San Diego 1995 Radio News in Review (December 31, 1995)

1. Howard Stern Comes to San Diego. Popular on Los Angeles's KLSX-FM, the management at Noble-operated 91X needed a new morning show to replace the popular Berger and Prescott show who were fired in July of 1994. They brought Stern to 91X in February to beef up the alternative rocker's ratings, as well as to keep ahead of competetor 92.5 The Flash. The young males went for the show. The females mostly went to Jeff and Jer at Q106.

2. KKOS Morphs into KUPR and Changes Frequencies. After nearly four years of coordinating the juggling of the Mexican frequency allotments with the U.S., it was finally possible for Carlsbad's KKOS at 95.9 FM to upgrade to a city-grade signal as KUPR 95.7 FM in September. The frequency of 95.7 was once allocated to a Mexican broadcaster, who untimately settled on the 99.3 FM frequency that was once used as an El Cajon relay of 94.9 FM in the late 80s. TriCities Broadcasting owns KUPR as well as sister AM station KCEO 1000.

3. Dr. Demento gets a new home. After former Flash 92.5 PD Sherman Cohen "changed everything" at KKOS 95.9, removing Dr. Demento in the process, new Flash PD Bryan Jones picked up the show giving San Diego a reason to leave a radio on late Sunday nights.

4. Compass Media sells KCBQ AM-FM to Par Broadcasting. Sale pending at this time. Because Par Broadcasting already owns the maximum amount of AM and FM radio stations at the time, two each, KKLQ-AM 1320 (Oceanside), KOGO 600 (AM), KKLQ-FM 106.5, and KIOZ-FM 102.1 (Oceanside), Par has to divest two of the stations in order to receive the two valuable Compass frequencies so Par can shift their programming on the Oceanside sticks onto the San Diego-based sticks. Compass, in a trade, will receive the 102.1 station in Oceanside to move their format there. The AM 1320 station was donated to Palomar College and rechristened KKSM in April of 2006. 105.3 FM became Rock 105.3. KCBQ-AM became Q1170, airing Q106's programming.

4. XTRA Sports 690 gets CBS'd. KFMB loses the CBS sports package in favor of XTRA. With its 77.5kw signal, XTRA Sports talk fans get the complete package on one station in southern California.

5. SFX Broadcasting purchases KYXY's competetor Sunny (103.7 KJQY) in early 1995 and flips to to classic rock (KMKX, Rock Mix).

6. KFMB 760 creates a ten-hour local live period sweep. No syndicated fare. It starts with Stacy Taylor at noon, then Ted Leitner, working as a Padres broadcaster and channel 8 sports commmentator, at 3pm, then at 5pm it's Berger and Prescott, followed by Hank Bauer at 8pm.

7. Jacor moves into El Cajon. Jacor acquires KECR-FM 93.3 from a religious broadcaster, and changes the programming to a relay of its easy listening music station, WDUV in Brandenton, Florida. This is the first San Diego station Jacor purchased.