# What's the most unusual radio format you've ever encountered? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 16, 2015, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-unusual-radio-format-youve-ever-encountered/727970 "2015-08-16T03:26:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![adhemar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3da27b/32.png) [@adhemar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adhemar)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2015, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-unusual-radio-format-youve-ever-encountered/727970/61 "2015-08-25T03:44:08Z")
WEVL in Memphis. has many different formats from Hawaiian slack key, bluegrass, blues, swing era music, Celtic music, hip hop, country, rock etc. > **[By Genre](https://wevl.org/programs/by-genre)** > > WEVL is an independent, eclectic, listener-supported, volunteer radio station -- on the air since April 1976 in Memphis, Tennessee -- and streaming live on the Web. Voted Best Radio Station in the Memphis Flyer Readers' Poll. > > We broadcast Memphis... ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-unusual-radio-format-youve-ever-encountered/727970/62 "2019-03-29T06:43:13Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > A few years ago, the state of Illinois enacted a ban on cigarette smoking in bars, restaurants, etc. The ban went into effect on January 1st. > > On December 31st (the day before the ban), a classic-rock station in suburban Chicago (95.9, The River) played nothing but Boston’s “Smokin’”, all day long. They interspersed plays of the song with PSAs for stop-smoking help, and vowed that, as of midnight, they would never again play “Smokin’”. 🙂 Bumping a zombie thread: Nowadays, with all the places legalizing marijuana, they could do this again…naw. ---
**Author:** ![Kimballkid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b5a626/32.png) [@Kimballkid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimballkid)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-unusual-radio-format-youve-ever-encountered/727970/63 "2019-03-29T18:46:28Z")
> [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](#): > > Back in the early 90s a radio station in Fort Wayne, IN was going through a format change. I don’t remember what they were changing from or what they were changing to. But I do remember that for several days they played one song only: “Louie Louie” by the Kingsmen. They played it over and over again. I think it had to do with the fact that “Louie Louie” may have been banned in Indiana in the 60’s. Or at least strongly discouraged. > [@Revtim](#): > > Also in the 90s, a station going through a format change in South Florida also was all “Louie Louie” for a few days. But, they played covers by other bands too. In fact, the only one I really remember is a marching band version of the song. Back in the late 80’s or early 90’s there was a station in Rapid City that was going from country to rock and played "Louie Louie’ for 24 hours straight. They had a few versions of it. There is a station on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation (KILI) whose tagline at one time was “KILI - Rockin’ on the Rez”. ---
**Author:** ![furryman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/furryman/32/99_2.png) [@furryman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furryman)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-unusual-radio-format-youve-ever-encountered/727970/64 "2019-03-29T19:02:29Z")
I think it’s pretty strange, but there’s this radio station franchise called Jack FM. I can’t help wonder how this works. I feel kind of bad for the announcer. He’s always mentioning local places in his in house ads. How many of these does he do? ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2019, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-unusual-radio-format-youve-ever-encountered/727970/65 "2019-03-30T03:19:54Z")
At my undergraduate college, the radio station only had enough broadcast power to reach the other buildings on the campus, including the dorms, and it wasn’t a very big campus. Nobody off the campus could receive it, so they didn’t bother with paying any record companies to play their songs. There were no majors at the campus remotely related to becoming a D.J., so nobody became a D.J. on the station with any intention of doing it after college. If you wanted to become a D.J. (usually for several hours one day a week), you signed up on a list, because they would take anybody interested. I did this at one point during my college years. There were a bunch of albums on the shelves at the station, apparently because some record companies thought it was a good idea to send them to college radio stations for free. Each D.J. played anything they felt like playing. They used the albums on the shelves or brought in their own albums. They made comments about the songs before and after playing them. The format was thus Anything-We-Feel-Like-Doing-This-Second. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2019, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-unusual-radio-format-youve-ever-encountered/727970/66 "2019-03-30T03:38:59Z")
