1974 - DALLAS RADIO BECOMES A ZOO

What had once been termed “underground” and followed by a handful loyal handful of listeners was now becoming mainstream, and no station served to catapult rock in Dallas/Fort Worth as much as KZEW (The Zoo).  Formerly the home of beautiful music station WFAA-FM, 97.9 FM's call letters were changed to KZEW on September 25th, 1973, and “The Zoo” was born.  Within months, legions of “Zoo Freaks” were tuning in, and by the spring of ’74 the size of this movement was evidenced in KZEW’s top 10 debut.  Several stations were affected by The Zoo, most notably were rock-based top 40 FM stations KNUS and KFWD.  KNUS would eventually rebound by moving away from it’s heavy rock base to focus on more contemporary counterparts like KVIL, while KFWD would continue to battle the 97.9 frequency in one form or another for the next decade and a half in what would become the area's most legendary rock war.

Another FM making waves in 1974 was the market's first full-time country formatted FM.  The year before, WBAP's sister station was christened "Silver Country Stereo" to compliment WBAP's "Country Gold" format.  It was basically a beautiful music approach to country, and landed the new KSCS in the top 10 for the very first time in the April/May '74 survey.

Just as KZEW and KSCS were pointing towards FM's future, the AM side of the dial was seeing what would be the last hurrah for several stations.  Of course, no one really knew that at the time, and why would they?  WBAP and KRLD commanded huge leads at the top of the rankings in 1974.  KBOX’s 5.6 share in the spring was the highest share ever recorded on the 1480 frequency, and KNOK’s 4.3 in the fall was the highest share ever for 970 AM.  But those kinds of shares would soon evaporate – KNOK’s fall appearance was it’s last ever in the top 10.

©2002 Arbitron Inc. 

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