KLIF AM SOLD- MCLENDON KEEPS KNUS

The biggest shock to everyone who worked for the McLendon corporation was the sale of KLIF AM to Fairchild Commnications for ten and one half million dollars. That was a record amount of money paid for a radio station in the late sixties and early 70s.
Some of the KILF staff were elated to get away from the quirky genius of McLendon, and unfortunately for them, burned their bridges with him.

Gordon McLendon had a non compete contract as part of the sale that prevented him from operating any AM radio station within a 150 mle radius of Dallas.
He offered to sell KNUS for $150,000, but Fairchild said no thanks. What a disasterous move for them.

We moved the studios to a scond floor of a downtown movie theatre complex that the McLendons owned and stayed there for a couple of years until Gordon changed the format to a version of top 40 radio and became the number one station in 90 days, beating KILF to the chagrin of the new ownership. I believe that Fairchild finally unloaded KLIF for a couple of million dollars some years later; thus, throwing in the towel on their radio broadcasting megalithic pipedream as AM radio died a painful death nationally.

A big benefit of working at the building that housed multiple McLendon theatres was the ability to slip into any one of the theatres of my choosing and having a first run movie pigout anytime I wanted.