1972 –  TOP 40 --- ON FM??

DALLAS – The ratings crown was still unquestionably KLIF’s in 1972, but a move that would have a tremendous implications for the legendary station would occur during the summer.  Gordon McLendon sold KLIF for $10.5 million, at the time it was the highest price ever paid for a single radio station.  The buyer, Fairchild Industries, was offered KLIF’s progressive rock sister station KNUS(FM) as well.  Fairchild declined, opting to purchase only the cash cow AM.   As part of the sale, McLendon agreed not to operate any AM station within 150 miles of Dallas, but the agreement did not preclude the operation of an FM station.  The stage was set for McLendon and his associates, and they decided to launch a new kind of top 40 station with KNUS - a hip, youthful station without all the teeny-bopper and bubble-gum music.  With typical McLendon fanfare, KNUS 99 was re-born as one of the nation’s first high-profile FM top 40’s.  The impact was almost immediate, as KNUS became the first stand-alone FM to rank in the top 5 in Dallas. 

FORT WORTH – WBAP and KFJZ continued their one-two punch atop the ratings, but FM was also making its presence felt in Fort Worth.  The city had seen a beautiful music FM in the top 5 before (KFWT 102.1 cracked the top 5 as early as 1968,) but that station had abandoned the format.  Dallas-based KOAX adopted the format in 1971, and finished in the Fort Worth top 5 in the spring ’72 survey.  For a Dallas station like KOAX, establishing listenership in Tarrant County would prove to be quite fortuitous once the two markets were combined into one.

1972 would also mark the final year that KXOL would appear in the top 5.  The station that had signed on as Fort Worth’s first “independent” radio station, and the first to broadcast ‘round-the-clock in Fort Worth, would be the first of Fort Worth’s legendary AM top 40s to fall.

©2002 Arbitron Inc. 

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