Tony himself voices a promo for his show on 1240 KROY in what we think was probably January 1977. Otherwise, most of this clip is nightime rocker Jeff “Mother” Robins, but there’s one set from “The Blind Owl” (Brian White, formerly KSFM, KFRC) at the end.
Tony says that the whole gang went on to WEFM in Chicago after this; I didn’t arrive in Sacramento until almost two years later. There’s no one aircheck that could ever represent KROY, because the station dominated the market for almost two decades. A pretty amazing feat when you consider KROY was 1000 watts day, and 250 watts at night! KROY was not known for classic formatic elements – you’ll hear no jingles, no power-promo seques – just the jock and the music.
In 1977, KROY was consulted by veteran programmer John Rook, who also was consulting me, at KAFY in Bakersfield, CA. Notable: the heavy recurrent depth (emphasis on hits 12 to 18 months old) and “Free Bird” by Lynyrd Skynyrd. Tightly-formatted AOR had yet to appear, there was no such thing as “FM Top-40” in Sacramento, and KROY was still pulling double-digit 12+ shares. Amazing.