Old News: 20 Years Ago/Mighty 690 Remembered
David Tanny
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/4656/indexdrw.htm
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News From 20 Years Ago This Month
No, I haven't been doing radio news THAT long, but the month of August 1980
yielded some interesting highlights of radio news in San Diego.
KPRI 106.5, the station billing itself as "San Diego's Best Rock", has
boosted their power up to par with eight-year-old KGB, calling itself "The
Rockin' Home".
With the signal boom to 50,000 watts, KPRI would be heard from all over San
Diego county.
XEMO 860, the station that had been broadcasting a religious lineup in
English, has been ordered by the Mexican government that they can't do that
anymore, as can't XETV 6.
KMJC, the adult pop station billing itself as "Magic 91", has decided to
drop its low-rated format and pick up the religious format abandoned by
XEMO, which chagned to a Mexican music format.
KMJC kept the call letters and soon began making their call letters stand
for "King and Master Jesus Christ"
Jesus lives, Jesus heals, Jesus is coming again! Mark my words. He will
rule Earth again. I don't know when, so don't ask me.
B100, the station formerly known as a Top 40 station playing rock and disco
along with the adult contemporary selections, recently unveiled the ads
touting its new grown-up adult format.
It said something like this, "Are you afraid of hard music? (a postman
plays some heavy metal rock on his cassette player in order to scare the
attack dog away) Are you sick of moldy oldies? Have you outgrown bubble
gum? Then switch...to B100."
Apparently, the ads worked as boomer listeners looking for something not as
quiet as KYXY or mellow KIFM had found a choice that better fit their
listening tastes.
The actor's strike continues. The fall television season is delayed until
further notice (October 27 is when the season began after an agreement was
reached the following month). NBC decided to bring in the miniseries
"Shogun" early in order to jump start the viewers as well as using it as a
springboard to promo its World Series baseball telecasts for the following
October (it alternated with ABC, which took the even years).
Powers Booth accepted the Emmy in the CBS TV movie "The Guyana Tradgedy"
and was jeered by the audience. Haven't these strikers shown any sense of
maturity at all? They're the ones that screwed us viewers up as I took some
night classes at Grossmont College instead of dealing with the reruns. Only
a few of the actors and actresses showed up as presenters in the 32nd Emmy
Awards, which lasted, well, 30 seconds so it seemed. Nobody seemed to boo
actress Susan Richardson when she presented an Emmy to a winner, who, like
the other winners, didn't show in order to show support for the actor's
strike.
The TV actor's strike didn't affect any of the reality programming
including NBC's "Real People" and ABC's "That's Incredible", as well as its
"Monday Night Football" telecasts with Frank, Don, and Howard. NBC also
premiered its new reality series "Speak Up America" to poor reviews.
September 14, 1980 was also the big date that cult parodist "Weird Al"
Yankovic appearred live on the Los Angeles version of the four-hour live
Dr. Demento Show. Al first met future drummer Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz on the
radio set. While Bermuda beat on the accordion case, Al sang and recorded
his classic hit "Another One Rides the Bus", which was later recorded for
his first album out in 1983.
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20th Anniversary of The Mighty 690
Also in the summer of 1980 came this radio station launch...The Mighty 690,
playing a rockier version of a Top 40 format than competetor 13K (KGB-AM
1360), which played anything from the B-52's and The Lizards to Barbra
Streisand and Christopher Cross (Sailing, Zzzzzz)
Booming into Los Angeles from a 50,000 watt transmitter in Tijuana (now in
Rosarito), the Mighty 690 took Southern California by surprise as it not
only provided an alternative to the mixed-up 13K or the "grown-up"
KYXY-esque B100, but it also gave some Top 40 stations in Los Angeles such
as KIQQ and KFI, a run for the listeners as Mighty 690 billed itself as a
Los Angeles station in the top-of-the-hour station I.D.'s to get listeners
up there to also listen.
The Mighty 690 was also an answer to 13K's cluttered format as it billed
itself as "Clutter-Free". Eventually, in March 1982, 13K lost enough
listeners to be convinced to change formats to an audio version of CNN2
(now CNN Headline News), then its current KPOP format of nostalgia.
