In January 1982, KCBS became KRQR, "The Bay Area Rocker", with a harder, album-oriented rock (AOR) format. The station is now owned by Audacy, Inc.
San Francisco, CA
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On January 25, 1982, at Midnight, KCBS-FM became KRQR, "The Bay Area Rocker", with a hard album-oriented rock (AOR) format, to compete against leading rock station KMEL. KRQR's harder approach helped start a long run as a dominant rock station. The year was a busy one for Bay Area rock stations. In May of that year, KSFX dropped rock and went to a talk format as KGO-FM. A month later, on August 23, KQAK switched to rock as "The Quake". And in September, KFOG dropped beautiful music for a more eclectic mix of rock.
Even with four AOR stations in San Francisco, in addition to two more in San Jose, KRQR still dominated amidst the stiff competition. KQAK was the first to give up, dropped AOR in April 1983 [2] and picking up modern rock. But KRQR and KFOG put lots of pressure on the tightly-formatted KMEL, which flipped to CHR in 1984.
KRQR's rock format continued throughout the 1980s and up to 1993, when they repositioned in a classic rock direction. By 1995, the hard rock format was in decline across the country, as modern rock was on the rise. To combat this, the station would evolve back to a more current direction in February 1996.[3] However, this failed to turn around ratings, and on June 5, 1996, at 3 PM, KRQR flipped to KLLC, "Alice 97.3", with a Modern AC format (one of the first and pioneering stations in the format), which gradually evolved into Hot AC in 2010.[4]
