Wonder if they use the WPIG Pig?
Posted on 08/01/2026 3:00:11 PM PDT by BenLurkin
A legendary Southern California classic rock station is pulling the plug on its DJs, laying off its entire on-air staff as it flips to a fully automated, music-only format.
KCAL, a longtime staple of the Inland Empire radio dial, announced the sweeping changes will take effect August 1, with parent company Anaheim Broadcasting Corporation promising listeners “nothing but music all day across the Inland Empire.”
Chief Operating Officer Kelly Sanders said the DJ-free format will mean fewer interruptions and more nonstop classic rock, according to a social media announcement.
“KCAL has a longstanding history in the Inland Empire, and this next chapter builds on the station’s strong rock heritage,” Sanders said in a news release, per the Orange County Register.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Radio DJs are being eliminated. Wedding DJs are still around and they bring their personalities into the mix. But robots will take over.
Music has been a commodity for quite a while. In the 90s people started getting music for free and the industry has never really recovered from it. You have a few stars at the very top that fill stadiums and aging classic rock bands out there hanging on. A bunch of tribute bands that just copy other classic rock bands and add little new content.
It’s sad but its not much of a living for most people. Never was really. However I view most of these guys as artists and generally in it for the music and the fact they can’t do anything else. God bless ‘em. Dinosaur industry.
Wolfman Jack is spinning in his grave!....................
Former DJ here. I don’t see radio surviving for much longer. I lost my weekend radio job in 2013 after the local owners sold out to a corporation. Soon after, this 6-station group went from 17 local employees to 3. Today, it’s a 5-station group with every station fully automated. No live local DJs. The only local live voices are for high school sports coverage.
A far cry from the days of Boss Radio KHJ and The Real Don Steele.
Does anyone remember the ginormous 250 thousand watt transmitter in Mexico carrying Wolfman Jack? Aka Bob Smith.
It was a blowtorch AM radio tower that crossed the planet.
I remember listening to the Wolfman on the West Coast when he was transmitting from Mexico or offshore on his pirate radio boat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrlZnF5uVTo
I wasn’t there for American Graffiti. But I lived it on the radio.
So far I like the morning DJ on 92.5 KRWN radio.
I’m surprised it took this long. Today’s music became fully automated years ago.
Sure is, I met The Real Don Steele when I was a DJ at a radio event, in 1995 a couple of years before passed away at age 62. He was somewhat quiet and low key when I spoke with him.
Local school district had a student run radio station that had djs.
A few years ago the city said they would no longer fund the radio station. It wound up in the hands of NPR, they play NPR shows without any live djs.
the demise of live radio is a real shame, LOSS!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQizX2Q1MBY
https://bayarearadio.org/station/kfat
some refugees have moved on to create KPIG:
The transmitter for XERB was in Rosarito Beach in Baja California, Mexico. Wolfman's studios were in the U.S.
Wonder if they use the WPIG Pig?
I Heard It On The X - ZZ Top
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5_P9tTWzD8
I deduced, I don’t really know, that they purchase a block of tunes for a fixed price or whatever. Hear the same tunes several times a day.
A real Oldies station, from say 1955 to 1985 could play a different tune for a week easy.
There was an experimental AM station, run by Crosley I think, that broadcast out of Ohio @ 500,000 watts in the 1930s. They would get listener requests from Europe.
I used to listen to WLS all the time.
Radio stations purchase hard drives with hundreds of songs from companies that specialize in that but select only those songs that they want to play on the air. I still work in radio, and when I had an oldies show back in the late '80s and early '90s it was music on CDs, tape, and records.
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