Date: Sun, 8 Jun 1997 08:10:49 -1000 To:
[email protected] (brian craig) From: MEL <
[email protected]> Subject: Re: Top 40 Radio In Honolulu Cc: Bcc: X-Attachments: Hello Brian.... Geez... well I was a kid mostly in the 60s but started listening to the radio a lot from about 1965... so yes, I pretty much know where all the top 40 stations were from this time forward... One thing is that as a kid and teenager, I grew up and listened to the radio on the Big Island of Hawaii... So reception for some of Honolulu's radio stations were not very good from where I lived. And it seemed that stations above 1000khz on the AM dial broadcasting out of Honolulu were just unbearable to listen to for a sustained period of time, though for KPOI radio I eventually figured a workaround to poor reception. FM reception in my area of the Big Island was listenable but poor to good depending on the weather conditions. It's still like that today when I go back, though now we get FM stations from Maui and the Big Island.
to Oahu in the mid 70s where I had a better chance to listen to the all of the stations in Honolulu with regularity. Station by station this is how I remember how each one evolved in their programming. All Honolulu unless indicated. ------ AM ------- 550 KMVI Maui They had a top 40 format in the late 60s and throughout the 70s. The person I remember listening to the most was L.D. Reynolds in the night.. mostly early 70s.. they had a weekly top 35 countdown show and a yearly top 100. I used to listen to these a lot. During the dayparts they programmed mostly MOR and some Hawaiian I think. 590 KGMB / KSSK
emporary they have on today. The station was changed ownership several times over the years and eventually became KSSK radio. Michael W. Perry who I first heard for about 6 years on KKUA switched to KSSK in 1978 as afternoon personality. Upon Aku's death he and former Rainbow football coach Larry Price teamed up for the new morning show which is number one to this very day. 620 KIPA Hilo Was always mostly a boring MOR or Easy listening station except during a period in the early to mid 1970s when they had a night time album rock show hosted by someone named Thor. Today KIPA has the popular Melvin The Mynah Bird morning show in Hilo. Station now covers entire island with 3 transmitter sites at least. Plus an FM at 100.3. Oh yeah, they were at 1110 on the AM before moving to 620. 650 KORL
a top 40 jock here.. they played all the hits all the time. In the early 70s the station switched to oldies, and then to talk which at one time featured Tom Dynamite Dancer morning show. Was fun to hear him "blow up" callers over the air...haha. After their stint in talk it changed to all kinds of strange formats and even back to top 40 for a brief time in the early 80s before it went off the air. Frequency was taken over in late 80s by KHNR radio. 690 KKUA
he mid 1980s or was it late 80s, they changed their call letters to KQMQ (see FMs)..... In the early 70s KKUA had a weekly Top 20 show that was broadcast on Monday afternoons that I religiously listened to every week. The show was first hosted by Ron King and then later Steve Nicolet. They had a contest at one time where they would take listener predictions as to what the next week's top 20 would be.. if your prediction came closest to the actual top 20... you'd win that week's top 20 records! Cool.. because I won it once!!! In 1972... summer. I was the envy of the neighborhood. The lineup in 1971 at KKUA included 6:AM Jim Peters 9 or 10:AM (can't remember now) Steven B. Williams (Later replaced by Gene Davis and then even later by Lan Roberts) I have Lan Roberts e-mail address somewhere.. he's in Texas the last I heard, if I find it I'll send it to you.... you can ask him more about the era too....
then replaced by Michael W. Perry in 1972. 6:PM I forgot who the night-time guy was because I usually watched TV at this hour.. but later on when Michael Perry came to KKUA the nightime guy was Lou Richards. I think he later went to Hollywood and co-starred in the TV series "She's the Sheriff". Latenight..hmm.. can't remember.. I went to bed...ha! A lot of popular DJs passed through KKUA through the years.. Oh.. by 1976 the big news at KKUA was when they hired Ron Jacobs as morning drive guy... his show was fun to listen to as he was teamed up with news anchor Keala Kai. I thought he had a fun show at KKUA. Probably the most memorable thing that Ron Jacobs did while he was at KKUA was to launch the now famous "Homegrown" albums which featured Hawaii based artists that never got recorded before. The albums were big sellers in the late 70s and launched the careers of Nohelani Cypriano and Bart Bascone among others....
