1 February – WKYC-AM in Cleveland (today
WTAM) alters its Top 40 format to "Power Radio," a "more music"–style presentation derivative of Drake-Chenuault.
18 March –
KMPX program director
Tom Donahue turns in his resignation, citing conflicts with station management. Staff at both KMPX and sister station
KPPC in
Pasadena, angered by the move, start a strike that lasts eight weeks.
15 April –
KNX (AM) in Los Angeles, a
CBS RadioO&O, switches to an all-news format.
21 May – In San Francisco,
Metromedia purchases classical music KSFR, changes the call letters to
KSAN, and hires former KMPX program director
Tom Donahue to head the new
progressive rock/
freeform format.
June –
ABC Radio hires Allen Shaw from WCFL in Chicago to develop an all-automated rock format for their FM stations, which results in the "Love" format. The stations involved were WABC-FM (now
WPLJ) in New York,
WLS-FM in Chicago, KGO-FM (now
KOSF) in San Francisco, KQV-FM (now
WDVE) in Pittsburgh, WXYZ-FM (now
WRIF) in Detroit, KXYZ-FM (now
KHMX) in Houston, and KABC-FM (now
KLOS) in Los Angeles.
5 June – New York
SenatorRobert F. Kennedyis assassinated in the
Ambassador Hotel shortly after midnight
PST (10.00
GMT), following a victory in the California
primary election for the
Democratic Party nomination for President of the United States. Reporter Andrew West of
Mutual Broadcasting System radio affiliate KRKD in Los Angeles (now
KEIB), intended to capture an exclusive interview with the senator, but instead captured on audio tape the sounds of the immediate aftermath of the shooting (but not the actual shooting itself). With a reel-to-reel tape recorder and attached microphone, West also provided an on-the-spot account of the struggle with assassin
Sirhan Sirhan in the hotel's kitchen pantry,[3] which was relayed to the entire Mutual network, and was a watershed moment in news coverage of U.S. presidential campaigns.
10 June –
KMET in Los Angeles starts airing four hours of progressive rock in the nighttime, programmed by KSAN's
Tom and
Raechel Donahue. It eventually goes to a full-time format as "The Mighty MET."
28 September – WHK-FM in Cleveland, the last FM station in the Metromedia chain to launch a
progressive rock/
freeform format, changes its calls to
WMMS, derivative of their owner.
^
abCox, Jim (2008). This Day in Network Radio: A Daily Calendar of Births, Debuts, Cancellations and Other Events in Broadcasting History. McFarland & Company, Inc.
ISBN978-0-7864-3848-8. P. 5.
^West, Andrew (5 June 1968).
"RFK Assassinated". University of Maryland/Library of American Broadcasting. Archived from
the original(Audio) on 22 January 2009. Retrieved 19 August 2007.