KVIL

[radiolover78]

I've never been to Dallas and I've obviously never listened to KVIL. When reading this board, I see about what a great station it was. How it was legendary and everything. Can someone give me a history on KVIL? Why was it so great? Has it always been an Adult Contemporary type of format?

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[rbrucecarter]

> I've never been to Dallas and I've obviously never listened
> to KVIL.

KVIL was on the vanguard of the movement of top 40 / AC to FM frequencies in the early 70's - as another great Dallas station: KLIF 1190 AM was beginning a decline. Many legendary Dallas announcers were on the station, and in the 70's the AC chart was not much different from the top-40. The Beatles were gone, the psychadelic era was over, album rock was still underground for the most part, disco was still years away. It was the right station, with the right personalities, the right music, at the right time.

It was irrevocably doomed as AC and top-40 were doomed by disco, the beginning of the MTV era, and the divergence of AC and rock.

It seems most great stations end with a whimper, as the conditions that created them slowly, inexorably, imperceptably change. If anybody can put their finger on developing trends and nail them all with the right personalities and music - new great stations will arise. Sadly - most attempts fail as spottign future trends is extremely difficult. And large corporate owned stations are constrained to be even less creative.

 

[BrainDeadPrez]

Re: KVIL History

> I've never been to Dallas and I've obviously never listened
> to KVIL. When reading this board, I see about what a great
> station it was. How it was legendary and everything. Can
> someone give me a history on KVIL? Why was it so great? Has
> it always been an Adult Contemporary type of format?
>
> Thanks
>

Got this off Chris Huff's dfwradioarchives.com website, and pieced it together. Should cover about everything:

"KVIL had very modest beginnings as a daytime-only AM station in 1960. An FM companion was added a year later, but not many people noticed. KVIL launched a run at top 40 KLIF in 1967, but again not many people noticed. In 1969, people did start to take notice. One of KLIF’s prominent morning men, Ron Chapman (known as Irving Harrigan on KLIF), took over the morning shift at KVIL. Having been well-versed in Gordon McLendon’s school of radio – Chapman brought a lot to the table. He took the showmanship of top 40 and applied to it music that would appeal to adults who grew up listening to KLIF. The format wasn't quite MOR, and it wasn't quite top 40, today we might label such a format as “Hot AC”, but for continuity’s sake, KVIL is labeled here as “adult contemporary.” Semantics aside, KVIL would slowly but surely grow to become the same kind of institution KLIF once was. In the fall of ’76, KVIL would lead the ratings for the very first time, as the AM-FM simulcast edged out WBAP by one tenth of a share.

"Even though the simulcast of KVIL AM and FM had already topped the DFW ratings (Oct/Nov 1976), that victory was made possible by the few tenths of a share that KVIL's AM added to the two stations’ total. KVIL’s first place finish in the fall of 1978 was by a full two shares, and even without the AM’s numbers, KVIL-FM was still a solid number one. This marked the very first time in the market that the most listened-to radio station was on the FM band.

"If finishing in the top 3 in every survey since the fall of 1975 wasn’t enough to prove KVIL’s dominance – any remaining doubts were eliminated in 1983. Aside from sweeping the top of all three surveys that year, KVIL achieved listening levels that would remain unmatched for years to come. In the Fall book, KVIL AM and FM combined to claim 11.8 percent of DFW radio listeners. KVIL-FM alone scored a 10.8 share - the highest achieved by any station during the entire decade and the highest ever achieved on the 103.7 frequency.

"Just as in the previous year, the top spot of every survey in 1984 belonged to KVIL. No station came within even a share of nearing KVIL, and the average lead was nearly three shares during the year. The number two spot was monopolized as well, with KRLD taking the second every book in ’84. That means to find the moving and shaking, you have to look further down in the rankings."

**********

Generally, KVIL's method was to put morning-drive quality jocks in every daypart, emphasize big contests over music, cram in as many spots per hour as possible (even playing spoken-word ads over the intros of songs, which made the station the 3rd highest billing station in the US in the 80s), etc. Artists were hardly ever mentioned. EVERYTHING was a plug for their contests. The energy level was high (not like the old KLIF, but respectful of their adult audience.) Lots of original humor (jocks were told to carry around a notepad with them when they were out and about during the day, and make notes of things they saw that were funny or noteworthy, for discussion and bits the next day.) The other part of the formula was that the jocks were to broadcast to ONE person, not talk to group of listeners (or "y'all out there in Radioland,") and to zone in on a fictitious 28-yr old female divorcee with a couple of kids, and talk directly to HER when on the air. Despite all the big money/big prize contests, the one that ran continuously for 20+ years was the "People's Choice Contest," where jocks would call random numbers to ask if a person knew how much was in the jackpot. The amount increased $10 with every call. This got people tuning in regularly and increased the TSL. Another aspect was community involvement, staging plenty of concerts and events (many were dressy events, not just standard concert fare,) cruises, nights out-on-the-town, etc...anything that female listener would approve of and enjoy.

