[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by peverett

Kono is the only AM radio with music other than country/western or hispanic in the San Antonio/Austin area. There were others, but they all changed to talk/sports, etc. Most of my radios (here in Buda, TX just south of Austin) will pick it up fine. Other wise, I would be stuck.

Even the selection of FM is becoming less varied. We used to have a good 1950s oldie station, but it turned to Bob FM where every third song is crap.

One of our two FM classic rock stations turned to religious music, leaving less selection there as well(unless you wanted the religious music).

I have several tube radios that I listen to on weekends when not at work. I also have several tube type TVs (both B&W and color) that I watch-one every evening.

I looked for station KONO on TV-RadioWorld but could not find it. Maybe I was looking under the wrong city (I just checked the listings for Austin, not San Antonio).

AM radio in Cleveland, as in most major U.S. cities, is mostly talk, sports and religion, except perhaps for Radio Disney. I get music stations from towns 70-some miles away, especially on my Zenith C-845, which are a breath of fresh air, IMHO. I live near the southern shore of Lake Erie, so can also get several music stations from Toronto and other southwestern Ontario cities. CHWO AM 740 in Toronto is one of the best Canadian AMs I have heard in a long time. The station plays strictly music from about the '30s through the '70s, with a completely automated overnight show they call the AM 740 Jukebox. The station has great coverage across southwestern Ontario and also the northeastern U. S., as several AK members in the latter region have found (stereofisher and also Kamakiri come to mind as I write this). I live in northeastern Ohio, 35 miles east of Cleveland, but still hear 740 quite well all the time (because I live so close to the lake).

FM radio in Cleveland, also as in all major U.S. cities, is limited to about four major formats today. Most stations in the area play rock (not surprising, as Cleveland is the home of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame), but there are two country-western stations, a classical station (which is buried by one of the C&Ws 0.2 MHz down the dial, making it unlistenable in this area), three religious stations, an oldies station, a classic rock station, and the usual assortment of NPR and low-power college stations between 88 and 92 MHz. It's much more varied now than it was when I was a kid growing up in the late '60s and '70s, when most FMs here or anywhere in the country either were classical, played automated elevator music or simulcast their companion AMs which often had the same calls as the FMs as well--there was at least one pair of stations in Cleveland which were like that; both were operated by NBC and had the calls WKYC-AM and FM respectively--the FM played automated elevator music, show tunes, and, at the top of every hour, it would simulcast NBC radio news with WKYC-AM which was a top-40 rocker at the time. On weekends, both WKYC-AM and WKYC-FM (the latter broadcasting in stereo on 105.7 MHz) would simulcast the (now defunct) NBC Radio Network variety program "Monitor Beacon." (Not to be outdone, CBS Radio also had a network show it called, aptly enough, "The CBS Radio Mystery Theater", which left the air about 25 years ago).

The early '70s saw huge changes in Cleveland radio, especially where NBC's operated stations were concerned. WKYC-AM and FM were sold from NBC to a local media group, one of several such companies to own these stations over the next 35 years. WKYC-AM went from middle-of-the-road (MOR) music to talk in the '70s and has remained a talk/sports station since about 1977 or so. WKYC-FM went from automated elevator music to album rock during this period as well, changing to all oldies in the early 1980s, also changing calls to WMJI-FM (the call sign the station still has to this day) in 1981. Cleveland's progressive rock station is WMMS 100.7, which used to be WHK-FM until 1968. WDOK and WQAL, 102.1 and 104.1 respectively, were easy listening stations from the late '60s until perhaps 1990. WXTM, in suburban Cleveland, which began, IIRC, as WCUY-FM, has had several calls and formats since it went on the air in the city of Cleveland Heights in the late 1950s. It is now alternative rock WXRK, 92.3 MHz, and broadcasts from the top of Cleveland's Terminal Tower downtown. WCUY, et al. used to have its studios and transmitter on Lee Road, the main drag in Cleveland Heights; I lived one street over from them in the early '70s (I could see the tower lights from my third-floor bedroom window after dark and walked right past the tower on my way to school in the morning); the station put in a tremendous signal at that location, which came in fine on channel 6 of my TV set, between local Cleveland stations on my stereo, etc.

All I can say is, thank goodness for XM/Sirius satellite radio. The formats and loudmouth DJs on Cleveland's FM stations left a bad taste in my mouth the last few years; now with satellite, there are no commercials, and the music is much more varied than local FM radio ever was. Where you have FM stations playing the same 200-song play list over and over again in every major city in the country, XM/Sirius' music is much less boring and much more enjoyable, especially without the commercials. Makes me wonder why I waited so long to discover AOL Radio with XM through Winamp.

BTW, one of Cleveland's FM stations is probably running "Bob" FM or some variation of that format, as I've seen their logo on their website which has the words "No Rules" in a red circle, with a red slash through it. I don't listen to the station, so don't know much about it, but that format certainly smacks of "Bob" or any one of several other automated, named formats. One trademark of "Bob" FM is their slogan, "We Play What We Want", which doesn't seem to me to be in the public interest--oh, well. Time was when AM radio stations would take requests and actually listen to their listeners, without whom, of course, they wouldn't exist. FMs played decent easy-listening music until about the '90s as well. But today's AM and FM radio stations are poles different from what they were years ago. I shudder to think what AM and FM will be like even five years from now.