Throughout most of the 1970s the biggest event on KKUA was the year end TOP 69 COUNTDOWN show where they counted down what else.. the top records of the year.. I have some of those old surveys that I either wrote down by hand or on some printed piece the station put out. They're in a closet somewhere. KKUA was also one of several stations that at some point in time carried Casey Kasem's AMERICAN TOP 40 show. I loved that show and listened to it religiously every week. They later had a Hawaii Top 40 weekly countdown show with singer Tommy Sands on Sundays. By the time the 80s rolled around radio was changing as FM began to dominate and through several ownership changes, KKUA was folded into KQMQ FM 93.1 (see FMs) 760 KGU Yes, you are right. During most of the 60s and 70s I always remembered KGU as a boring MOR station that my Dad listened to.. No Beatles, no Jackson 5, Rolling Stones, etc.yucko!!!!
r awhile before going back for another short while as MOR and then finally to news, sports and talk which they have retained until today. KGU was the one of the first radio stations to sign on in Hawaii... around 1922 I believe. The other was KGMB. 830 KIKI
ite and closed.. until early this year when they signed back on and now simulcast with KIKI 93.9 FM. (see FMs) During the early 80s I think Tom Moffatt made a return to the airwaves as morning drive guy. They even brought back the top 300 during that time. Also in the early 80s the station used a voting system to determine its top 30 hits, and I think it may have been run by Norm Winter for a while, who later went on to radio fame by starting Radio Free Hawaii in 1991. Best to ask Norm about this. 850 KHLO Hilo A top 40 station for most of the 70s in the Hilo area. I did not listen to them much because where I lived the reception was lousy. First heard American Top 40 on this station in 1971 I believe. 870 KAIM They were always a religious station, though at sometime in the 60s I think they also played classical music. I think KAIM was the first station in Hawaii to broadcast on FM. 940 KAHU / KDEO
music. That is when they were KAHU radio. They were country from as far back as the 60s and all the way through the 70s until 1980 when Ron Jacobs and a hui I think bought it and changed the format. They also changed the call letters to KDEO. Their "groundbreaking" format in 1980 was a weird mix of Adult Contemporary music, talk shows and top 40 in the nights... It was confusing format to listen to and I think hardly anyone could make out what this station was... Ron Jacobs and Keala Kai were on in the mornings, followed by some talk show guy and I think in the afternoon Kamasami Kong was on under his real name Robert Zix. About the only lasting thing during this period for KDEO was that they put out the last of the Hawaii "Homegrown" albums that Jacobs started when he was at KKUA.
o station. In the 80s while KDEO was country, the owners who probably came after Ron Jacobs left started KULA FM 92.3 which they operated as an automated FM top 40 station called "the space station" through most of the late 70s until it was sold to Heftel broadcasting... Somewhere along the line Bob Leow got a hold of KDEO AM and later in 1988 started KDEO FM at 102.7... They played country on that station until 1991 when Norm Winter and his company subleased the station and ran Radio Free Hawaii on it from 1991-94 and then again from 1995-97. Radio Free Hawaii was mainly an alternative rock outlet that played music from all kinds of genres based on weekly listener votes. It is a station I loved listening to. It was sold in March of this year and is now part of a 3 station conglomerate with an entirely different format. 970 KPUA Hilo
a very popular station because it featured The Mynah Bird show in the mornings, was aligned with Heftel's KGMB AM 590 out of Honolulu, carried Aku's newscasts in the morning, and then by mid morning had a very popular all Hawaiian music program hosted by Hal Bodreau. By mid afternoon the station switched to top 40 and was top 40 for the rest of the night until early the next morning.
t of small prizes from them... (mainly records). 990 KTRG Here is a Honolulu station that I never listened to. The only thing I remember about them is that it was owned by the Watumull family or something and they had the Jack McCoy show on it... but I am not too sure... somewhere along the line it went off the air and the frequency went unused until KHVH moved there. 1040 KHVH For a short time I remember KHVH as being a Hawaiian music station. I think they switched over to an all news format and has been that way through the rest of its history, though in the 90s they added talk. This station also changed frequencies the most since they were bought and sold several times after Bob Berger got rid of it. They moved from 1040 to 990 and then to 830. They also at one time simulcasted for about 6 months on 98.5 FM, their sister station. 1080 KHAI / KIOE / KWAI
have been talk radio and a one time stint as a top 40 station in the mid 1980s... During this short span of time it was run by Norm Winter in a Radio Free Hawaii-like fashion. I have several of their top 36 survey printouts from that era... mid 80s. 1170 KOHO Was Japanese for long time until they went off the air. Recently resumed broadcasting under new owners and format. 1210 KZOO Japanese language and music for as long as I can remember. 1270 KNDI This station is a mystery to a lot of people in town. Though they have always played a wide range of ethnic and relgious programs. I think the same person still owns this station and the format varises widely to this very day. 1380 KPOI When you mentione Top 40 radio in Hawaii, everyone turns to KPOI. From what I understand and remember, this station was legendary for the music they played, the DJs they had (and all the stunts they did to promote something or another on the station), and the concerts they brought in.
