• 1 January –
ABC divides its radio network into four networks. • 1 February –
WABX Detroit drops classical music to air
progressive rock/
freeform full-time. • 1 February – WKYC-AM in Cleveland (today
WTAM) alters its Top 40 format to "Power Radio," a "more music"–style presentation derivative of Drake-Chenuault. • 3 March –
Radio Caroline's
pirate radio ships and
Fredericia are seized by an offshore supply company as security for unpaid debts and towed into
Amsterdam. • 11 March –
KFWB in Los Angeles becomes the third
Westinghouse Broadcasting station to launch an all-news format, patterned after
KYW (AM) in Philadelphia and
WINS (AM) in New York. • 15 March –
WBCN in Boston, Massachusetts begins to drop
easy listening for
progressive rock/
freeform. • 18 March –
KMPX program director
Tom Donahue turns in his resignation, citing conflicts with station management. Staff at both KMPX and sister station
KPPC in
Pasadena, angered by the move, start a strike that lasts eight weeks. • 15 April –
KNX (AM) in Los Angeles, a
CBS Radio O&O, switches to an all-news format. • 29 April –
WMMR in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania switches to
progressive rock/
freeform as "The Marconi Experiment." • 10 May – The government of France issues an order prohibiting the state broadcaster
ORTF from televising the
May 68 student demonstrations in Paris, but ORTF radio correspondents are allowed to make live reports and the independent
Radio Luxembourg sends its own journalists to France and keeps them there despite harassment from the French police. Because of the live broadcasts, news of the rebellion spread from Paris to the rest of France and to media around the world. • 15 May – The U.S.
Central Intelligence Agency shuts down
Radio Americas, a station that had gone on the air in 1960 as part of a campaign against
Cuba's leader,
Fidel Castro. Originally called "Radio Swan" because its transmitter was located on one of the uninhabited
Swan Islands, Honduras, the station "spearheaded anti-Castro rumor campaigns" and even "supplied its listeners with sabotage instructions". • 21 May – In San Francisco,
Metromedia purchases classical music KSFR, changes the call letters to
KSAN, and hires former KMPX program director
Tom Donahue to head the new
progressive rock/
freeform format. • June –
ABC Radio hires Allen Shaw from WCFL in Chicago to develop an all-automated rock format for their FM stations, which results in the "Love" format. The stations involved were WABC-FM (now
WPLJ) in New York,
WLS-FM in Chicago, KGO-FM (now
KOSF) in San Francisco, KQV-FM (now
WDVE) in Pittsburgh, WXYZ-FM (now
WRIF) in Detroit, KXYZ-FM (now
KHMX) in Houston, and KABC-FM (now
KLOS) in Los Angeles. • 5 June – New York
Senator Robert F. Kennedy is assassinated in the
Ambassador Hotel shortly after midnight
PST (10.00
GMT), following a victory in the California
primary election for the
Democratic Party nomination for President of the United States. Reporter Andrew West of
Mutual Broadcasting System radio affiliate KRKD in Los Angeles (now
KEIB), intended to capture an exclusive interview with the senator, but instead captured on audio tape the sounds of the immediate aftermath of the shooting (but not the actual shooting itself). With a reel-to-reel tape recorder and attached microphone, West also provided an on-the-spot account of the struggle with assassin
Sirhan Sirhan in the hotel's kitchen pantry, which was relayed to the entire Mutual network, and was a watershed moment in news coverage of U.S. presidential campaigns. • 10 June –
KMET in Los Angeles starts airing four hours of progressive rock in the nighttime, programmed by KSAN's
Tom and
Raechel Donahue. It eventually goes to a full-time format as "The Mighty MET." • 18 June –
KBOO-FM signs on as one of the earliest
community radio stations in the United States. • 1 July –
WIBC-FM flips from
classical music to
album-oriented rock as WNAP. • 2 August: DZAQ-AM's coverage of the aftermath of the
1968 Casiguran earthquake in the Philippines, relayed on ABS-CBN Corporation's DZAQ-TV, would become the first ever join radio-TV news coverage ever in the country. In recognition of its vital role in the Metro Manila coverage, the corporation would later ask station management to reformat it to a full service news radio station the following month. • 28 September – WHK-FM in Cleveland, the last FM station in the Metromedia chain to launch a
progressive rock/
freeform format, changes its calls to
WMMS, derivative of their owner. ;Undated •
KQRS-FM drops
beautiful music for
freeform rock • Al Tedesco purchases
KWFM in
Minneapolis, Minnesota, later changes it to
country music as KTCR. ==Debuts==