Retro Radio Rewind: Jacor Flushed Flash (Aug 31, 1998)

In early August, Jacor deals out 102.9 and 106.5 to a Spanish Language broadcaster, who quickly drop the formats in favor of Spanish programming. Q106 was officially dead.

Also during that time, Nationwide sells 94.1 and 95.7 to Jacor.

In Late August of 1998, Jacor's dark shadow extended further into Tijuana as Binational Broadcasting Co., operator of XHRM 92.5, sold the programming and marketing rights of the low-rated Independent Radio 92.5 to Jacor, who immediately fired the whole staff and asked them to reapply for new positions at their corporate office.

It started in late 1997 when the low-rated Flash decided to replace its programmer with former 91X programmer Mike Halloran (who was fired from 91X under Jacor management in 1996) at the beginning of 1998, and he immediately flushed the Flash and implemented a concept called Independent Radio.

With Independent Radio, Halloran introduced Music Without Boundaries hosted by Kenny Weissberg, added Hard Drive, a techno-dance music show, and Modern Rock Live which aired on the former Y107.1 on the three 107.1 transmitters from Oceanside to Ventura. It also had a 5 O'clock feature "Straight Up" featuring lounge music.

Somehow, the odd mix of lounge, alternative, trip-hop, Johnny Cash, and modern rock must have somehow gotten the attention of Rolling Stone, which listed Independent Radio 92.5 as one of the ten stations in America that doesn't suck.

According to an article in The San Diego Reader, when Halloran was asked what kind of format it was on the messageboard, he snapped "it's crap."

The result? The former Flash listeners, angry at the changes, flipped to 91X, where the ratings went up, while 92.5's ratings took a dive further down, probably picking up some listeners who didn't listen to radio anymore.

Nothing worked, and the easy way out of this was to let Jacor program the frequency. It immediately replaced 92.5 with a taped loop asking its listeners to move over to 91X by playing the same four songs over and over again such as "Fly Away" and "Time Of Your Life." Jacor moved the format of "Magic" from 95.7 to 92.5 later on.

Former listener Liquid Cindy has, amazingly enough, a shrine of The Flash here:

(website no longer in existance)

"my favorite radio station of all time was 92 five the flash! i say was, since they are no longer on the air. this was devistating to all, jacor had taken over another station.

"jacor communications have 11 stations in san diego now, which is like almost all of them!

"anyway 92 five was the best. had the best line up of deejays ever. all including fitz madrid, rossman, robert o'quin, todd kelly, jason riggs, kevin carter... it was the best.

"i could hardly turn my radio off because I enjoyed all the shows. i started not listening to 92 five as much as soon as fitz left the station to be a program director in las vegas. after he left a month later, more serious things started to happen. they let robert o'quin go first. i was shocked! 92 five hired a new program directer. new deejays started taking over. It was horrible. the music started to get bad too.

"some good stuff but some things lots of people never heard of and i might include some very bad stuff too.

"there was a few good things left like jason riggs and his brother Scott got hired on, which was interesting. And kevin, todd and rossman were still around but the station didnt seem quite the same.

"it was then 92 5ive, independant radio...but then I heard it threw the grape vine, that the owner had already sold a share of the station, not so independant i guess. 3 months later, all of the complete alternative was gone. it is now taken over by jacor communications and 92.5 the mix. i couldnt believe it and still miss the flash, 92 five, the complete alternative."

Meanwhile, a new invention called streaming radio was beginning to become an alternative to stale radio in San Diego in 1998, which at the time was at its nadir with Jacor controlling eight stations in San Diego and three from Tijuana for the San Diego Metro radio market. Cox Cable just installed high speed cable the year before and it made listening to distant radio stations via Real Audio more reliable while dial-up began its spiral downward. People could tune in to radio stations from all over America and listen to dance and comedy that wasn't available in San Diego anymore. This new internet radio was just the beginning of bigger things to come as it would later become more interweaved into everyday habits.