The year 1981 in radio involved some significant events.

Debuts

*March – KWNT (1580 AM) of

Davenport, Iowa Davenport is a city in and the county seat of Scott County, Iowa, United States. Located along the Mississippi River on the eastern border of the state, it is the largest of the Quad Cities, a metropolitan area with a population of 384,324 and a ...

, switches from its longtime country music format – which it had held since the 1950s, including under its previous call sign KFMA – to a golden oldies format, emphasizing music of the 1930s through early 1950s. It is the first in a series of format switches at the frequency over the next 19 years – formats ranged from oldies to soul to black gospel – all of them unsuccessful. *March 1 - DJ Larry Monroe signs on at Austin's

NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

station

KUT Kūt ( ar, ٱلْكُوت, al-Kūt), officially Al-Kut, also spelled Kutulamare or Kut al-Imara, is a city in eastern Iraq, on the left bank of the Tigris River, about south east of Baghdad. the estimated population is about 389,400 people. It ...

and stays for 29 years. *March 30 – Radio stations across America interrupt regular programming following an assassination attempt against President

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...

outside the Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C. *April 12 –

WJOI WJOI (1340 AM) is a commercial radio station in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It is known on-air as "Joy 1340/98.7". WJOI is owned by the Milwaukee Radio Group subsidiary of Saga Communications, with radio studios and offices on Milwaukee's West Side ...

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

flipped from

beautiful music Beautiful music (sometimes abbreviated as BM, B/EZ or BM/EZ for "beautiful music/easy listening") is a mostly instrumental music format that was prominent in North American radio from the late 1950s through the 1980s. Easy listening, elevator musi ...

Top 40 In the music industry, the Top 40 is the current, 40 most-popular songs in a particular genre. It is the best-selling or most frequently broadcast popular music. Record charts have traditionally consisted of a total of 40 songs. "Top 40" or " con ...

, branded as "B94", and adopted the new call letters "WBZZ." That fall, WWJ-FM, a beautiful music station in

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...

, picks up the WJOI calls. *June 1 –

CJCB-FM CKPE-FM is a Canadian radio station broadcasting from Sydney, Nova Scotia at 94.9 FM. The station broadcasts a classic hits format branded as ''94.9 The Wave''. The station has been on the air since 1957 under the original call sign CJCB-FM. Th ...

Sydney, Nova Scotia flips from Easy Listening to Country. Along with the format change, the station changes its call letters to CKPE-FM. * September 22 – WCAU-FM in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

debuts a new

Hot Hits Hot Hits was a radio format created by consultant Mike Joseph in the 1970s. That concept, which helped spur the birth of what is now known as CHR, also revitalized the Top 40 format and would play a role in bringing the format to the FM band throug ...

format called "98 Now!" which sweeps the local ratings and inspires parent company CBS to look at converting its other FM stations to similar formats. * October – "The Weekly Country Music Countdown," a three-hour weekly countdown program featuring the top 30 country hits of the week as reported by ''

Radio & Records ''Radio & Records'' (''R&R'') was a trade publication providing news and airplay information for the radio and music industries. It started as an independent trade from 1973 to 2006 until VNU Media took over in 2006 and became a relaunched sister ...

'' magazine. Hosted by radio personality Chris Charles, the show is the first successful rival to "

American Country Countdown ''American Country Countdown'', also known as ''ACC'', is a weekly internationally syndicated radio program which counts down the top 40 country songs of the previous week, from No. 40 to No. 1, according to the ''Billboard'' Country Airplay cha ...

Births

* July 1 –

Clemency Burton-Hill Clemency Margaret Greatrex Burton-Hill (born 1981) is an English broadcaster, author, novelist, journalist and violinist. In her early career she also worked as an actress. In January 2020 she suffered an AVM brain haemorrhage and underwent eme ...

, English classical music presenter

Deaths

* February 10 –

Leonard Plugge Captain Leonard Frank Plugge (21 September 1889 – 19 February 1981) was a British radio entrepreneur and Conservative Party politician. Early years and political life Plugge was born at Walworth, only son of Frank Plugge (1864–1946), a com ...

, English commercial radio promoter and politician (b. 1889) * March 10 –

Bob Elson Robert Arthur Elson (March 22, 1904 – March 10, 1981) was a pioneering American sportscaster who was the voice of the Chicago White Sox for all or parts of four decades. Known as "The 'Ol Commander", he broadcast an estimated 5,000 major leagu ...

, American "pioneer in broadcast journalism" best known for his broadcasting of baseball games of the

Chicago Cubs The Chicago Cubs are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago. The Cubs compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as part of the National League (NL) Central division. The club plays its home games at Wrigley Field, which is located ...

and

Chicago White Sox The Chicago White Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago. The White Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central division. The team is owned by Jerry Reinsdorf, and p ...

(b. 1904)

References

Radio by year {{year-stub