What's the most unusual radio format you've ever encountered?

[adhemar]

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

[nearwildheaven]

@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.

[Kimballkid]

@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”.

[furryman]

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?

[Wendell_Wagner]

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.

[terentii]

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.