In September 1997, shortly after a sale from Nationwide Communications to Jacor (now Clear Channel), Classic Hits-formatted “96.9 K-Hits” rebranded itself as “Eagle 96.9”, and brought on legendary radio/TV voice talent Charlie Van Dyke to host mornings. Nine months later, it was announced that the station would be undergoing a format change in the near future, and all of the station’s air talent would be out of a job. Van Dyke, having served as the radio columnist for the Arizona Republic newspaper in the past, decided that the audience deserved to know what was happening, and have some fun with the situation at the same. On this aircheck, he and co-host Mary Reilly explained the situation, took calls from disappointed listeners, and temporarily changed the music to (primarily) Rhythmic Oldies (a.k.a. “Jammin’ Oldies” – the fad format spreading across the U.S. at the time).
Podcast: Embed
Tanim:
As with the other Eagle aircheck, you’ve got the ownership sequence off a bit.
Bonneville bought 96.9 from Group W (Westinghouse) back in ’92.
Bonneville flipped it from KMEO to KPSN (Sunny 97) in ’92.
Bonneville took it from oldies to classic hits in 1996 and changed the call letters to KCHT (K-Hits 97).
After getting severe ribbing (who, me?) that CHT might suggest a word, but it wasn’t “hits”, Bonneville changed the call letters again, to KHTC, after about 90 days.
In 1997, Bonneville sold KHTC to Nationwide.
Nationwide changed the call letters to KGLQ (Eagle 96.9) in late summer, 2007. As the other KGLQ aircheck shows, Charlie, Mary and I launched the new morning show in September.
In November, 1997, Nationwide’s board of directors decided to sell all the company’s radio stations to Jacor. The sale went through the usual approval hoops, which took until summer of 1998, which brings us up to this aircheck.
Hey Michael! I apologize, but I just now saw your comment! (I used to get instant notification of comment posting, but that changed somewhere along the way – hopefully it can be fixed.)
Anyway, thank you for the corrected information. I will update the aircheck description in the near future.
I hope all is well – I think it’s been at least 10 years since we conversed directly!