The commercial FM station I worked at in Moscow in the '90s had a good adult contemporary format until _A CORPORATION_ bought it from the original investors. They immediately brought in their own people and hired an outside firm to do a “scientific” market survey. Within six months, you could hear Madonna, Tchaikovsky, and decades old Soviet kitsch being played back-to-back. If I had a nickel for every time I saw someone get up and change the channel when they heard the new “mixed” format, I’d be rich today. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2026, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-unusual-radio-format-youve-ever-encountered/727970/67 "2026-04-20T23:27:22Z")
My brother was a college DJ in the late 1980s, and the FCC rules didn’t apply between midnight and 6am. One night, they needed a (VOLUNTEER!) DJ, so he did it, and he went through the stacks and pulled out the foulest things he could find. It turned out to be quite a hit for people who were listening! Several years later, when Nirvana’s “Nevermind” was released, I asked him if he’d ever played anything from their debut album “Bleach”, and he said he did, adding, “If a time traveler came to me from the fall of 1991 and said that this band was going to release an album that would hit #1 in pretty much every country that keeps a chart, and turn popular music completely on its ear, I’d have told them they were nuts.” He actually has a small art gallery in a shared space, and it includes a low-power microtransmitter that plays his own self-composed electronic music on a loop. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2026, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-unusual-radio-format-youve-ever-encountered/727970/68 "2026-04-21T00:59:59Z")
Not sure if it’s still on the air these days, but back when I worked in Tacoma and commuted from Olympia and back every day, there was a low-power radio station that I could only pick up for around a couple of miles in the vicinity of the Tacoma Dome, that AFAICT exclusively played vintage sci-fi radio plays. I recall catching an adaptation of the Twilight Zone episode _The Midnight Sun_, as well as an adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s _Mars Is Heaven!_ Must’ve been some amateur radio enthusiast’s unlicensed passion project or something. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2026, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-unusual-radio-format-youve-ever-encountered/727970/69 "2026-04-21T01:18:21Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > The legendary rock station KZAP in Sacramento got caught up in the kountry muzak mania, maybe late 1980s, and switched without warning one Sunday night. Exact same thing happened to my kid (and all his punk friends). Those tough middle schoolers fell asleep listening to Green Day, then got woken up for school on Monday morning to Achy Breaky Heart at full volume. We heard him yell “What the HELL is this crap?!?” and I told his mom that I considered that appropriate language in this case. ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2026, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-unusual-radio-format-youve-ever-encountered/727970/70 "2026-04-21T02:06:12Z")
> [@China\_Guy](#): > > Amateurs. Maximum [Louie Louie](http://www.reverbcentral.com/louie/max.html)… I have about 8 hours worth recorded off the air from that weekend. KFJC had some great programming back then, I loved Phil’s _Wave Of The West_ show. They still do actually, I often listen to the _Norman Bates Memorial Soundtrack Show_ on Saturday mornings. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2026, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-unusual-radio-format-youve-ever-encountered/727970/71 "2026-04-21T04:59:33Z")
Back in the '90s, I was co-host of a popular English-language show at an FM station in Moscow (Russia). It was started up by private investors from the US who brought in a brand-new 5000 watt transmitter that was installed at a facility which broadcast Soviet propaganda in the pre-Yeltsin days. The show was popular because it played nothing but Adult Contemporary music selected by the head DJ who knew what he was doing. After four years, the station was bought by a well-known international media company that immediately brought in “efficiency experts” who clearly knew nothing about music to evaluate our performance. You can see where this is going. After performing a very flawed “market survey” with Russian “focus groups,” they changed the format to include Classical works and 60-year-old “Soviet pop” music, so you could hear Madonna, Tchaikovsky, and a song praising Moscow’s Metro system between commercial breaks. The English-language programming was dropped altogether, even though we had an audience of around two million listeners who knew English to one degree or another (out of a population then about nine million in the metropolitan area). Ratings plummeted immediately, but the idiots in charge kept tinkering with the format and the station’s name and logo. I never listened to it again, and I saw a lot of people get up and change the channel whenever a Classical or Soviet piece came on. I don’t know if the station is still around, since the last time I was in Moscow was December 2021. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2026, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-unusual-radio-format-youve-ever-encountered/727970/72 "2026-04-21T05:30:04Z")
