Friday, September 24, 2010

WKZL Winston-Salem Arbitron Numbers 1976



I walked into WKZL in Winston-Salem in January 1975, the day that WSGH became WKZL. The station was one of the first commercial album rock formats in North Carolina, and within one year was the overall #1 in listeners. The format was a loose mixture of rock, jazz, top 40 songs and some oldies. Just a step away from free-form, you could hear Sky King's "Secret Sauce" next to Hall & Oates, or a Donovan oldie next to Triumverat's "Spartacus". Jocks during the first two years included Alan Cameron, Randy Kabrich, Steve Day, Bruce Key, Reid Stott, Ron Spivey, Jerry Smith, Steve Marshall, Mitch Clarke, Lee Cameron, Nick Archer, Steve Norris, and Kitty Kinnin. There was a great production staff as well, consisting of Jack Shaw and Rowell Gormon.

Here's an aircheck of Alan Cameron reporting live from the Led Zeppelin concert at the Greensboro Coliseum in 1975. We couldn't get tickets from the record company because we were so new, but the Zep was so loud outside the Coliseum that Alan sounded like he was front and center. Thanks to Keith Weston for this aircheck. Listen here.

Want to see the whole six page Arbitron report? Download the pdf file here.

Here's a pic of Alan Cameron. It's blurry, just like much of the 70s.