d on the what seemingly was the wrong side of the Big Island at the time, I could not pick up KPOI very well. In fact I would label their reception from where I lived as being lousy, despite they being the #1 rated top 40 music outlet in Hawaii for most of the 50s, probably all of the 60s and the early 70s. However as I became a little older I figured out that if I put my AM radio next to some water pipes, reception improved markedly, so whenever I could I listened to KPOI like that... Also the night time reception was a little better too.
ed with KPOI through its end as a top 40 station in 1974. KPOI had their own Weekly Action 20 Countdown show and I tried to listen to that every Saturday morning at 9. They were the first station in Honolulu to air American Top 40 I believe. One of KPOI's biggest countdown shows was the yearly Top 300 Marathon of Hits, where listeners voted for their favorite songs and the station counted them down on Labor Day weekend. Sadly, I only have one edition of this marathon of hits survey on paper... the last one from 1973. The number 1 song on that edition was "My Hawaii" by the Young Rascals, a very popular album track fromt their Once Upon a Dream LP.
rdly had any commercials. KPOI AM & FM continued as a top 40 / progressive rock outlet until 1974 when I think someone bought them out and turned the FM into KHSS "beautiful music" to compete with KUMU.... while the AM also played beautiful music (I think) as KPOI. That beautiful music format lasted a couple of years and by 1977 or so the format on both stations changed. First of all KPOI AM moved from 1380 to 1040 after KHVH abandoned 1040 to go to 990. KPOI was then turned into an oldies station I think....on the AM side. On the FM side they continued as easy listening until 1978 or so when the call letters changed to KDUK and they played disco...
0s it became a classic rock station (known for a long time as KPOI 98 Rock) before changing formats again in 1993 to alternative rock to compete with Radio Free Hawaii. It continues as an alt rock station today. 1420 KCCN For as long as I remember KCCN was always and still is a Hawaiian music station. At several points in the 60s, 70s and 80s they were often the only station playing Hawaiian music in Hawaii. In 1990 they added KCCN FM 100 to their lineup and split the Hawaiian music into contemporary for FM and traditional for the AM. It continues like that today, and they also operate another FM at 105.1 called KINE, which also plays Hawaiian. 1550 KUMU From what I understand this station started out as a top 40 to compete with KPOI but lost miserably. They changed to Easy Listening and continued with this format through most of the 60s, all of the 70s and 80s and up to around 1995... Then the AM switched to "popular standards" while the FM remained easy listening. 1540 KISA
1974 as a Filipino music station and stayed that way until 1995. Went off the air and resumed broadcasting earlier this year simulcasting now with KWAI 1080 AM talk radio. ------ FM ------- 88.1 KHPR Started in 1981 as Hawaii Public radio and continues to this very day as Hawaii's premiere classical music outlet. Also simulcasts on KKUA FM 90.7 out of Maui since the late 1980s. 89.3 KIPO Sister station to KHPR, they went on the air in the late 80s or early 90s and specialize in classical music, jazz, some news and talk and eclectic music styles on the weekends. 90.3 KTUH I think they started sometime in the late 1960s and all through their history have been underpowered, underfunded, but has presented one of the most varied formats in radio. They're a college station run by the University of Hawaii. 92.3 KULA / KXPW / KSSK
in the 1980s to Heftel broadcasting. They changed it to KXPW and for a time it was "Power 92" playing all the hits all the time.. it failed, and the format and call letters were changed in the late 80s to KSSK FM and adult contemporary. Since that time the station has been tremendously successful, mainly because they have the hugely popular Perry & Price morning show that is simulcast with sister AM 590 KSSK. 93.1 KGMB / KGMQ / KQMQ
