KIQQ (AKA K100) was a Top 40 station from Los Angeles from about 1973 to about 1985. What exactly was their history in their top 40 days? I know for a fact that American Top 40 with Casey Kasem was aired on this station during the last two years as a Top 40 station. Were they really automated? From what I had seen in those old Billboard issues during the early 1980's they seem to play an eclectic variety of Top 40 hits. I thought I could ask about this because the 100.3 FM in Los Angeles is now an AAA station. Tell me more about KIQQ when they were a Top 40 station from about 1973 to about 1985.
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THE TOP 40 DAYS OF KIQQ
- Thread starter JonathanGabel
- Start date
I believe you are right about this station ID'ing themselves as FM 100 KIQQ. Like I said, it was reported to be a very eclectic Top 40 station during its run.
R
rickradio
Guest
After Bill Drake was unceremoniously "booted" from RKO in '73 (the "Boss" thing apparently wasn't working anymore), some KHJers went with him to KIQQ (most notably, Robert W. Morgan and the Real Don Steele) and set up shop there for a relatively short-lived while. Morgan was at KMPC by '76, and Real Don surfaced at KTNQ (Ten Q) in '77.
"After Bill Drake was unceremoniously "booted" from RKO in '73 (the "Boss" thing apparently wasn't working anymore), some KHJers went with him to KIQQ (most notably, Robert W. Morgan and the Real Don Steele) and set up shop there for a relatively short-lived while. Morgan was at KMPC by '76, and Real Don surfaced at KTNQ (Ten Q) in '77."
Rick - I think JonathanGabel (the original poster) was asking about the station after the Drake period. I was still living in LA in the early 70s, and remember when Drake took over K-100, and re-made it somewhat in the Boss image, and brought in Morgan and Steele. Despite the heavy talent, it was not well executed. It was like Drake was off his game, for some reason. On Reelradio, there are a couple of Steele air checks from that period, and the Comments section is interesting - People like Ken Levine ("Beaver Cleaver"), who worked there, have some interesting things to say about that period...some of it quite funny, but none of it very complimentary.
But I remember visiting LA in the late 70s or early 80s - Drake was long gone. The station had dropped the K-100 branding, was going by its call letters - KIQQ. It was low key and had an eclectic play list. I liked it, but only heard it for a short while on one or two days, so I can't fill in any information for Jonathan.
Rick - I think JonathanGabel (the original poster) was asking about the station after the Drake period. I was still living in LA in the early 70s, and remember when Drake took over K-100, and re-made it somewhat in the Boss image, and brought in Morgan and Steele. Despite the heavy talent, it was not well executed. It was like Drake was off his game, for some reason. On Reelradio, there are a couple of Steele air checks from that period, and the Comments section is interesting - People like Ken Levine ("Beaver Cleaver"), who worked there, have some interesting things to say about that period...some of it quite funny, but none of it very complimentary.
But I remember visiting LA in the late 70s or early 80s - Drake was long gone. The station had dropped the K-100 branding, was going by its call letters - KIQQ. It was low key and had an eclectic play list. I liked it, but only heard it for a short while on one or two days, so I can't fill in any information for Jonathan.
M
MusicMaestro
Guest
KIQQ was a pretty good Top 40 FM station from 1972 to 1989. Never was on the same level as KIIS-FM, but it held it's own.JonathanGabel said:
I seem to remember prior to "Pirate Radio" KIQQ was using Transtar's "Format 41". It was a light AC format with no currents.
The thing I remembered the most was their deep playlist and how songs rose up it and then just completely fell off it from one week to the next... They would count down their top 40 songs every Friday afternoon 3-6 or 3-7 as I recall. It wasn't at all unusual for a song to be #7 on their station one week, and then not amongst the top 40 songs the next week...
Hopefully a year and a half late is better than never.
Country KFOX was bought by Cosmic Communications and became KIQQ (K-100) in 1972. Don Barrett (present-day publisher of laradio.com) was GM and Rich Brother Robbin was PD.
In May of '73, Bill Drake ended his 8-year association with RKO, the owners of KHJ. Drake had been consulting the Top 40 stations in the RKO chain (KHJ; KFRC, San Francisco; WHBQ, Memphis; WXLO-FM, New York and WRKO, Boston) and providing programming for their FM sister stations.
Drake employed Bill Watson, who with the title "RKO National Program Director" did a lot of the travel and direct communication with the RKO stations. The president of RKO, Bruce Johnson, felt that Drake should do the work himself and suggested that he dismiss Watson. In an interview years later, Drake said he walked out of Johnson's office and never spoke to him again.
