KVIL

KVIL (103.7 FM, "103.7 Lite FM") is a radio station broadcasting in the Dallas/Fort Worth market in Texas. The station has featured a very popular adult contemporary music format for nearly forty years. Since 2009, Dallas/Fort Worth is the largest market in the United States with only one adult contemporary station, although DFW is the 5th-largest radio market in the United States.

History

The original location of the studios was in the Highland Park Village shopping center at 4152 Mockingbird Lane (at Preston Road), overlooking the Dallas Country Club golf course. In 1962 the owner/manager was John Coyle with the program director being Dillard Carerra. At that time the station was an FM powerhouse breakthrough at 119,000 watts in full stereo.

The remarkable engineering of the audio was routed through a huge audio mixer with slider controls utilizing German silver rheostats. Audio phasing was a problem at that time. Capitol Records, for instance, used a reverse-phasing that prevented anything recorded by The Beatles to be played, unless it was monaural. The reverse phasing simply blanked out the audio tracks to a distorted muffle.

"The singing time clock" was one of the first digital breakthroughs – actually a marriage of digital and analog technology. The clock audio was recorded on 1/4" tape in stereo played on AMPEX recorders in individual segments, by the jingle singers at PAM's in Dallas. The project was huge, involving musicians, singers, and recording engineers who taped every minute on the 24-hour clock in at least two versions, to be played by the station at the appropriate minute. The sequential clock was synchronized to the individual tape segments. When the DJ pushed the button, the audience heard "It's nine forty-three on the Kayville Clock, K-V-I-L" or any imaginable variation of such limerick – and in stereo. The pronunciation of "KVIL" as "Kayville" is probably the best-known example of a station's call letters actually being sung or spoken as a word.

The KVIL logo was one of sophistication – the picture of a feminine hand with a bracelet. That logo was plastered all over Dallas on billboards, matchbooks, and most any imaginable media.

KVIL was the first station in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area to broadcast Top 40 on FM and in stereo. The initial attempt in April 1967 was bold, offering good personalities and some interesting programming including the first Dallas broadcast of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album, played in its entirety on the evening of its release.

The 1967 to 1969 attempt to take on (the then very popular) KLIF failed because FM was still a relatively new format and only a small percentage of people owned FM radios. FM was not even a "standard" feature in original equipment car radios until the late-1970s even though it had been an option since the early-1960s. Additionally, KVIL's AM broadcast was only operating during daylight hours when the evenings were critical to a top-40 station's survival in the ratings. The failing station suffered in several ways, including employees running off with the records (possibly in place of the pay they were likely not receiving).

Owner of KVIL from 1968 through 1973 was Highland Park socialite James B. Francis. In early 1969, KVIL starting broadcasting under the new management and spent several weeks broadcasting only music, no commercials except brief announcements by Ron Chapman, telling listeners what was in store. And this time it happened as planned. Ron's expertise in broadcasting and his popularity, along with the increasing popularity of FM stereo, brought the station to prominence. In 1973, KVIL was sold to Fairbanks Broadcasting and Chapman stayed on as morning DJ for many years after. KVIL hired Mike Selden from KLIF and installed Bill Gardner and Jack Schell in middays. This dynamic lineup along with programming insights from consultant George Johns and upper management direction from Jim Hilliard and Chapman's panache for marketing and promotion started KVIL's steady climb in the ratings.

For many years during the 1970s and 1980s, it was the top station in the market. It even put 90 minutes of its morning show on KXTX-TV for a week in May every year, to show extravagant stunts such as a camel race in the African desert. During the 1990s, it spent several years as the flagship station for the Dallas Cowboys.

KVIL's programming was simulcast on both the FM (103.7) and AM (1150) signals. KVIL-AM signed on as a daytime-only station in 1960, and KVIL-FM was added a year later. Yet, despite an attempt to take on the legendary KLIF with a Top 40 music format in 1967, neither AM nor FM attracted a very large portion of the listening audience until 1969, when the station hired Chapman (better known to KLIF listeners as "Irving Harrigan") to do the morning show. At the same time, KVIL instituted a music format that was unique for its time, a cross between Top 40 and MOR which would later be termed "Adult Contemporary." The station was meant to appeal to adult listeners who had grown up with KLIF by projecting the same type of "showmanship" typical of Top 40 stations. KVIL first finished in Dallas/Fort Worth's top 10 Arbitron ratings in 1974 (the year after Arbitron combined Dallas and Fort Worth into a single market) and topped the ratings list for the first time in 1976.

AM 1150 adopted the calls KVIX and programmed a separate AC format from KVIL-FM for a short time in the mid-1980s. The station now operates at AM 1160 as conservative talk station KVCE, while KVIL continues with its AC format on 103.7 FM.

Today's programming features husband & wife team Gene & Julie hosting the morning show, and the syndicated Delilah nighttime lovesongs program.

Every year in the middle of November, KVIL flips to an all-Christmas format that runs through Christmas Day.^[1] For 2011, the AC format returned on December 27 instead of December 26.

The "Sunday Jazz Brunch" hosted by Tempie Lindsey (formerly of KOAI "107.5 The Oasis") was dropped from its programming as of September 27, 2009, and replaced with regular programming.

KVIL HD-2

When KVIL began broadcasting a second channel in HD Radio, KVIL launched "Chick Rock" (Rock for Women) on 103.7 HD-2. The HD-2 channel now broadcasts Christian rock/adult alternative music as "Rise". It also broadcasts Christmas music from November 1st to the middle of November. From that time on, it switches to KVIL's AC programming when the main KVIL station broadcasts Christmas music from mid-November to December 25 every year.

References

External links

• KVIL official website
• Query the FCC's FM station database for KVIL
• Radio-Locator information on KVIL
• Query Arbitron's FM station database for KVIL

• DFW Radio Archives