Just a little over a year ago a radio station changed formats in Seattle. The station is at 96.5 on the dial. 96.5 KROCK became an instant competitor to KNDD 107.7 the end in town playing alternative music with a little focus on some of the better music from the late 80 and early 90’s over all of the new alternative music that is out there today. The morning show featuring Andy Savage jumped ship from KNDD and went over to the new station. This was just great for me because I was kind of getting burned out on KNDD at the time because everything was starting to sound the same that they played. In the interim they have changed their format to be a little more like what KROCK was doing. A week ago Friday KROCK changed format again! It is now Jack-FM. I think it is now a 70’s and early 80’s station. I really do not know as I have already taken it off of my car radio. The owner of the station is Infinty Broadcasting which I believe is the third biggest radio chain in the country. I do not know if they have had 96.5 all that long in the grand scheme of things but the station has had a lot of changes over the years. KXRX was a great rock station in 96.5 that came on the scene in the late 80s. It was a true competitor to KISW 99.9 which is the big rock station in town. In the early 90’s it become something like "Kick’in Country" and then "Young Country". That made me mad when they did that. A few years ago it became "The Point" and it was an 80’s station, which I have to admit that I went through phases listen to. I went to Infinty’s website when the station became KROCK and one thing I noticed was that they never updated the information about the station and how it had changed formats. I looked again last week and they still have the information for when it was an 80’s station. I guess they are still too busy changing the formats of their stations to update their website every few years.
All I have to say is Infinty Broadcasting — YOU SUCK! I do not want to know Jack and I will never listen to it. It was kind of funny in that KROCK had been promoting a pre-func before the U2 shows and then they change the station two days before the shows. I saw two people wearing Jack-fm shirts trying to give out flyers on the Seattle Center grounds before U2 and no one was taking them and they really were not trying that hard. They looked really bummed about having to do that.
Update: Someone else had a good write-up on the demise of KROCK that also includes a link to the history of the station as a whole in the Seattle area. Follow that link to get actual dates and times on the format changes and ownership changes over the years instead of my memory of the history of the station as I blogged above.
A digital recording of my life 