ince the 1980s and through several ownership changes continues with them to this very day. At one time Michael Qseng's morning show beat out Perry & Price for the #1 position during one ratings period. The station still continues as top 40 today, but is more CHR and focuses mostly on dance / r&b music that dominates the Billboard Hot 100 these days. 93.9 KPIG / KMAI / KIKI As far as I can remember they started out as a disco station in the late 70s. Known as "The Pig" they competed head on with the other disco station in town at the time, KDUK. Rabbett of H4's Data Super- Highway (
http://hotspots.hawaii.com) worked for the Pig and has an extensive web page about his days with the Pig. Search for it at the URL above (enter KPIG in the H4 search engine). After that they changed call letters and formats to album rock and then oldies during the first part of the 1980s. They were KMAI then. By the late 80s they switched to a top 40/dance music format and it continues on today. 94.7 KUMU
of the first FMs in Hawaii, they have always been an "easy listening" music outlet and has succeeded with this format. 95.1 KAOI Maui I think they were the first FM station set up on a neighbor island. They started out as easy listening but switched to album rock in 1978 and has been that way ever since. The station has a lot of range and can be heard through about 2/3 of the state. They simulcast in Hilo on KAOE 92.7 FM and were for a couple of years simulcasting at 107.9 FM in Honolulu. 95.5 KAIM Always been a religious station and has a contemporary Christian music format when the Bible thumpers are not on. 96.3 KJYE / KSHO / KRTR Started broadcasting out of Kailua, Oahu in the early 80s, first as easy listening, next as jazz and since 1984 as adult contemporary. Over the years the station now known as KRTR has increased in popularity. 97.5 KPOI / KHSS / KDUK / KPOI
ic rock and then changed in 1993 to alternative rock. See KPOI AM 1380 for more details. 98.5 KHHH / KHVH / KKLV Started in the late 1980s as a new age station, switched to satellite delivered Z-Rock format then switched to all news simulcast before settling on classic rock in 1994. 99.5 KORL Old call letters, totally different station. Started in 1995. Caters to Japanese tourist listeners. 100.3 KCCN Hot contemporary island music outlet as sister station to KCCN AM. See KCCN AM 1420. 101.9 KUCD Started in 1995 as contemporary jazz station and continues today. 102. 7 KDEO Started as country station in 1988, became Radio Free Hawaii (alternative rock and eclectic music) in 1991 to 94, became The Blaze classic rock from 1994 to 95 and then back to Radio Free Hawaii until sold this year and became adult contemporary r&b. See KAHU/KDEO AM for more details. 105.1 KHFX / KINE Started in the early 90s as an adult contemporary station until acquired by KCCN and now plays Hawaiian music.
9 KGUY / KGMZ Started in late 80s as sister station to KGU. Played classic rock, then changed to top 40 and then changed to new age and then changed again to album rock simulcast with Maui's KAOI before changing still again this year to "1-Oldies-7.9" FM. Whew! That's the whole dial as I remember it from the 60s, 70s, 80s and today. It is probably more than what you asked for but I hope it gives you a good start to whatever it is you're doing with this information. After typing all of this stuff for the past couple of hours, I am now thinking about turning the information into a web page...sheesh.. see what you made me do!!! Have fun and thanks for stopping by the Hawaii Radio & Television Guide. MEL ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >Found your link in a Dejanews posting about Liz Damon's Orient Express. Maybe you can help me.
4. I have very little information on Honolulu radio during that era. >Any info you can share would be very appreciated. >Of the 16 AM stations that were on the air during that period, this is all I know and I'm assuming most of the following: >KGMB and KGU were always MOR. >KUMU was always easy/beautiful. >KAIM was always religious. >KCCN was Hawaiian. >KHVH was news, but was on 1040. >I have no idea what was on 1270, 1210, or 1170. Didn't 940 try country sometime during this era? 1540 and 1080 came on the air in the early 70s, but I have no idea on formats. >That would leave KIKI-830 which in one book I have is descriped as MOR/Top 40. KKUA-690 KPOI-1380, an KORL-650 which I believe were top 40 during this era. >Again, any info on Honolulu radio formats would be helpful especially info on KIKI, KKUA, KPOI and KORL. >Thanks, >Brian Craig >Memphis, Tennessee
