• January 3 – Following its sale to Sconnix Broadcasting,
WLLR of
East Moline, Illinois debuts at 101.3 FM and moves its studios to
Davenport, Iowa. The station carries over a
country format, which had been used by its previous owner under the previous call letters WZZC, which had been in place since 1978. The station continues its steady climb in the Quad-Cities Arbitron ratings and eventually becomes the market's top-rated station. • July 2 – "Solid Gold Country," a country gold-formatted program, debuts by the United Stations Programming Network. The original format is a three-hour weekly program featuring interviews by a feature artist and song blocks covering various topics and a feature year. Host is Stan Martin, with
Ed Salamon as producer and country music journalist Tom Roland as lead writer. This original format will run 18 months, until being reformatted as a daily one-hour program. • August 2 –
WHTZ (Z100) in New York City debuts, soon becoming one of the most influential
CHR stations in the US. Z100 has competition in the format from 95.5
WPLJ, which flipped from album-oriented rock to CHR on June 30 of that year, and Z100 literally goes from "worst to first" in the ratings. •
KABG in
Cambridge, Minnesota becomes KXLV •
KDWB-FM in
Minneapolis, Minnesota flips from
album-oriented rock to
CHR, a format it still carries today. •
Emmis Broadcasting purchases
CHR-formatted
WLOL in
Minneapolis, Minnesota •
WCCO-FM in
Minneapolis, Minnesota flips from
adult contemporary to
CHR, then back again (as WLTE) later that year. • December 12 – After 25 years of ownership,
Gene Autry sells
KSFO 560 AM to King Radio Broadcasting which owned
KYA 1260 AM and 93.3 FM. • December 12 –
KYA moves broadcasts solely onto
93.3 FM, leaving 1260 AM (which they owned since 1926 and was sold to
Bonneville International) which became a simulcast of
KOIT FM, at midnight. ==Debuts==