6:00 a.m.-9:00 a.m.: Religion

Ironic considering KHJ is now 24/7 religious programming. Too bad they haven’t tried an oldies format on KHJ since simulcasting with KRTH-FM in 1990. Bring back that Big Boss sound!

 

[DavidEduardo]

Ironic considering KHJ is now 24/7 religious programming. Too bad they haven’t tried an oldies format on KHJ since simulcasting with KRTH-FM in 1990. Bring back that Big Boss sound!

By 1990, KHJ had become KKHJ and was Radio Alegria, in Spanish.

 

[michael hagerty]

By 1990, KHJ had become KKHJ and was Radio Alegria, in Spanish.

David: I think he's referring to the brief period between the sale to Lieberman and the actual closing of the sale, during which 930 did simulcast KRTH-FM. Still, the station hadn't seen a 1 share at that point in at least six years. Putting oldies back on 930 today would basically be putting K-SURF on a (marginally) better signal.

 

[TheBigA]

Putting oldies back on 930 today would basically be putting K-SURF on a (marginally) better signal.

The fact that the station is now owned by Immaculate Heart makes any other format impossible. They won't be bringing back the devil's music.

But the realities that killed the original KHJ in 1980 still exists today. If people stopped listening to Boss Radio then, long before all of the other digital options, there's no reason to think they'd return now.