The year 1991 saw a number of significant events in radio broadcasting history.

Events

* January 11 - KKWM-FM 97.9 in Dallas/Ft. Worth becomes KLRX "Lite 97.9" after Cox assumes ownership from Anchor Media. This change will lead to a station swap nearly three years later and the demise of Tampa Bay's heritage rocker WYNF "95 YNF." * January 18 – Brian Beirne became one of the few celebrities from radio to get a "star" on the

Hollywood Walk of Fame The Hollywood Walk of Fame is a historic landmark which consists of more than 2,700 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along 15 blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, Californ ...

. * January 23 - KLSK 104.1 in Santa Fe, New Mexico plays

Led Zeppelin Led Zeppelin were an English rock band formed in London in 1968. The group comprised vocalist Robert Plant, guitarist Jimmy Page, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham. With a heavy, guitar-driven sound, they are ci ...

Stairway to Heaven "Stairway to Heaven" is a song by English rock band Led Zeppelin, released in late 1971. It was composed by the band's guitarist Jimmy Page and lead singer Robert Plant for their untitled fourth studio album (often titled ''Led Zeppelin IV'') ...

repeatedly for 24 hours before launching a classic rock format. * February 1 – KOZT-FM, Fort Bragg, Mendocino County, California officially becomes "THE COAST" after 48 hours straight of playing the theme from "Twin Peaks". Started (and still run) by former KLOS & KLSX programmer Tom Yates, the station has since been nominated for several Marconi awards and won one in 2002 for Rock Station of the Year. *February 8 –

WROR WROR-FM (105.7 FM) – branded as 105.7 WROR – is a commercial classic hits radio station licensed to Framingham, Massachusetts. Owned by the Beasley Broadcast Group, the station serves Greater Boston and much of surrounding New England, incl ...

/Boston flips to

Hot AC Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul, R&B, quiet s ...

, branded as "Mix 98.5" and adopts the new call letters

WBMX WBMX (104.3 FM, 104.3 Jams) is a commercial radio station in Chicago, Illinois, serving the Chicago metropolitan area and Northwest Indiana. The station is owned by Audacy, Inc. and airs a classic hip hop radio format. WBMX's studios and offic ...

. *February 26 – WLOL in

Minneapolis, Minnesota Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...

signs off on 99.5 FM for the last time.

Minnesota Public Radio Minnesota Public Radio (MPR), is a public radio network for the state of Minnesota. With its three services, News & Information, YourClassical MPR and The Current, MPR operates a 46-station regional radio network in the upper Midwest. MPR ha ...

KSJN KSJN (99.5 FM, "YourClassical MPR") is the flagship station of Minnesota Public Radio's classical music network, serving the Twin Cities region. KSJN's studios are located at the MPR Broadcast Center on Cedar Street in downtown St. Paul, while ...

takes over on the frequency the following day. *April 2 -

WPLJ WPLJ (95.5 FM) is a non-commercial Christian adult contemporary music radio station licensed to New York City. It is owned by the Educational Media Foundation (EMF) and broadcasts EMF's flagship programming service, K-Love. WPLJ's transmitte ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

rebrands as "Mojo Radio" after

Scott Shannon Michael Scott Shannon (born July 25, 1947) is an American radio disc jockey who hosted the morning show for WCBS-FM in New York City from 2014 to 2022 as well as ''Scott Shannon Presents America's Greatest Hits'' which is syndicated nationally wi ...

joins the station as program director and morning show host *April 10 - WZZT (102.7 FM) launches in

Morrison, Illinois Morrison is a city in Whiteside County, Illinois, United States. The population was 4,188 at the 2010 census, down from 4,447 in 2000. It is the county seat of Whiteside County. It is located on the Historic Lincoln Highway, the nation's first t ...

. *May 12 -

Aliw Broadcasting Corporation Aliw Broadcasting Corporation is one of the major commercial broadcasting companies in the Philippines, which operates a number of radio stations under the Home Radio & DWIZ brands, as well as its only digital television station, IZTV. Its cor ...

in the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

acquired DZPI and starts broadcasts of DWIZ 882 as a news formatted station. Test broadcast of the station lasted for a month. *May 13 - After 9 months of airing

modern rock Modern rock is an umbrella term used to describe rock music that is found on college rock radio stations. Some radio stations use this term to distinguish themselves from classic rock, which is based in 1960s–1980s rock music. Radio format Mod ...

programming during evening hours with great success,

adult contemporary Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul, R&B, quie ...

