Sunday, June 8, 2014

101.7 The Fox, Santa Rosa (1990s)

Unused bumper sticker from the 1990s, sheet measures approximately 20 cm by 7.5 cm. 
Front side: background: white; 101.7 The Fox logo; text: "Sonoma County's Rock Station"; code no.: 064804.
Back side: "Half Million Dollars from 101.7 The Fox" registration form and rules.


KXFX (101.7 The Fox) was a active rock radio station in Santa Rosa, California, USA, from 1988 to 2011, broadcasting on 101.7 FM. It is owned and operated by Maverick Media, LLC. out of Westport, Connecticut.

This station first began its broadcasting activities as on December 23, 1974 as KVRE-FM at 99.3 MHz. In 1988, the callsign was changed to KXFX and branded as "101.7 The Fox."

On March 24, 2011 KXFX changed their format from active rock (as "The Fox") to top 40, branded as "Hot 101.7". Shortly after, the station applied for and was granted new call letters, KHTH.

*source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KHTH

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

99.5 KISS, San Antonio (1990, 2000s)

Unused bumper sticker from the 2000s, sheet measures approximately 23 cm by 8.5 cm. 
Front side: background: white; 99.5 KISS logo; text: "Rocks San Antonio".
Back side: white.


Unused bumper sticker from the 2000s, sheet measures approximately 10 cm by 10 cm. 
Front side: background: white; 99.5 KISS logo, red lips.
Back side: white.


2 unused mini bumper stickers from the 2000s, sheet measures approximately 10 cm by 5 cm. 
Sticker #1
Front side: background: black; 99.5 KISS logo; text: "Rocks San Antonio".
Back side: white.

Sticker #2
Front side: background: black; 99.5 KISS logo; text: "Rocks UR Xtreme A**".
Back side: white.


Unused bumper sticker from the 1990, sheet measures approximately 19 cm by 6.3 cm. 
Front side: background: black; 99.5 KISS logo, 20th Anniversary logo; text: "Rocks San Antonio".
Back side: 99.5 KISS 20th Anniversary sticker promo.


KISS-FM is a radio station broadcasting a mainstream rock format serving the San Antonio, Texas, USA. The Cox Radio outlet broadcasts at 99.5 MHz. Its studios are located in Northwest San Antonio near the South Texas Medical Center complex, and the transmitter site is in Elmendorf, Texas.

KISS-FM was originally a Show Tunes format which changed to a type of AOR (Album-Oriented Rock) in the late 1970s. The AOR format would last until May 1990 when KISS flipped to oldies known as 99.5 KISS Oldies. The owners of KSMG Magic 105.3 (a competing Oldies station at the time) bought KISS-FM and KOOL 930 AM from Adams Broadcasting Corporation in November 1991 and simulcasted KSMG on both 99.5 FM and 930 AM. As of New Year's Day 1992, the rock music format was back on 99.5 KISS, now called "Active Rock".

AOR was sometimes referred to as "All Over (the) Road". During the early years, KISS DJ's were given a free rein. Many brought in their own records/albums to do their shows within a looser, free-form rock, rock ballad & heavy metal format. The most notable past KISS/KMAC DJ's/personalities were Joe Anthony "The Godfather" (deceased 1992), and Lou Roney.

Back in the days before corporate consultants, KISS-FM was 12,900 watts and their AM sister station was KMAC. KMAC broadcast show tunes, opera, as well as the Mormon Tabernacle Choir until they simulcasted the rock format with KISS-FM later in the day/evening. In those earlier years, KISS-FM signed off at midnight each night.

KMAC/KISS was originally owned by the late Howard W. Davis. "Spread The Word"--was the popular window sticker slogan & on-air moniker during the 1970s & 1980s. KISS would be owned by Capitol Broadcasting Company, Adams Broadcasting, Rusk Corp, and current owners Cox Media Group.

Despite being considered a mainstream rock reporter per Mediabase, they were typically an active rock station per Nielsen BDS. By 2012, KISS-FM essentially switched formats to mainstream rock. The station was delisted from Mediabase's add board following the tweak.

KISS-FM is the legal call sign issued to this San Antonio radio station by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) at licensing and is in no way related to the KISS-FM brand name used by Clear Channel Communications, which originated with Los Angeles' KIIS-FM. Despite San Antonio being the headquarters city of Clear Channel, they seem to have a gentlemen's agreement not to have a KISS-branded station in the city, while Cox has not attempted to claim rights on the branding despite holding the official KISS-FM calls from the FCC. (Of note, Cox owns R&B stations in Atlanta and Birmingham that utilize the "Kiss FM" branding, though both stations have urban adult contemporary formats rather than the Top 40/Hot AC format usually associated with the "Kiss FM" brand.)


