R.I.P.: LA Radio, KROQ Founder Ken Roberts

Ken Roberts

Ken Roberts, a concert promoter who oversaw the remaking of Los Angeles’ KROQ-FM into a musical trendsetter influential throughout the country, died May 22 in New York City.

He was 73, according to Variety.

Roberts had been in poor health since a heart attack in February, according to his former wife Harriette Craig, who only recently announced his death.

Under his ownership in the late 1970s and early 1980s, KROQ helped acts such as Prince and Culture Club break through, and the station itself went from a bankrupt Pasadena, Calif., outfit to one of the most important modern-rock stations in the country. DJs such as Richard Blade, Freddy Snakeskin and Jed the Fish championed alternative music in the “ROQ of the 80s” format, which was widely copied.

In the 1980s KROQ saw its ratings jump, and the FCC awarded the license to Roberts in 1985. A year later he sold the station to Infinity Broadcasting for a record $45 million.

Robert acquired his initial stake in KROQ indirectly and inadvertently. He found that he was more experienced in radio than any of the other owners and essentially took over — he was elected president of the station. He took the station off the air for a while and soon bought out the other owners and paid potential bidders for the debt-ridden station to go away.

He hired Rick Carroll as program director in 1979. Carroll was generally seen as the person who defined KROQ’s new-music signature, but Roberts oversaw his efforts. (Carroll died in 1989.)

KROQ 106.7 FM is currently owned by CBS.