Drake and partner Gene Chenault (owner of KYNO, Fresno, where Drake created and refined his "Boss Radio" format from 1962-1964 before taking it to KGB, San Diego in '64 and KHJ in '65), entered briefly into talks about consulting KFI and then KRLA before switching directions signing a four-year contract to manage and program KIQQ. Barrett and Robbin were out, Robbin returning to KCBQ, San Diego.
Robert W. Morgan and The Real Don Steele had already walked out of KHJ in June, knowing that Drake would be creating something somewhere.
On December 7, 1973, KIQQ became "The New K-100"...with Morgan in morning drive, Steele in afternoons, Billy Pearl (from KKDJ) in evenings, Jerry Butler (who had left evenings at KHJ in May) and Jim Carson (who had been in mornings at KFRC, San Francisco until June, when he filled in for a week at KHJ after Morgan's departure). A month or so later, Eric Chase (who'd been doing afternoons at KFRC) moved into middays.
Drake himself hadn't been a program director since Fresno...instead overseeing a series of RKO PDs (at KHJ, Ron Jacobs, Jim O'Brien, Ted Atkins and Paul Drew). At K-100, the hands-on PD was Bill Watson.
A lot of people thought lightning might strike twice. They were wrong.
FM recievers were still fairly rare in cars...and in L.A. in-car listening was critical. Even if the recievers had been there, K-100's signal wasn't among the best FMs in the market.
Cosmic Communications (four California businessmen with no other broadcast interests) didn't have anywhere near the bank account of RKO...a major disadvantage when it came to promotion.
Ron Jacobs, KHJ's PD from 1965-1969 is widely credited with giving the strict Drake formatics depth, breadth and excitement. Watson was a by-the-book procedural guy, according to jocks who were there...given to lengthy memos and frequent hotline calls on the air...urging them to mention specific locations in L.A. more often. And unlike his previous gig, he didn't have local PDs acting as a filter between him and the talent on the air.
KHJ had engineers ("board ops" doesn't do them justice) who were artists...capable of juggling multiple events , keeping audio levels spot-on and creating a sense of flow and momentum with their segues. At K-100, the jocks had to run their own consoles. For Morgan and Steele, it was the first time in 8 years. For Butler and Carson probably 5. Billy Pearl was the only one who came straight from another station where he ran his own board. And the gear was the cheapest broadcast-quality stuff available at the time.
KHJ had memorable staging and production values...those classic Johnny Mann jingles and brilliantly produced promos. K-100 was without jingles for its first year....occasionally doing a "whisper" drop-in. Promos were pretty much Robert W. Morgan reading uninspired copy over a music bed.
And then there were the times. In one of the last interviews of his life, Bill Drake admitted that he'd have had a much rougher time with Boss Radio if it hadn't been for The Beatles, The Beach Boys and Motown.
At K-100, he launched with Helen Reddy, Charlie Rich and The DeFranco Family.
In the six months between the walkouts from KHJ (required by noncompete clauses in contracts), KHJ had kept on being KHJ...replacing Morgan with Charlie Van Dyke, a great voice who'd been at KHJ the year before, and Steele with Barry Kaye, who'd been brought in when Jerry Butler walked. Bobby Rich from WAVZ, New Haven filled the gap that move created.
And they all did as well or better in the ratings than KHJ had been doing with Drake, Morgan and Steele.
Plus...there was already an FM top 40 in the market...with a better signal. KKDJ. True, K-100 stole Billy Pearl, a nighttime teen favorite, but KKDJ replaced him with Humble Harve (KHJ), still had Russ O'Hara (KRLA) in afternoons, Kris Erik Stevens (WLS) in nights and, 90 days before K-100's launch, KKDJ brought in former KHJ star Charlie Tuna and Jay Stevens from KROQ for mornings and middays. A big head start.
All K-100 succeeded in doing was splitting the FM top 40 audience. KKDJ's summertime 1973 rating dropped in half by summer '74. K-100 gained what they lost...putting them in a tie for 27th place.
Billy Pearl bailed first, in September, 1974...getting the offer to do evenings at KHJ when Machine Gun Kelly moved into afternoons. He was replaced by UCLA classmate Beaver Cleaver (better known today as Emmy-award winning TV producer/writer Ken Levine), who had a similar style.
The Real Don Steele was out the door next...in October. With no offer in hand. Rumors were published in Billboard that he was headed to either KGFJ or KDAY to play R&B, but in fact, he was off the air until December 26, 1976 and the launch of KTNQ...more than two years later.