The music of the times helped as well. While some of us would like to see KVIL go with more 70s and 80s oldies, those are the very songs KVIL played when the songs were new. Today's offerings are just not enough to build a new KVIL around, and tastes have changes, too. I think a lot of folks would enjoy a 'retro' KVIL, but the station's too concerned about courting today's 28-yr old females, not yesterday's (who'd be in their 40s and 50s now and probably listening to KLUV.)

 

[THEInsultant]

> > I've never been to Dallas and I've obviously never
> listened
> > to KVIL.
>
> KVIL was on the vanguard of the movement of top 40 / AC to
> FM frequencies in the early 70's - as another great Dallas
> station: KLIF 1190 AM was beginning a decline. Many
> legendary Dallas announcers were on the station, and in the
> 70's the AC chart was not much different from the top-40.
> The Beatles were gone, the psychadelic era was over, album
> rock was still underground for the most part, disco was
> still years away. It was the right station, with the right
> personalities, the right music, at the right time.
>
> It was irrevocably doomed as AC and top-40 were doomed by
> disco, the beginning of the MTV era, and the divergence of
> AC and rock.
>
> It seems most great stations end with a whimper, as the
> conditions that created them slowly, inexorably,
> imperceptably change. If anybody can put their finger on
> developing trends and nail them all with the right
> personalities and music - new great stations will arise.
> Sadly - most attempts fail as spottign future trends is
> extremely difficult. And large corporate owned stations are
> constrained to be even less creative.
>

"...large corporate owned stations are
constrained to be even less creative."

That pretty well sums up what happened to KVIL and many other stations that were once legendary properties. The greed lords are good at shelling out the bucks to buy a place, but they fail to put anything into them to maintain them promotionally and personnel-wise. Eventually they run off the good talent that made a station win and it goes down hill big-time like KVIL has. One can only hope the greed lords end up having to purge some stations to keep floating their pathetic boats.



<P ID="signature">______________
--- THE Insultant ---</P>

 

[nuzguy]

> > > I've never been to Dallas and I've obviously never
> > listened
> > > to KVIL.
> >
> > KVIL was on the vanguard of the movement of top 40 / AC to
>
> > FM frequencies in the early 70's - as another great Dallas
>
> > station: KLIF 1190 AM was beginning a decline. Many
> > legendary Dallas announcers were on the station, and in
> the
> > 70's the AC chart was not much different from the top-40.
>
> > The Beatles were gone, the psychadelic era was over, album
>
> > rock was still underground for the most part, disco was
> > still years away. It was the right station, with the
> right
> > personalities, the right music, at the right time.
> >
> > It was irrevocably doomed as AC and top-40 were doomed by
> > disco, the beginning of the MTV era, and the divergence of
>
> > AC and rock.
> >
> > It seems most great stations end with a whimper, as the
> > conditions that created them slowly, inexorably,
> > imperceptably change. If anybody can put their finger on
> > developing trends and nail them all with the right
> > personalities and music - new great stations will arise.
> > Sadly - most attempts fail as spottign future trends is
> > extremely difficult. And large corporate owned stations
> are
> > constrained to be even less creative.
> >
>
> "...large corporate owned stations are
> constrained to be even less creative."
>
> That pretty well sums up what happened to KVIL and many
> other stations that were once legendary properties. The
> greed lords are good at shelling out the bucks to buy a
> place, but they fail to put anything into them to maintain
> them promotionally and personnel-wise. Eventually they run
> off the good talent that made a station win and it goes down
> hill big-time like KVIL has. One can only hope the greed
> lords end up having to purge some stations to keep floating
> their pathetic boats.
>
Much akin to a collector who biys vintage cars, puts them in storage with no care. The tires rot, engine parts become frozen, paint fades away. Then he can't figure out 10 years later why the blasted things won't run, and when he tries to sell them no one will offer any decent money.

Perhaps a rough analogy but we "get the picture." Too bad the greed lords don't. Good posts all on the fading away of a legend.