In the 1980s, Des Moines had a station that aired on the public access channel, and it too was pretty much free-form in format. They had a rock program called “The Millard Fillmore Memorial Record Hour” and chose that name after reading that, at the time, he was the least remembered U.S. president. ---
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2026, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-unusual-radio-format-youve-ever-encountered/727970/73 "2026-04-21T19:50:19Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Must’ve been some amateur radio enthusiast’s unlicensed passion project or something. I saw this ‘Talking House’ posted a few weeks ago, I never knew what the source thingy looked like. https://embed.reddit.com/r/whatisthisthing/comments/1rs76r1/storyteller_found_at_the_thrift_store_some_kind/?embed=true&ref_source=embed&ref=share ---
**Author:** ![XOldiesJock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/ec9cab/32.png) [@XOldiesJock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XOldiesJock)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2026, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-unusual-radio-format-youve-ever-encountered/727970/74 "2026-04-21T20:11:40Z")
> [@JohnGalt](#): > > _Of course they were doing a format change, using what I’ve found out is known as [Stunting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stunting_(broadcasting))_ A radio station in these parts stunted by playing a continuous loop of children singing “Pop Goes the Weasel” for a couple of weeks. What eventually emerged was a station that called itself “Cool Pop.” It was a miserable failure, one of many on what radio people often call a “cursed frequency,” a spot on the dial at which nothing has succeeded in many, many years despite many, many tries. ---
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2026, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-unusual-radio-format-youve-ever-encountered/727970/75 "2026-04-21T22:12:03Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > The legendary rock station KZAP in Sacramento… I know I’m replying to an 11 year old post, and I’m not sure this poster is even still around, but can someone explain what was so “legendary” about KZAP? I moved to the Sacramento area long after the original station changed formats, and I keep hearing from old timers about how legendary the old KZAP was (and I’m familiar with the current low-power station, though I’ve never really listened. I may have to check it out). > [@nearwildheaven](#): > > In the 1980s, Des Moines had a station that aired on the public access channel, and it too was pretty much free-form in format. The first thing that came to mind when I saw this thread was the college station at UNC-Chapel Hill, although I don’t think freeform is all that uncommon for college radio stations. If you just randomly tuned in and didn’t know the DJ’s schedules, you didn’t know if you were going to hear rock, hip hop, or mariachi, or wherever else. The station at my own alma mater, North Carolina State, used to do an all acapella show on Sunday mornings. ---
**Author:** ![ricepad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b38774/32.png) [@ricepad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ricepad)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2026, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-unusual-radio-format-youve-ever-encountered/727970/76 "2026-04-21T22:36:00Z")
> [@WildaBeast](#): > > what was so “legendary” about KZAP? IMO, one thing that made KZAP ‘legendary’ was their cat. Even people who didn’t listen to KZAP recognized the KZAP Cat. Hell, when I moved into my first dorm room in San Diego, the room next door had a mural of the KZAP Cat painted on it from a prior resident. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2026, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-unusual-radio-format-youve-ever-encountered/727970/77 "2026-04-22T01:35:08Z")
I worked at one college radio station where the primary format was progressive rock, but on Saturdays during football season they programmed the entire afternoon with Broadway show tunes. Fun Fact - the cohost of the show wnet on to a long career as a correspondent for CBS News. ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2026, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-unusual-radio-format-youve-ever-encountered/727970/78 "2026-04-22T06:26:55Z")
