Rog or Reg?
Super Star
...this is for the old-timers here that remember 93 KHJ and The Real Don Steele …
...I mentioned to jcwla in my pm about the "Flash Contest: Predict The Road Trip" win that it's the first thing I've won since 1984…
…KHJ was one of the largest pop music radio stations on the West Coast from 1965 to 1980 when they switched to country music for 3 years. In 1983 they transitioned back to the pop music format and introduced their new AM Stereo Broadcast.
On the way home from work in 1984 I was stuck in traffic leaving downtown so I switched on the AM radio for a traffic report and heard a DJ for KHJ asking this trivia question: “What rock band started out as The Screaming Abdabs? The first caller that answers the question correctly wins an AM stereo radio!"
The next off ramp was Melrose, so I pulled off the freeway and drove west to a phone booth and called the station, which coincidentally was right across the street. I supplied the correct answer (Pink Floyd) and strolled across the street to collect my prize.
When I got there the station manager came down to interview me and asked me some questions. I told her that I was looking for a traffic report and stumbled upon KHJ. She asked if I could wait for a minute and went back upstairs to bring the program director down to talk to me. He asked me the same questions, then they gave me my stereo I went home and listened to a recording my wife made of me answering the question on the air.
One week later when I popped on KHJ, they had changed their format again to "KHJ Car Radio: Top 30 Hits and Traffic Every 10 Minutes!" My interview with the station manager and program director prompted them to change their format (you can Google it!).
Unfortunately for them, AM stereo never caught on and FM radio was the go-to for pop and rock. And in January of 1986 KHJ officially called it quits.
But I thought it was pretty cool that because of my interview they changed their format a week later to Car Radio to incorporate traffic reports with their top 30 hits.
Anyway, that was the last time I actually won anything except for a few good nights at a casino or two! But even Wikipedia has the whole car radio thing listed under their End of an Era section, all because I knew that Pink Floyd started out as The Screaming Abdabs (and I still have that stereo…somewhere).
...I mentioned to jcwla in my pm about the "Flash Contest: Predict The Road Trip" win that it's the first thing I've won since 1984…
…KHJ was one of the largest pop music radio stations on the West Coast from 1965 to 1980 when they switched to country music for 3 years. In 1983 they transitioned back to the pop music format and introduced their new AM Stereo Broadcast.
On the way home from work in 1984 I was stuck in traffic leaving downtown so I switched on the AM radio for a traffic report and heard a DJ for KHJ asking this trivia question: “What rock band started out as The Screaming Abdabs? The first caller that answers the question correctly wins an AM stereo radio!"
The next off ramp was Melrose, so I pulled off the freeway and drove west to a phone booth and called the station, which coincidentally was right across the street. I supplied the correct answer (Pink Floyd) and strolled across the street to collect my prize.
When I got there the station manager came down to interview me and asked me some questions. I told her that I was looking for a traffic report and stumbled upon KHJ. She asked if I could wait for a minute and went back upstairs to bring the program director down to talk to me. He asked me the same questions, then they gave me my stereo I went home and listened to a recording my wife made of me answering the question on the air.
One week later when I popped on KHJ, they had changed their format again to "KHJ Car Radio: Top 30 Hits and Traffic Every 10 Minutes!" My interview with the station manager and program director prompted them to change their format (you can Google it!).
Unfortunately for them, AM stereo never caught on and FM radio was the go-to for pop and rock. And in January of 1986 KHJ officially called it quits.
But I thought it was pretty cool that because of my interview they changed their format a week later to Car Radio to incorporate traffic reports with their top 30 hits.
Anyway, that was the last time I actually won anything except for a few good nights at a casino or two! But even Wikipedia has the whole car radio thing listed under their End of an Era section, all because I knew that Pink Floyd started out as The Screaming Abdabs (and I still have that stereo…somewhere).
