After a nearly twenty-year run as the Bay Area's spot on the dial for Top 40 hits, KFRC — The Big 610 — went away in the Summer of 1986 and became an "adult standards" station, known as Magic 61. Playing nostalgic middle-of-the-road pop classics of the Forties, Fifties and early Sixties aimed toward the 40-and-older audience, Magic 61 took over from The Big 610, which had found its audience for Top 40 hits eroded as listeners in the Bay Area finally began jumping over to FM competitors such as KMEL and KITS. While KFRC's solid 5,000-watt signal was among the best in the Bay Area, it could not compete with the fidelity of its FM stereo cousins, despite broadcasting in glorious Kahn/Hazeltine AM Stereo. (The sound clip accompanying this exhibit is, in fact, presented in its original AM stereo version.) Jack Silver carries us through the final fifteen minutes of The Amazing AM — the first half of the recording — and closes with Journey's "Lights." Then, following a news report anchored by Joanne Green, it's time for Magic 61's debut under the deft morning stewardship of the incomparable Dr. Don Rose. DDR opens this new era in KFRC's history with a quick primer on what listeners can expect from the format. He would leave the station several months later. KFRC-AM remained Magic 61 for nearly seven years before taking the Big 610 moniker out of mothballs and beginning to simulcast the Oldies programming of sister station 99.7 KFRC-FM, beginning on August 12, 1993. In April 2005, the AM station was sold to Family Stations and began broadcasting Christian-oriented programming. On October 17, 2005, the KFRC call letters were removed from 610, and the station became KEAR.
Special thanks
to Carter B. Smith for RELATED EXHIBITS
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