Here’s KB Radio 15 the way many of us remember it – the night show via skip during a bitterly cold winter, and the KB forecast is for more snow squalls! I think most would agree, this station was HOT in ’79! All the hits and an incredible night show full of listener requests, and the KB Top 15 Countdown, which happened every Tuesday night at 7pm.
Bandiero mentions that he had just given away a ‘multi-thousand dollar jukebox’. Indeed, the big contest on WKBW throughout January and February was a jukebox loaded with 45s and albums from, I believe, AM&A’s music store in Buffalo (I could be mistaken but I remember most of the contest details). The caller he’s talking with apparently lived right down the street from the person who won the jukebox!
This will certainly conjure up plenty of memories for those who remember the frigid Winter nights spent in the shadow of the Great Lakes and it’s giant snow machine. And most of us, even downstream in New England, were listening to KB Radio every night, as the station came in like a local. Radio has never been the same since those days!
Fascinating to hear KB late in its run as one of the top contenders in the Buffalo market. I was working in the Buffalo market then (news guy on WBEN’s morning show)–and the music on KB was clearly getting mellower by 1979, while the other major stations were getting more contemporary in feel. All but a couple of the songs in the “top 15” countdown (the Rod Stewart song and Amii Stewart cut were the exceptions) were also in hot rotation on AC full service powerhouse WBEN. WBEN had passed KB and reclaimed #1 12+ in the Arbitrons by the fall of ’78, by taking away some of the 25-44 listeners KB had in the 60s and early 70s. KB was also facing a fight from hot AC station WGR, and several FM stations were making inroads as well. It was probably the most competitive period in modern Buffalo market history.