One of my earliest radio memories — besides the Monday top-10 countdowns on the same station — was the KCBQ/San Diego music battle. I can’t recall what they called it, but it was an occasional weekend feature where the station would start with two songs, after which listeners would call in to vote for their favorite of the two during a third neutral song. The winner would then be played, followed by a new challenger, and more voting.
This would continue throughout the weekend — winner, challenger, voting, winner — until the end of the weekend when the ultimate song would be crowned; the one I first heard had “The Sound of Silence” by Simon and Garfunkel as the weekend’s ultimate winner. Of course, my 10-year-old mind didn’t quite understand that it didn’t actually mean “Silence” was the best song ever made, though in my mind it does come close. I imagine the constant song repeats — some would win many times in a row — were tough on the DJs.
KHJ (930 AM) called a similar contest the Music Playoffs, and I am sure that stations across the country did much the same thing.
Then there were the special weekends. KHJ had the Million Dollar Weekend, later becoming the Solid Gold Weekend, in which the regular format was altered to focus on huge hits from the past. KRTH (101.1 FM), which at the time played current music as well as oldies, took that and made it even bigger with special weekends focusing on the 1970s (Souvenir of the ‘70s), hits that never made it to number one on the pop charts (The Runners Up of Rock and Roll), the 1960s (Super Sixties), and more.
In KRTH’s case, the special weekends ceased in the mid-1980s when management was convinced to drop current music; the pre-recorded line “a weekend all week” was often played between oldies at the time.
But why do stations today not have special weekends, outside of special events and holidays? It’s an unfortunate victim of modern radio economics; stations no longer have a weekend staff, so there is no one to orchestrate it. Almost every station in town is basically a jukebox with commercials on the weekend. It just costs too much for those “throwaway” hours.
I think that is unfortunate. In an era when most radio listening is done in the car, having special weekend programming could get people back into the habit of listening at home. Not to mention that traffic on the 101 and 405 freeways demonstrates, without a shadow of a doubt, that people are indeed in their cars on weekends as well.
And if you can grab listeners on the weekend, who knows … maybe they’ll tune in during the week. It need not be expensive either — if a station uses interns, the better interns would probably appreciate the on-air experience and be willing to work cheap or free. Same for radio columnists, if you get my drift.
I’ve already mentioned one of my own ideas previously: “Guilty Pleasures,” in which listeners send in songs that they love … but would never admit to their friends that they like them. My personal example is Barbara Streisand’s “Woman in Love.” Talking with another radio friend just today, I came up with “Music That Sticks,” referring to songs that get stuck in your head after hearing them. Many of these, of course, could also be in the “Jukebox from Hell” (a name absolutely stolen from a feature Sirius used to run on its ‘70s channel prior to merging with XM). Think “Billy Don’t Be a Hero” or “Seasons in the Sun.”
Yes, people hate the songs. But they’d tune in to hear them regardless, as it was part of their childhood. And the kids might want to hear them as well — just to make fun of their parents.
Not everything has to be a Totally ‘80s weekend …
Selling Radio
My dream of owning my own AM radio station seems closer to reality, at least price-wise. KFTI/Wichita, Kansas just sold for $5,000. I could come up with that.
The station has actually been off the air since January, when copper thieves damaged the transmitting system; broadcasting since 1923, it is the second-oldest station in Kansas. The buyer, Ad Astra, per Aspera Broadcasting, has applied for “new” call letters, KFKB, which were the calls used when the station signed on the air in 1923. Supposedly, the calls stood for Kansas First, Kansas Best.
Originally in Milford, the station was launched by Dr. John Romulus Brinkley as a means to spread the word about his goat gland research. According to reports, Brinkley would inject slivers of Billy goat gonads into human scrotums as a cure for impotence. Supposedly, people would come from all over the region for treatments, and the station was apparently very popular. (A scholarly paper on the National Library of Medicine refers to him as “A Quintessential American Quack.”)
Brinkley eventually lost his medical license as well as his license to broadcast. Weird, I know. What triggered everything was the Kansas City Star newspaper. After a station owned by The Star didn’t get approved for a power increase, and KFKB did, the paper exposed the doctor via a series of stories on him. He sold the station in 1931 for $90,000. Then launched a 75,000-watt border-blaster station in Mexico.
Immediately before going off the air, KFTI played country music. The new owners have not announced plans for the soon-to-be revived KFKB, though they do state that it will be local programming designed to serve the Wichita area.
Richard Wagoner is a San Pedro freelance columnist covering radio in Southern California. Email rwagoner@socalradiowaves.com