-formatted

CIMX CIMX-FM (88.7 MHz, ''Pure Country 89'') is a commercial radio station in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. It primarily serves Essex County, but has a signal that reaches the entire Detroit-Windsor metropolitan area. It is owned by Bell Media and airs a ...

Windsor Windsor may refer to: Places Australia * Windsor, New South Wales ** Municipality of Windsor, a former local government area * Windsor, Queensland, a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland **Shire of Windsor, a former local government authority around Wi ...

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 ...

shifts full-time to the format. *May 17 - Philippine Catholic Radio station DZRV Radio Veritas was acquired by the Global Broadcasting Systems from the Philippine Radio Educational and Information Center, Inc, and at the same time, it started commercial operations as DZNN (known as ''Kaibigang Totoo'' (Your True Friend) and ''The Spirit of the Philippines''). DZNN also moved its studios to Makati (later moved to Ortigas) and became home to some of the notable broadcasters such as

Louie Beltran Luis "Ka Louie" Diaz Beltran (April 4, 1936 – September 6, 1994) was a Philippine broadcast journalist and newspaper columnist. In 2018, Beltran was identified by the Human Rights Victims' Claims Board as a Motu Proprio human rights vio ...

Ramon Tulfo Ramon "Mon" Teshiba Tulfo Jr. (; born November 22, 1946) is a Filipino TV host, radio broadcaster and columnist for ''The Philippine Star''. Early life and career He is the eldest of ten siblings (7 boys, 3 girls). He is the son of the late ...

Rey Langit Reynante Magat Langit (; born September 20, 1948) is a Filipino journalist. He is a longtime columnist for Philippine newspapers ''Tempo'', ''Balita'', ''People's Tonight'', and ''Pilipino Mirror''. He is also the main anchorman for the natio ...

Jay Sonza Jose Yumang Sonza (born September 20, 1955), also known as Jay Sonza, is a Filipino former newscaster and talk show host. He was the former station manager of the terrestrial television station UNTV 37 from 2004 to 2009. Programs * ''Get it ...

, Orly Punzalan, Joel Reyes-Zobel and Dave Sta. Ana among others. *July - Granum Communications takes over KMEZ-FM 107.5 in Dallas/Ft. Worth from Gilmore Broadcasting and replaces its soft AC format with soft classic rock as KCDU "CD-107.5." *August 8 – The

Warsaw radio mast The Warsaw Radio Mast (Polish: ''Maszt radiowy w Konstantynowie'') was a radio mast located near Gąbin, Poland, and the world's tallest structure at from 1974 until its collapse on 8 August 1991. Designed by Jan Polak, and one of the la ...

, the tallest construction ever built, collapses. *September 2 -

CKFM-FM CKFM-FM (''99.9 Virgin Radio'') is a Canadian radio station, broadcasting on 99.9 MHz in Toronto, Ontario. The station is owned by Bell Media. The station airs a Top 40/CHR format, and is the flagship of Canada's "Virgin Radio" stations. CKFM's ...

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

shifts from Mainstream AC to

and rebrands as "Mix 99.9." *September 19 -

KKBQ-FM KKBQ (92.9 FM), branded as "The New 93Q", is a commercial FM radio station with a country music format. KKBQ is licensed to Pasadena, Texas, serving the Greater Houston area. The station is owned by Cox Radio and is part of its Houston radio ...

(93Q) in Houston flips from CHR/Top 40 to a Country format at midnight. After a month of experimenting with the brief "Rock hits" stint, KKBQ-FM played a continuous audio sample of ocean waves. Then at 6 am KKBQ-FM completed its transition. The station would then be known as "92.9 Easy Country" for several months before ultimately becoming "93Q Country" in 1992. *October - KHYI 94.9 in Dallas/Ft. Worth drops its top-40 format of roughly 5 years (as Y-95, Power 95 and, later, simply 94.9 FM) to become KODZ "Oldies 94.9." *December 2 –

Buzz Burbank ''The Mike O'Meara Show'' is a daily podcast available through their website or iTunes. The show is hosted by Mike O'Meara and includes Robb Spewak and Oscar Santana. ''The Mike O'Meara Bonus Show'' is available every Friday to VIP members thr ...

becomes newsman for the ''

Don and Mike Show The ''Don and Mike Show'' was an American nationally syndicated radio talk show hosted by the shock jocks Don Geronimo and Mike O'Meara, which aired from December 1985 through April 11, 2008. The show debuted on WAVA-FM in 1985 as ''The Mornin ...

