KYA 1260, San Francisco
Hit Music Survey
Featuring Michael Spears
Week Of October 18-25, 1974
KYA’s lineup in the Fall of 1974 included Roger W. Morgan (6-9 a.m.), Bill Holley (9 a.m.-noon), Mark Taylor (noon-3 p.m.), Chris Cane (3-6 p.m.), Brian Roberts (6-10 p.m.), Dean Goss (10 p.m.-2 a.m.), Mighty Mitch (2-6 a.m.) and Michael Spears on weekends. Mighty Mitch — no relation to Bobby Mitchell, who toiled at KYA in the early 1960s — was the air name of Harry Osibin, known later as “Harry O.” of “The Green Hour.”
The front of this week’s KYA 1260 music survey includes a cheerful welcome to Michael Spears, the station’s new weekender. Funny, though: the photograph isn’t of Michael Spears. Funnier yet: Michael Spears (a/k/a Hal Martin) is the name of the program director at 610/KFRC, which just happens to be KYA’s chief Top 40 rival in The City…
A mere coincidence? What could possibly be going on here?
Closer inspection of the photo of KYA’s alleged “Michael Spears” reveals that he looks a lot like a guy who calls himself Steve Jordan on the air. Is Jordan actually masquerading as “Spears” as part of some intra-station shenanigans?
A sampling of an aircheck of KYA’s so-called “Spears” (available below on this page) from around the same time as the survey displayed here reveals an amazing similarity to the voice of the well-known Steve Jordan, which is nothing like that of Spears/Martin, who — in addition to being a legendary programmer — was also a star disk jockey at KLIF/Dallas, CKLW/Detroit and KGB/San Diego, among others. (Michael Spears passed away on October 25, 2005, at the age of only 58 after battling cancer for five years.)
Leave it to none other than Steve Jordan himself to reveal the truth behind the baffling “Michael Spears” mystery, which he explained in a September 2007 email:
Just thought you might like to know the “Michael Spears” on the KYA airchecks is actually me…”Steve Jordan” … yep, the same one on the other KYA stuff. The real Michael Spears was Program Director at our rival KFRC at the time, so when I returned from a brief absence in S.F. radio, we put me on the air using his name whenever he was on KFRC… that was radio then, you know.
Mystery … solved!
“Michael Spears” on KYA, October 13, 1974
Including news with Don West
And here, as a reference, is the real Steve Jordan on 1260 KYA (January 1974):
SOURCE: Bay Area Radio Museum Collection.
RELATED EXHIBITS
Note how many of the tunes on the survey are played on the aircheck featured on this page!
DJ
Gary,
I left the SF Bay Area for LA.
Just in time for the Drake Shenault (sp) barrage of programming.
Robert W Morgan and Real Don Steele were already primed from KEWB. But then they exploded into 70s 80s.
Was there a Robert W and sound alike Roger W Morgan in SF.
I was an airline office guy but woke up one day about SF to Bobby Ocean and then John Mack Flanigan on a trip North. Lon Immons was just a Dad to 2 of myself classmates at Mills High ’61.
Been a fan of BARHOF from your beginnings. Did do some time at KCSM when Dave Scholin and RayJay and I had been friends with Rick Wiseman (Sherwood) since childhood thru our mid 20s. Rick did myself news, weather and sports cold and spot on from a newspaper when he was 17.
Regards,
Mike Becker saying “….. Nothing but Thanks”
PS Name it and claim it. 10 seconds no peeking or Google.
Pos any chance you have video of radio airchecks.
Mike,
There are quite a few “video radio airchecks” out there, mostly on YouTube. We’ll cross-post them when we come across them.
By the way, who is “Gary”?
DJ