Jerry Butler left...not sure exactly when, but it was before the end of 1974.
Robert W. Morgan quit in fall, 1975...not quite two years after the launch...to take weekends and fill-ins at MOR giant KMPC. He'd do them for four years before a fulltime morning show opened up there.
K-100's division of the FM Top 40 audience did eventually drive KKDJ out of the format...it flipped to Adult Contemporary as KIIS-FM in October, 1975. And for a while, K-100 benefitted from being the only Top 40 on a growing band. With Eric Chase in the afternoon slot Steele abandoned, the station got close to the Top 10 in 1976...and then the numbers began to slide. Chase jumped to newly-flipped Top 40 KFI in 1977...the same year Drake-Chenault's contract expired and Cosmic Communications sold KIQQ to Outlet Broadcasting.
Outlet ran it for 8 years, with some very good talent...Bruce Chandler in mornings, Jim Carson (who never left) in afternoons...but the numbers never again approached the top 10.
On August 1, 1985, Outlet pulled the plug (the L.A. Times report said they were #25 in the ratings)...fired everyone except Jim Carson and went mostly satellite Adult Contemporary. They kept the call letters but called it "Lite 100"...and later, "K-Lite".
In November, 1988, Westwood One bought KIQQ (which, again according to The Times, had climbed to #16) from Outlet for $56 million. And on March 17, 1989, it became KQLZ, "Pirate Radio", ending the 17-year use of the KIQQ calls.
---Michael Hagerty
Country KFOX was bought by Cosmic Communications and became KIQQ (K-100) in 1972. Don Barrett (present-day publisher of laradio.com) was GM and Rich Brother Robbin was PD.
In May of '73, Bill Drake ended his 8-year association with RKO, the owners of KHJ. Drake had been consulting the Top 40 stations in the RKO chain (KHJ; KFRC, San Francisco; WHBQ, Memphis; WXLO-FM, New York and WRKO, Boston) and providing programming for their FM sister stations.
Drake employed Bill Watson, who with the title "RKO National Program Director" did a lot of the travel and direct communication with the RKO stations. The president of RKO, Bruce Johnson, felt that Drake should do the work himself and suggested that he dismiss Watson. In an interview years later, Drake said he walked out of Johnson's office and never spoke to him again.
Drake and partner Gene Chenault (owner of KYNO, Fresno, where Drake created and refined his "Boss Radio" format from 1962-1964 before taking it to KGB, San Diego in '64 and KHJ in '65), entered briefly into talks about consulting KFI and then KRLA before switching directions signing a four-year contract to manage and program KIQQ. Barrett and Robbin were out, Robbin returning to KCBQ, San Diego.
Robert W. Morgan and The Real Don Steele had already walked out of KHJ in June, knowing that Drake would be creating something somewhere.
On December 7, 1973, KIQQ became "The New K-100"...with Morgan in morning drive, Steele in afternoons, Billy Pearl (from KKDJ) in evenings, Jerry Butler (who had left evenings at KHJ in May) and Jim Carson (who had been in mornings at KFRC, San Francisco until June, when he filled in for a week at KHJ after Morgan's departure). A month or so later, Eric Chase (who'd been doing afternoons at KFRC) moved into middays.
Drake himself hadn't been a program director since Fresno...instead overseeing a series of RKO PDs (at KHJ, Ron Jacobs, Jim O'Brien, Ted Atkins and Paul Drew). At K-100, the hands-on PD was Bill Watson.
A lot of people thought lightning might strike twice. They were wrong.
FM recievers were still fairly rare in cars...and in L.A. in-car listening was critical. Even if the recievers had been there, K-100's signal wasn't among the best FMs in the market.
Cosmic Communications (four California businessmen with no other broadcast interests) didn't have anywhere near the bank account of RKO...a major disadvantage when it came to promotion.
Ron Jacobs, KHJ's PD from 1965-1969 is widely credited with giving the strict Drake formatics depth, breadth and excitement. Watson was a by-the-book procedural guy, according to jocks who were there...given to lengthy memos and frequent hotline calls on the air...urging them to mention specific locations in L.A. more often. And unlike his previous gig, he didn't have local PDs acting as a filter between him and the talent on the air.
KHJ had engineers ("board ops" doesn't do them justice) who were artists...capable of juggling multiple events , keeping audio levels spot-on and creating a sense of flow and momentum with their segues. At K-100, the jocks had to run their own consoles. For Morgan and Steele, it was the first time in 8 years. For Butler and Carson probably 5. Billy Pearl was the only one who came straight from another station where he ran his own board. And the gear was the cheapest broadcast-quality stuff available at the time.
