2003 in radio

The year 2003 in radio involved some significant events.

List of years in radio (table)
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In music 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 In television 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 In film 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006
Art Archaeology Architecture Literature Music Philosophy Science +...
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Events

• October 10 – Facing an investigation surrounding allegations of illegal drug use, American right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh publicly admits that he is addicted to prescription pain killers, and will seek treatment.

Debuts

• March 3 – Skratch 'N Sniff debuts on San Diego area alternative rock station XETRA-FM (91.1 FM, "91X").
• March 31 – "NBC News Radio," an hourly service of one-minute news updates anchored by NBC News and MSNBC personnel (but written by Westwood One staffers) is launched. Westwood One still maintains production of the unrelated five-minute long "NBC Radio News"-branded newscasts in morning drive (which had been produced and anchored by CBS Radio personnel since 1998) for one more year; they were one of a few remaining connections to the original NBC Radio Network.
• April – KJOC in Davenport, Iowa dumps its all-sports format and switches to talk, hoping to compete with the market's WOC. Some sports programming – mainly, the Chicago Cubs and Iowa State University athletics – are held over, and (except for a few brief interim periods with ISU sports) remain to this day.
• June 20 - KOCZ-LP in Opelousas, Louisiana, begins broadcasting as the third community radio "barnraising" initiative of the Prometheus Radio Project.
• October 12 – Billboard unveils the Hot Dance Airplay chart. "Just The Way You Are" by Milky is the first number one single on the published chart. Original panel: WKTU/New York City, KDLD/Los Angeles, KKDL/Dallas-Fort Worth, WQSX/Boston, WPYM/Miami, KCJZ/San Antonio, KPTI/San Francisco and KNRJ/Phoenix. All stations have since left the Dance format and panel.

Closings

• KMEO in Flower Mound, Texas ended their Memories format and began their Country format as KTYS.
• Art Bell semi-retires from Coast to Coast AM, remains hosting weekends

Deaths

• January 17 - Richard Crenna, 77, American motion picture, television, and radio actor^[1]
• January 25 - Robert Rockwell, 82, American stage, film, radio and television actor^[1]
• March 17 - Alan Keith, 94, English actor and longtime classical music presenter
• July 4 - Larry Burkett, 64, American evangelical Christian author and radio personality
• August 27 - Jinx Falkenburg, 83, who (with her husband, Tex) popularized the talk-show format, first on radio and then in the early days of television^[1]
• October 27 - Rod Roddy, 66, American top-40 disc jockey and announcer, better known for his work announcing television game shows

See also

• Radio broadcasting