(In 1978 radio was changing)
KROQ was one of those radio stations that, in the 1970s, had numerous brushes with disaster before coming up with a formula that worked. Resurrected from the ashes of free-form KPPC, KROQ sought to become a serious top-40 FM station and quickly went bankrupt in the process. By the time it hit on its mixture of Punk, New Wave and Hard Rock, disc jockies were forced to bring in their own records and dig up their own ads (a bit like the free-form days of the mid-1960s). Because the station was too broke to make demands, the DJ's had pretty much free reign and an audience was born. Typical of the on-air talent at KROQ during the period of the late 1970s was Frazer Smith, whose gleeful insanity captured a huge radio audience and helped established KROQ as an off-the-wall cutting edge station with an adventuresome playlist.
Here is a one-hour excerpt of his show from December 1, 1978.
Yes, radio was different - even in the 70's.