KHJ had memorable staging and production values...those classic Johnny Mann jingles and brilliantly produced promos. K-100 was without jingles for its first year....occasionally doing a "whisper" drop-in. Promos were pretty much Robert W. Morgan reading uninspired copy over a music bed.
And then there were the times. In one of the last interviews of his life, Bill Drake admitted that he'd have had a much rougher time with Boss Radio if it hadn't been for The Beatles, The Beach Boys and Motown.
At K-100, he launched with Helen Reddy, Charlie Rich and The DeFranco Family.
In the six months between the walkouts from KHJ (required by noncompete clauses in contracts), KHJ had kept on being KHJ...replacing Morgan with Charlie Van Dyke, a great voice who'd been at KHJ the year before, and Steele with Barry Kaye, who'd been brought in when Jerry Butler walked. Bobby Rich from WAVZ, New Haven filled the gap that move created.
And they all did as well or better in the ratings than KHJ had been doing with Drake, Morgan and Steele.
Plus...there was already an FM top 40 in the market...with a better signal. KKDJ. True, K-100 stole Billy Pearl, a nighttime teen favorite, but KKDJ replaced him with Humble Harve (KHJ), still had Russ O'Hara (KRLA) in afternoons, Kris Erik Stevens (WLS) in nights and, 90 days before K-100's launch, KKDJ brought in former KHJ star Charlie Tuna and Jay Stevens from KROQ for mornings and middays. A big head start.
All K-100 succeeded in doing was splitting the FM top 40 audience. KKDJ's summertime 1973 rating dropped in half by summer '74. K-100 gained what they lost...putting them in a tie for 27th place.
Billy Pearl bailed first, in September, 1974...getting the offer to do evenings at KHJ when Machine Gun Kelly moved into afternoons. He was replaced by UCLA classmate Beaver Cleaver (better known today as Emmy-award winning TV producer/writer Ken Levine), who had a similar style.
The Real Don Steele was out the door next...in October. With no offer in hand. Rumors were published in Billboard that he was headed to either KGFJ or KDAY to play R&B, but in fact, he was off the air until December 26, 1976 and the launch of KTNQ...more than two years later.
Jerry Butler left...not sure exactly when, but it was before the end of 1974.
Robert W. Morgan quit in fall, 1975...not quite two years after the launch...to take weekends and fill-ins at MOR giant KMPC. He'd do them for four years before a fulltime morning show opened up there.
K-100's division of the FM Top 40 audience did eventually drive KKDJ out of the format...it flipped to Adult Contemporary as KIIS-FM in October, 1975. And for a while, K-100 benefitted from being the only Top 40 on a growing band. With Eric Chase in the afternoon slot Steele abandoned, the station got close to the Top 10 in 1976...and then the numbers began to slide. Chase jumped to newly-flipped Top 40 KFI in 1977...the same year Drake-Chenault's contract expired and Cosmic Communications sold KIQQ to Outlet Broadcasting.
Outlet ran it for 8 years, with some very good talent...Bruce Chandler in mornings, Jim Carson (who never left) in afternoons...but the numbers never again approached the top 10.
On August 1, 1985, Outlet pulled the plug (the L.A. Times report said they were #25 in the ratings)...fired everyone except Jim Carson and went mostly satellite Adult Contemporary. They kept the call letters but called it "Lite 100"...and later, "K-Lite".
In November, 1988, Westwood One bought KIQQ (which, again according to The Times, had climbed to #16) from Outlet for $56 million. And on March 17, 1989, it became KQLZ, "Pirate Radio", ending the 17-year use of the KIQQ calls.
---Michael Hagerty
M
MsMusicRadio
Guest
You mention Barry Kaye. Was that the same Barry Kaye from WJAS in Pittsburgh? You also mention Bobby Rich. Could that be the same guy who is currently on the Q105 morning show in Tampa ?
MsMusicRadio said:
No, apart from KHJ and KGB, this Barry Kaye has been a lifelong Texas jock...mostly Houston.
And this Bobby Rich went from KHJ to KFMB-AM, San Diego as Program Director, where he flipped KFMB-FM to a legendary Top40, B-100, and hosted the Rich Bros. Morning Zoo program. He also has been in NY (99x), Seattle and back to L.A. (KFI). Since 1992, he's been PD and mornings at 94.9 MixFM in Tucson.
---Michael Hagerty
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