In the summer of 1984, when the resurgence of CHR radio was at its peak, an unusual experiment took place on RKO’s KHJ Los Angeles. The most influential Top 40 station of the mid-’60s and early ’70s, KHJ had already spun the format wheel several times that decade, dropping CHR for Country during the “Urban Cowboy” boom in 1980, then trying to channel its heyday with an Oldies/Top 40 hybrid billed as “The Boss Is Back” in 1983.
In June 1984, the station changed again to “Car Radio 93KHJ,” playing a tight list of currents and recurrents, punctuated by six traffic reports an hour. As the station noted at the time, there were still a significant number of Southern Californians with only an AM radio in their car. It was also around the time that the Summer Olympics were expected to make Los Angeles traffic worse, if possible. (Here’s audio of the station at six months in.)
Even by the standards of the time, “Car Radio” KHJ was an elaborately produced and executed station, especially for AM music in the mid-’80s, trying to do car-related topics and offering appropriately themed vignettes. By this aircheck, about a year later, you can hear the music becoming more AC. In early 1986, as the last of FM powerhouse KIIS’s Top 40 competitors faded, KHJ became one of the first pre-Beatles Oldies stations, “Smokin’ Oldies 930,” a companion to sister KRTH (K-Earth 101).
Car Radio couldn’t get much attention in a CHR world dominated by KIIS. It took the arrival of KPWR (Power 106), also in early 1986, to truly disrupt that station’s 10-share heyday. With music you couldn’t hear elsewhere, Smokin’ Oldies did a little better than either of its predecessors (which in that era meant a 1.3 share vs. Car Radio’s 1.0 peak). By 1990, the station had been sold to a Spanish-language broadcaster, and the older oldies briefly helped an FM competitor to KRTH, KODJ (Oldies 93), get attention.
But Car Radio did leave some tire tracks; there were noticeable echoes of that station and its precision when RKO consultant Walt Sabo helped launch WKXW (New Jersey 101.5) a few years later with traffic and weather as equal partners to the weekday Talk and weekend Oldies formats. The idea of a radio station branded around New Jersey had been tried on AM, too. It turned out what both concepts needed was to be on FM.
In 2026, many FM broadcasters are similarly focused on the car as a stronghold, offering equally tight playlists for short available listening spans, punctuated less by service elements than stopsets that are almost as long as our listening occasions. We are multiply threatened in the car even on FM, both by rival platforms and our automotive frenemies, and yet our legislative focus is on an AM band that we no longer enthusiastically support with viable programming choices.
Today, CHR in particular is programming “car radio” without positioning it as “Car Radio,” or really maximizing it for car radio. With 1984’s available pop music, KHJ could fill its tight list with consensus hits that were mostly uptempo. It’s certainly possible that a non-industry listener doesn’t grimace like I do when a station kicks off Friday afternoon’s “Drive at Five” with “Die With a Smile” or “Man in the Mirror,” but given the energy level both musically and presentationally, rocking down the highway is a lot harder these days.
I am concerned when our industry focuses on the car to the seeming exclusion of everywhere else, but we could be doing more on air to stake our claim on in-car listening. Maybe it’s time to start talking about “car radio” again on the air, if only to reinforce a usage that others are trying to undermine and remind people of something we do that they enjoy. Again, that means delivering the best possible car radio experience.
Finally, as the battle for the dashboard continues, it is time for radio to do a better job of replicating the longtime simplicity of AM/FM on its streaming apps. iHeart Radio introducing pre-sets was the right step. I’m now of the belief that most streaming aggregators would benefit from a version of their apps specifically optimized for in-car use with a more manageable number of choices and a slightly less-infinite dial. And we should position those apps to listeners as “your new car radio” before somebody else does.
