Here is Jim Duncan's report on ratings in the New York metro Area for Spring of 1976:
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New York ratings Spring 1976
- Thread starter davideduardo
- Start date
I'm surprised I don't see WQXR or WQXR-FM in any of these ranks. They were commercial classical stations in this era, right?
Two of them. By 1976, WNCN had returned to classical music. It had flipped from classical to rock in 1974, and after a big protest, returned to classical in late 1975.
You also don't see WRVR, the city's commercial jazz station. There were more than 15 radio stations in NYC. Some didn't rate high enough to make the cut.
Even WVNJoy (100.3 FM), New Jersey's easy listening station, did better than the classical and jazz stations in the 18+ Metro category. That was one station I had difficulty picking up in Lower Manhattan.
Fast forward to August 1983. I went on a trip to Jones Beach with my family, and I picked up what I thought was an amazing Top 40 station on the frequency where WVNJ-FM used to be. I had already known that WVNJ-FM was sold to a company that was going to turn it into a "hot hits" station, but I was surprised to find that I could pick up WHTZ (Z100) clearly on Jones Beach. I spent most of the trip listening to the station. When I arrived home, I tuned my radio to 100.3 FM, and I was glad to find that was able to pick up Z100 without difficulty. That was because they had moved their transmitter from somewhere in New Jersey to the Empire State Building.
In the 70s, I thought "rock" and "Top 40" were the same thing. They weren't. None of the stations listed are shown to be Top 40.
WABC, WXLO and WPIX were 'Top 40' at the time of this survey. WCBS-FM was oldies. All listed as rock. I don't think they differentiated until AOR became dominant a few years later.
Not aware that there was such a format as "classic rock" in 1976. The artists you list would have been considered Oldies.
The classic rock radio format we know today evolved from the AOR format in the 80s.
I wonder if in 1976 there were still stations playing Big Band music from the 30s and 40s ? In 1976, the 1930s were only 40 years ago. So those big band songs in 1976 were not even as old as "Born to Run" is now.
But people also didn't live as long because they smoked and didn't have the vitamins etc. we have today.
Music of Your Life was still a few years away.
Danny Stiles did a big band show on WEVD at that time.
WNEW would play some 40s pop such as Rosemary Clooney.
Phil Schapp was getting started around that time at WKCR, and his specialty was the 1930s.
Wow, thanks for the replies. I wonder if Big Band hits from the 30s and 40s could work today on a modern FM station? Lots of young hipsters really dig older music. And classic rock has literally been played to death, how many times can you hear "Hotel California" before sticking cotton in your ears ?
WKCR probably still plays old jazz from that period. Some other college stations might.
Not on a "modern" station though.
I remember Swing becoming popular among young people for approximately 10 minutes in the late 1990s. It was popular enough that a contemporary Christian swing band formed in Ohio. Absolutely no radio stations flipped to swing.
The first time I ever heard the term was when WKZL Greensboro NC was one of three Top 40s in a market that no longer had rock, back in 1984 or 1985, and with the demand for rock, they started doing a classic rock show. I think WKZL was the AOR station before that. And even in 1979, no one was AOR, so WKZL had evolved from Top 40. At the end of 1985, WKRR "Rock 92" was the first full-time classic rock station in the market. Before that, it was a small local soft AC station, but it increased its power as so many stations were doing.
Not 1976, but the kids at my high school loved it a couple of years later when the concert band, the same group that marched at football games and parades, performed in the auditorium and did some big band numbers. Shortly after that, a local station switched to a big band format. In fact, a couple of years before that a Charlotte Observer reporter wondered if big band might work as a format. We had lost the station playing people like Frank Sinatra only a few years earlier, before I was even living there.
The adult standards format showed up in 1981 in Charlotte, mixing AC and big band. A few years after that, the nostalgia format became popular. That was more big band oriented.
I know of one station that was already adult standards that did a swing show during those years.
MassMusicMan
Banned
What the actual hell?
In this survey, WQXR-FM had a 1.5, WQXR AM had a 0.5 and WNCN had a 0.6.
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