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by Alex Cosper see also American Radio History STATION HISTORY: KABC KBBQ KBIG KBLA KDAY KEZY KFAC KFOX KFWB KGBS KGFJ KGIL KHJ KIEV KIIS KIQQ KKBT KKDJ KLAC KLOS KLSX KMET KMPC KNAC KNX KOST KPOL KPPC KPWR KQLZ KRLA KROQ KRTH KSRF KTNQ KTWV KUTE KWST KZLA XPRS KLOS has been one of the best known rock stations in America since the early seventies. The original station at 95.5 FM was KECA FM from 1947 to 1954. Both KECA FM and sister AM station 790 KECA were owned by ABC. The station became KABC FM in 1954. The station went all-talk in 1960, then experimented with an all-news format on January 1, 1968. KABC ironically gave up on the all-news concept and flipped to progressive rock on March 11, 1968. As a taped nationally syndicated format known as "Love" using voice tracks, the station did not have much impact. In 1971 the station took on the new call letters KLOS. The freeform era of KLOS ended in the fall of 1971 when program director Tom Yates launched the nation's first "Album-Oriented Rock" format. The format was based on the most popular tracks from top selling rock albums, as KLOS billed the station as "Rock 'N Stereo." Yates told Playlist Research on January 31, 2018, "All the ABC stations had gone from being simulcasts or beautiful music stations to other formats. It changed to KLOS three months before I got there. I came in as the morning man. There were some shakeups and that's how I became PD." Alan Shaw, who went on to become president of ABC, wanted to bring structure to the rock format. The AOR concept paid off, as KLOS entered the top ten in the Arbitron ratings for the first time in 1972. By that point it was the top FM rock station in the LA ratings and within a year it was top five overall in the market. "Epic times" is what Yates called it. Asked what some of the key highlights of the era were for him, Yates said "the big one was when we beat KHJ in the ratings. And the other one was when Billboard gave KLOS the Radio Station of the Year award." That award came in 1976. Yates went on to program L.A. classic rock station KLSX from 1987 to 1990, when he decided to purchase Northern California station KOZT in Mendocino County, a station at 95.3 and 95.9 known as "The Coast FM." By beating KHJ in the ratings, KLOS became the first FM station to take the market crown from an AM top 40 station. The key was that Yates developed programming that had value to both listeners and sponsors. The station's main competitor was KMET, which eventually caught up with KLOS in the ratings. The station became involved with promoting one of the biggest concert festivals of all time in 1974 called California Jam at Ontario Motor Speedway. Yates was involved with the second California Jam in March 1978 as a consultant for KMET. The show attracted over 350,000 people. The Mark & Brian Show featuring Mark Thompson and Brian Phelps began in the fall of 1987 under program director Charlie West. By the late eighties it was a top five station in Los Angeles. After West left in early 1989, Stephanie Mondello moved up from music director to program director. The station briefly moved away from its classic rock roots in the nineties to play more of the Seattle and alternative sounds that had infiltrated rock. By the late nineties KLOS returned to its core sound of established rock artists under program direction John Duncan, who arrived in 1997, but only stayed for about a year. Ownership of KLOS switched to Citadel Broadcasting in 2007 following its merger with ABC Radio, owned by Disney. Cumulus Media acquired Citadel on September 16, 2011. Mark Thompson retired from radio on August 17, 2012 following an official announcement a few months earlier. Brian Phelps then announced he was leaving the station, as the Mark & Brian show was replaced by former KLSX and KABC hosts Heidi Hamilton and Frank Kramer. KLOS Personnel 1970-1971 Elliot Mintz 1971-1971 Don Lennox 1971-1978 Tom Yates 1971-1980 J.J. Jackson 1972-1972 Paul Cassidy 1972-1972 Dick Lyons 1972-1972 Marshall Phillips 1972-1973 Joe Ortiz 1972-1976 Jeff Gonzer 1972-1977 Jerry Longden 1972-1983 Jerry Barber 1973-1996 Bill Sommers 1973-1985 Ruth Pinedo 1973-1974 Shauna (Zurbrugg) 1974-1977 William Shearer 1975-1983 Lee Larsen 1977-1977 Billy Juggs 1977-1979 Frank Cody 1977-1981 Joe Reiling, also 2003-2009 1977-1987 Michael Benner 1977-1978 Bob Griffith 1977-1998 Steven G. Smith 1978-1981 Terry Gladstone, also 2004-2009 1981-1981 Dusty Street 1979-1980 Jane Platt 1979-1979 China Smith 1979-1981 David Chaney 1979-1980 Jack Popejoy 1979-1984 Frazer Smith, also 1997, 2014-xxxx 1979-2005 Al Ramirez 1979-1981 B. Mitchell Reed 1980-1981 David Heller 1980-1981 Anita Gevinson 1980-1984 Bruce Coburn 1980-1985 Tommy Hadges 1980-1986 Shana (LaVigni) 1981-1981 John Sebastian 1981-1994 Uncle Joe Benson 1981-1983 Dan Carlisle, also 2004-2005 1983-1988 Frank DeSantis 1984-1994 Geno Michellini, also 1999-2003 1984-1985 Jack Snyder 1985-2012 Frank Sontag 1986-1990 Lynda Clayton 1986-1986 Raechel Donahue 1987-1989 Thrasher 1987-2012 Mark Thompson 1990-1994 Nicole Sanders 1993-1994 Grease Man 1994-2015 Stew Herrera 1994-1997 Kenny Sargent 1995-1995 Gary Poole 1996-1999 Frank Murphy 1997-2002 Mark Miller 2015-xxxx Lisa May |
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