> [@WildaBeast](#): > > I know I’m replying to an 11 year old post, and I’m not sure this poster is even still around, but can someone explain what was so “legendary” about KZAP? I moved to the Sacramento area long after the original station changed formats, and I keep hearing from old timers about how legendary the old KZAP was @WildaBeast Are you old enough to have listened to 1970’s FM radio somewhere, and know the importance of record stores? KZAP was part of that era and the music scene, and that era is long gone. KZAP was pretty great 70’s progressive FM radio until changing to a pop format in 1979. Really strong antenna, and maybe put out 20,000 watts (?). Broadcasted in quadrophonic back when that was a futuristic thing that never was. Most people only had a 2 speaker stereo set-up instead of the 4 speaker quad system, and not that many records were quadrophonic. If you had a quadrophonic system, then it was kinda cool to hear the quadrophonic records, or the KZAP call sign bounce between the 4 speakers. Primarily progressive album rock. Didn’t care how long the song was, and would frequently play entire album sides. IIRC, once a week they would play an entire new album so listeners could record on cassette tapes. DJ’s would play a wide ranging selection during their shows. DJ Gordo had the 8 - midnight slot, (maybe it was 6 - 10?), Ben Fong the midnight slot, and Steven Crozier Sunday mornings as well as many others. The DJ’s knew their music, and were request friendly if you knew your stuff. Requesting Stairway to Heaven would never be acted on, but Night Flight probably would. Could be pretty chatty when you called in a request, and would often say something like “I’ve got something else by that band you may not have heard and might like, so stay tuned.” Travis T Hipp syndicated conspiracy talk show loon was mighty entertaining on a Sunday night. I had won a 10th (???) anniversary KZAP t-shirt that was really cool. And then the b_st_rds changed the format to some mainstream poppy top 40 crap. I went to KZAP, somewhere in downtown Sacramento, to pick up the t-shirt. I can’t say I was in the office area for more than 2 minutes, nor have I retained any mental image of what KZAP looked like. KDVS, the nearby UC Davis college radio station, played everything. I had a weekly 3-hour blues show for 5 years, and a 2-hour weekly hardcore punk show for a few years. My last year I was also the general manager, and my favorite show was “Songs of Praise” gospel show on Sunday mornings by a group of elderly, church going, blacks that sounded like they came out of the deep south. At KDVS, Steven Crozier (KZAP DJ) also had a weekly show for years until about 1984. I met him when I started at KDVS because I asked him about his KZAP 98.6 FM DJ leather jacket with the above mentioned cat. Once I knew he had been a KZAP DJ, I remembered his KZAP show and I got to know him reasonably well over the course of about 4 years. He was a defense attorney, who would say “my client, who is probably innocent, blah blah blah.” BTW, Steven was a really good DJ, knew music, and technically proficient (when everything was analog and/or manual, there were a ton of tips and tricks to make the broadcast seamless). Last KZAP story. Toward the end of my 5 years at KDVS, I finished one of my last weekly blues shows, walked out of the DJ booth, someone was been chatting on the phone, handed it to me and said “Gordo wants to talk to you.” It was the KZAP DJ Gordo, who I had listened to several nights a week for about 5 years and was probably the most formative influence in my musical taste and knowledge. He just thanked me for having a really good blues show, and that he was pretty surprised that a college aged kid actually knew the blues. So, that’s when I got to thank Gordo for those years of KZAP DJ’ing that helped get me through high school. Karma. ---
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2026, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-unusual-radio-format-youve-ever-encountered/727970/79 "2026-04-22T16:21:36Z")
> [@China\_Guy](#): > > Are you old enough to have listened to 1970’s FM radio somewhere I was born in 1980, so no. > [@China\_Guy](#): > > I had a weekly 3-hour blues show for 5 years I was about to ask if you were Mick Martin, but he’s sadly no longer alive. Much of what I’ve heard about KZAP came from listening to his blues show on KXJZ. I’m not sure if he worked for KZAP back in its heyday, or was just an avid listener like you, but his show apparently moved to the new KZAP after CapRadio dropped all their music programming. ---
**Author:** ![Ponch8](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponch8/32/9883_2.png) [@Ponch8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponch8)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2026, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-unusual-radio-format-youve-ever-encountered/727970/80 "2026-04-22T16:55:44Z")
When I lived in the Washington DC area in 2006-2008, I read in the news that there was a new AM oldies station. I started listening to it, but it very quickly became clear that they were playing the same few songs on a continuous loop. For some reason, “Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes” appeared thrice in that loop. Not only that, but in two of the three iterations, the song got cut off before it was over. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-unusual-radio-format-youve-ever-encountered/727970.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-unusual-radio-format-youve-ever-encountered/727970.md?page=5)