On January 10, 1983, Mighty 690's low-rated station, 91X playing straight
rock and roll without any noticable personality, changed formats, but not
its handle, to alternative rock based on the successful formula Los
Angeles' KROQ 106.7 pioneered in 1978. The first song on the current 91X?
"Sex" by Berlin.
In November 1983, easy listening 102.9 became Top 40 KS-103 playing the
hits in FM stereo, a band that hasn't had the format since B100 "grew up"
in early 1980. With the help of Crazy Dave Otto and Dan Fogel, the
listeners switched from AM to FM to hear the hits in stereo.
In the fall of 1984, the XTRA said goodbye to The Mighty 690 and switched
to golden oldies from the 50's and 60's, XTRA Gold 690, also featuring
Super Gold Saturday Night and Soupy Sales. The late Wolfman Jack
broadcasted some afternoon shifts from an XTRA studio in Hollywood for a
couple of years in the late 80's.
It went talk circa 1988. In early 1990's it became XTRA Sports 690 and for
about three years, simulcasted it on KWNK 670 out in Simi Valley until
1994.
In 1996, the XTRA Sports moniker and its sports/talk format spread to other
stations in Southern California beginning with Jacor's purchase of KIIS-AM
1150 in Los Angeles and rechristened it XTRA Sports 1150 (KXTA) with their
own programming (it acquired the Los Angeles Dodgers broadcasting rights
for broadcast beginning in the 1998 season), then in 1998, Jacor purchased
AM stations in Santa Barbara 1340, San Bernadino 1350, Lancaster 610,
Canyon Country 1220, and other cities, where KXTA L.A. then began feeding
them the XTRA Sports programming to cover the whole region.
XTRA was licensed in Tijuana as their Spanish ID calls announced through
the 80's, but now says Rosarito in the 90's.
More history on 690: A reader recalls XTRA trying out an early form of the
original Kahn AM Stereo System in the mid 70's. They advertised that if you
turned on one AM radio to approx 688 kHz and another radio to approx 692
kHz you could get the left and right channels of a stereo signal. Strangely
enough, it seemed to work (or maybe my imagination wanted it to!)
XTRA was XEAK with a Top 40 format until May 6, 1961, when "XTRA News"
began.
It changed to Beautiful Music on 4-2-68, booming the easy listening music
to AM radios all over the Southland, and in the daytime, east to Yuma.
For more information on the history of 690...
From http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Academy/5515/xtra.html - The XTRA
690 Page has a history of the frequency.
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Support good music. Quit buying the bad songs!
Listen to DFSX Comedy Radio: Paste http://166.90.143.141:8572/ into WINAMP Open dialog!
Al-Team #80 (alt.music.weird-al) http://www.davesfunstuff.com/ for South Park, Radio/TV,
Dr. Demento, Today in History, Funny Stuff, "Weird Al" Yankovic, Icons, Eight is Enough,
TV Guide Parody, Celebrity Birthdays, etc.
If Susan Lucci can win an Emmy, anything is possible!
--
rec.radio.broadcasting is a robomoderated newsgroup. Please mail
messages to airw...@airwaves.com.
Peter
>>
XTRA was licensed in Tijuana as their Spanish ID calls announced through the
80's, but now says Rosarito in the 90's.
>>
The Tx site was in Tiajuana, but it is now in Rosarito, right across from
XEPRS.
Rich Wood
>The Tx site was in Tiajuana, but it is now in Rosarito, right across from
>XEPRS.
When did it move?? I programed XTRA during the later Easy Listening
years (around 1980) for 6 years and the transmitter was in Rosarito
all that time, up to its change to Oldies and many, many years before.
The 91X site was built in Tijuana near Colonia Libertad.
Rich
Peter
>>
> The Tx site was in Tiajuana, but it is now in
> Rosarito, right across from XEPRS.
When did it move??
>>
Perhaps a year or so ago.
Jacor engineered the move and the increase from 50 kW DA-2 to 77 kW-D, 50 kW-N,
DA-2.
The old Tx site was taken over by condos.
Checkout the new and old patterns (new: XETRA1, old: XETRA).
Preference is given to service to Baja California (N and S), with most power
being directed there.
It would appear that the justification for 77 kW input days is that that
particular power sends the same RF field towards L.A., days, as the old pattern
did with 50 kW input, days.
Mexico has a number of non-conforming stations (stations operating in excess of
the class maximum, days).