'' in the United States. *December 30 – English service of

Radio Luxembourg Radio Luxembourg was a multilingual commercial broadcaster in Luxembourg. It is known in most non-English languages as RTL (for Radio Television Luxembourg). The English-language service of Radio Luxembourg began in 1933 as one of the earlies ...

ceases transmissions on 208 meters in

medium wave Medium wave (MW) is the part of the medium frequency (MF) radio band used mainly for AM radio broadcasting. The spectrum provides about 120 channels with more limited sound quality than FM stations on the FM broadcast band. During the daytime ...

. *

Classic hits Classic hits is a radio format which generally includes songs from the top 40 music charts from the late 1960s to the early 2000s, with music from the 1980s serving as the core of the format. Music that was popularized by MTV in the early 1980s ...

KLXK KLXK is a commercial radio station located in Breckenridge, Texas, broadcasting to the areas northeast of Abilene, Texas. KLXK airs a country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the ...

flips to

hard rock Hard rock or heavy rock is a loosely defined subgenre of rock music typified by aggressive vocals and distorted electric guitars. Hard rock began in the mid-1960s with the garage, psychedelic and blues rock movements. Some of the earliest hard ...

as KRXX ("93X") *

KDBN KDBN (101.1 FM, "KSUN") is an American radio station licensed to serve the community of Parachute, Colorado. The station is currently owned by KSUN Community Radio Corporation. KSUN community radio broadcasts programming selected from its membe ...

drops business talk; returns to adult standards as KCMZ. *Michael and Kay Zwerling purchase KSCO in

Santa Cruz, California Santa Cruz (Spanish for "Holy Cross") is the county seat and largest city of Santa Cruz County, in Northern California. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 62,956. Situated on the northern edge of Monterey Bay, Santa Cruz is a pop ...

Deaths

*January 30 –

John McIntire John Herrick McIntire (June 27, 1907 – January 30, 1991) was an American character actor who appeared in 65 theatrical films and many television series. McIntire is well known for having replaced Ward Bond, upon Bond's sudden death in Novem ...

, 83,

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

character actor A character actor is a supporting actor who plays unusual, interesting, or eccentric characters.28 April 2013, The New York Acting SchoolTen Best Character Actors of All Time Retrieved 7 August 2014, "..a breed of actor who has the ability to b ...

Cox, Jim (2008). ''This Day in Network Radio: A Daily Calendar of Births, Debuts, Cancellations and Other Events in Broadcasting History''. McFarland & Company, Inc. . *February 24 –

George Gobel George Leslie Goebel (May 20, 1919 – February 24, 1991) was an American humorist, actor, and comedian. He was best known as the star of his own weekly comedy variety television series, ''The George Gobel Show'', broadcasting from 1954 to 1959 ...

, 83, American comedian, radio and television personality *June 20 –

Gerald Priestland Gerald Francis Priestland (26 February 1927 – 20 June 1991) was a foreign correspondent, presenter and, later, a religious commentator for the BBC. Early life and work Gerald Priestland was the son of (Joseph) Francis ('Frank') Edwin Priestl ...

, 64,

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

correspondent *July 16 -

Dwight Weist Dwight Weist, Jr. (January 16, 1910 - July 16, 1991) was an actor and announcer in the era of old-time radio. Early years The son of Mr. and Mrs. Dwight W. Weist, he was born in Palo Alto, California, but was raised in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He ...

, 81, American actor and announcer *September 15 –

André Baruch André Baruch (August 20, 1908 – September 15, 1991) was a French-American film narrator, radio announcer, news commentator, talk show host, disc jockey and sportscaster. He hosted radio programs from the 1940s to the 1980s with Bea Wain, his ...

, 83, French-born American radio announcer, news commentator, talk show host, disc jockey, sportscaster, film narrator *October 31 –

Dick Joy Dick Joy (December 28, 1915 – October 31, 1991) was an American radio and television announcer. A journalism major at the University of Southern California, he went on to become well known on network radio and television. Early years Joy's in ...

, 75, American radio and television announcer and newscaster *December 14 –

John Arlott Leslie Thomas John Arlott, OBE (25 February 1914 – 14 December 1991) was an English journalist, author and cricket commentator for the BBC's ''Test Match Special''. He was also a poet and wine connoisseur. With his poetic phraseology, he bec ...

, 77, English cricket commentator

References

{{Reflist Radio by year

Events

Deaths

See also

References