*source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS-FM

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Atlantic 252, Ireland (1990s)

Unused bumper sticker from the 1990s, sheet measures approximately 12.5 cm by 8.5 cm. 
Front side: background: white; Atlantic 252 logo; text: "More Music Radio", "Long Wave Radio". 
Back side: white.


Atlantic 252 was an Irish long wave radio station broadcasting across Ireland and Great Britain on 252 kHz (1190 meter) from its 1988 purpose built transmission site in Clarkstown, County Meath, which provided service to Atlantic 252 from 1989 until 2002. The station's studios were located just 12 km (7 mi) away in Mornington House, Summerhill Road, Trim, County Meath. Atlantic 252 also had sales offices and studios at 74, Newman Street in London. In 2002 the station's former frequency and transmitter were used for the failed TeamTalk 252 project.

The frequency was re-subsumed by RTÉ in 2002 to provide a version of RTÉ Radio 1 to the expatriate community in Britain from the Clarkstown radio transmitter.


The concept of Atlantic 252 can be traced back as far as August 1986, when Irish state broadcaster RTÉ announced it was to use their allocated longwave channel for a new pop music station. They teamed up with RTL Group/Radio Luxembourg to form Radio Tara–the trading name of Atlantic 252, which being long wave, enabled reception across Ireland and Britain. This was following Chris Cary's test transmissions from Clogher Head, County Louth, in the mid-1980s with 254 kHz Longwave as "Radio Exidy".

Initially, the station transmitted only from 06:00 until 19:00, outside of which listeners were invited to tune to Radio Luxembourg. In August 1990 the station began broadcasting until 02:00, and eventually by September 1991, a 24 hour service with the overnight automated slot called "The Big Mattress". The music format consisted of high-rotation mainstream pop and rock music, with influences borrowed heavily from American radio, and through to 1993, the station was known to play much of the music mostly from the top part of the US charts. The station mixed the best songs from the last few years along with the best songs from the top 40–this was called "Today's Best Music Variety". Commercial Radio and the BBC initially objected to the station, seeing it as a commercial pirate. However, as UK commercial radio developed and deregulation saw many more stations launching, formats similar to Atlantic's began to appear on FM and Atlantic 252's audience began to decline. Attempts at repositioning followed, including "Real Music, Real Radio", when the station attempted to tackle BBC Radio 1's "new music" format. At the peak of its popularity in the mid-1990s, Atlantic 252 had just under five million listeners aged 15+, but vastly increased competition from local radio stations with similar formats, as well as the renaissance of BBC Radio 1 and the repositioning of BBC Radio 2, saw this take a dive below one million by 2000.

In late 1998 under the direction of David Dunne the station responded to dropping audiences by shifting its format to concentrate on indie and dance music, but it continued to lose listeners. This included 30 hours of 'specialist' music including programmes from The Wise Guys, Eddy Temple Morris and the Trade nightclub. Though money was spent on advertising and a high profile breakfast show was attempted fronted by Marc Brow (including several innovative ideas like travel news backed by new age chill out music called 'Traffic Calming', and specially re-formatted youth news presented by Specialist Producer Mark Ovenden which included one of the first broadcast uses of the term 'The Noughties'), in 1999 the station suffered its lowest Rajar ratings since it first came on the air, with the audience falling to just under 1 million listeners in the last quarter of the year.

Then in November 1999 with the arrival of John O'Hara as the new Managing Director the station found a new focus and re-launched in February 2000 as "The New Atlantic 252" The format was Rhythmic CHR and the station was repositioned as "Nonstop Rhythm and Dance" The station played 12 songs in a row and featured Tony and Becky at Brekkie plus a brand new website at www.atlantic252.com. There was over £1million spent on rebranding and marketing the station to a new audience and media buyers. However, although the station did see a rise in audience again back to under 2 million listeners during 2000 and 2001, the writing was on the wall when the sale of the station was announced in early 2001 by its owners RTÉ and CLT.


The last show on Atlantic was presented by Enda Caldwell on Thursday 20 December 2001, This was followed by a Tribute show produced by Enda Caldwell and Eric Murphy celebrating the station's 12-year history of broadcasting and featuring classic airchecks of each year of Atlantic 252's history. The station then transitioned to automation, and continued broadcasting music without continuity, along with commercials that had been booked for the month of January 2002, for about two to three weeks afterwards, until the carrier fell dead and the music stopped playing.

Atlantic 252 was briefly replaced by a sports station, TeamTalk 252, which opened in the early days of January 2002. This faced competition from BBC Radio 5 Live and talkSPORT, and was itself closed in the summer of 2002, just a few months after its launch. The transmission site is now owned by 2RN (RTÉ Networks) and the 252 kHz frequency is used by RTÉ Radio 1. DRM tests have also been heard on this frequency since 2007. Mornington House is now regional offices for Meath County Council.


*source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_252