KROQ-FM (106.7 MHz) is a commercial radio station licensed to Pasadena, California, serving the Greater Los Angeles. Owned by Audacy, Inc., it broadcasts an alternative rock format known as "The World Famous KROQ" (pronounced "kay-rock").
The station has studios at the intersection of Venice Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue in the Crestview neighborhood in West Los Angeles. The transmitter is based in the Verdugo Mountains. It was the flagship station of Kevin and Bean (revamped as Kevin in the Morning in 2019) and former show Loveline, hosted originally by Jim "The Poorman" Trenton with Dr. Drew Pinsky, and later by "Psycho" Mike Catherwood with Pinsky, and The Young Marquis and Stanley Show.
History
KPPC
On April 23, 1962, KPPC-FM signed on at 106.7 MHz. It was owned by the Pasadena Presbyterian Church as a companion to its KPPC, a limited-hours AM radio station that had broadcast since 1924.
In 1967, the Pasadena Presbyterian Church sold KPPC-AM-FM to Crosby-Avery Broadcasting for $310,000. The church had been attempting to sell the radio stations for a year; station manager Edgar Pierce said the church found commercial radio incompatible with the noncommercial nature of its other efforts. Crosby-Avery was owned by Leon Crosby, a general manager of San Francisco's KMPX, a station that had just gone to a full-time freeform progressive rock format, and Lewis Avery, former partner in a national ad sales firm. With KMPX soaring to success but KPPC, with its middle-of-the-road format, ailing, Crosby and Avery brought in the architects of KMPX, Tom and Raechel Donahue, to turn around their new station in Southern California.
Hosts during KPPC's "underground" format included B. Mitchel Reed, Tom Donahue, Les Carter, Ed Mitchell, Steven Clean, Outrageous Nevada, novelty music historian Dr. Demento, Charles Laquidara, Elliot Mintz, blues archivist Johnny Otis, Barbara Birdfeather, and more.
In 1969, Crosby sold KPPC-AM-FM and KMPX to the National Science Network for $1.2 million. Crosby used the funds to buy a then-silent San Francisco television station, KEMO-TV. National Science Network's management of the KPPC stations was turbulent, capped by an October 1971 mass firing of the air staff, but the period also included technical upgrades. NSN moved the studios out of the church basement and to 99 Chester Street in Pasadena and the transmitter to Flint Peak, with a slight power increase to 25,700 watts.
In 1971, Ludwig Wolfgang Frohlich, founder of the National Science Network and previous owner of an ad agency, died. Upon his death, control of the estate was transferred to Ingrid and Thomas Burns.
KROQ AM and KROQ-FM
Beginnings and brief closing (1972–1974) Country music station KBBQ (1500 AM) in Burbank became KROQ in September 1972, changing its format to Top 40 and hiring established disc jockeys from other stations. The new KROQ called itself "K-ROCK, the ROQ of Los Angeles". In 1973, with National Science Network's estate selling off its assets, KROQ's owners bought KPPC-AM-FM (immediately divesting the AM station to meet then-current ownership limits), changed the calls to KROQ-FM and hired Shadoe Stevens to create a new rock format described as high-energy "all-cutting-edge-rock-all-the-time" and began simulcasting as "The ROQs of L.A.: Mother Rock!" Meanwhile, KPPC on 1240 AM was sold to Universal Broadcasting, a religious broadcaster, and remained on the air with its limited-schedule of Wednesday evening and Sunday operation until subsequent owners took the station off the air permanently in 1996.
The two stations (KROQ-AM/FM) were wildly successful initially with the new format, but poor money management plagued the enterprise. When concert promoter Ken Roberts booked Sly and the Family Stone and Sha Na Na for one KROQ-sponsored show at the Los Angeles Coliseum and the station found itself unable to cover expenses, Roberts agreed to pay for the band to play the show in exchange for a small ownership stake in the station. Roberts joined a sprawling ownership group which included a doctor, two dairymen, a political lobbyist, a secretary, and several other minor investors. Roberts, with his background in the music industry, made him a logical choice for president of the struggling company in the minds of the other shareholders, and he was elected such at the first meeting he attended in 1974.