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Stations you miss

Y

Yabadabado1

Sort of a fun exercise. List your favorite stations you miss due to format change, license turned in, etc. by decades. Assuming there are still some people on here that listened back in the day, let's start with the:
50s:
60s:
70s:
80s:
90s:
Since I wasn't around Ohio until the 70s, I'll start with 1220 WGAR & WHLO in Akron, WGCL and, believe it or not WDBN "The Quite Island.
Ready, set, GO!
 
Yabadabado1 said:
Sort of a fun exercise. List your favorite stations you miss due to format change, license turned in, etc. by decades. Assuming there are still some people on here that listened back in the day, let's start with the:
50s:
Click to expand...

50's
WERE with Bill Randal and Specs Howard among others.
WJW at night, first with Alan Freed and then with Pete "Mad Daddy" Myers
WHK in the later 50's with Color Radio
WJMO. Despite a horrendous owner, a marvelous station that served the Black community. Even had a PD with a doctorate from Ohio State!

60s:
WJW with Big Wilson in the morning, enough for a young teen to listen to MOR.
WHK in the early 60's.
WCUY with all jazz
WDBN with a good early Beautiful Music format.
The big one: Norm and Bob's WIXY which was the model for my own Top 40 station.

70s:
WGAR. An early and very good gold-based AC, close to being what is today a Hot AC in tempo and delivery.
WMMS. Spoke for itself. A majestic radio station with an amazing PD and marvelous music director.

I quit going to Cleveland in the early 80's
 
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Sounds like something that should be started on the Classic Radio board. I think I'll start it. :D
 
50s to early 60s - nothing, born in late 50s
Mid to late 60s - WIXY, CKLW, WHK, WERE (Sports, Pete Franklin)
Early 70s - WGAR, WELW-FM, WGCL, WKYC/WWWE
Mid to late 70s - WWWM aka M105, WMMS, WZZP
80s - WMMS, WMJI, WZZP/WLTF
90s - WMJI, WLTF
 
From the 70s WLS AM, today they're sitting in 20-21 place, just blow it up and start over already.

From the 80s and 90s KTCZ - Mpls. Never thought I would say this, but 'The Current' is too eclectic, all over the road.
Also WLOL FM.
 
I miss "The Big 8", CKLW. A great signal shot right at the Greater Cleveland, Ohio area... so much so, that I remember a few ads for Cleveland area businesses running. In 1970 or 1971, there was one chart, including extras, in which I liked every song. CKLW had some Canadian and Detroit area content that would not be heard elsewhere...
"For Better or Worse" by The Bells (after "Stay Awhile"). "Funky Music (Sho' Nuff Turns Me On)" by Edwin Starr (Gordy/Motown records). This one packs a wallop, and on an Edwin Starr website, it was used as front page music. All 3 Keith Hampshire records on A&M Records, although I may have heard one or, maybe, two of them elsewhere too. "Awaiting On You All" by Silverhawk (A Detroit, Michigan band). On Westbound Records, this was a good remake of the album track from "All Things Must Pass" by George Harrison.

WIXY 1260. Cleveland's great Top 40 giant through 1972-1973. The only place to hear, for a few weeks, "Mississippi Mama" by Owen B., an Ohio band (on Janus Records) "Stop, Wait and Listen" by Cleveland's own Circus (On Metromedia Records), "Dance Master" by Willie Henderson" (1973-1974) on Playboy Records in the U.S., "Try" by Pepper Tree. I didn't really like this one, but I have a strong memory of it, and got a copy around a decade ago.

WHLO 640AM in Akron, Ohio. The only place to hear "Child of December" by Larry Saunders on Stonehenge Records out of (I think) Massillon, Ohio. "Pistol Legged Mama" by Tommy Roe (1971). I really liked this one, but could not find a copy to buy back then. My brother got it for me as a birthday gift some 20 years ago from a dealer in Canada.

ON ALL OF THE ABOVE 3 STATIONS, I WOULD LISTEN TO THEIR COUNTDOWN SHOWS EVERY WEEK. I would write down each song and artist, in order, and hang it up on the wall next to my bed.

WABQ 1540AM. One of my two sources in 1969 and the early 1970s for R&B music. They played a lot of music not heard anywhere else. I would save my money and, occasionally go to downtown Cleveland to visit the record stores near Terminal Tower. I would buy records I could only find there. Titles I heard include, among others:

"What About Me" by Ruby Carter & The Exceptional 3 on the Cleveland Way-Out Record label (located on E 55th Street). Just wonderful! Not every record on Way-Out was produced well. This one was.

"I Know A Man" by The Rance Allen Group. For awhile, WABQ incorporated cross-over quality Gospel tunes to their regular format. This was the best one. It's on Stax Records' "The Gospel Truth" subsidiary label.

"What Time It Is" by General Crook. A rockin' R&B record with a dynamic, punchy, horn arrangement. The label, out of Chicago, was the Down To Earth label. I've got a copy and occasionally blast it on my stereo system.

"Funky L.A." by Paul Humphrey and His Cool Aid Chemists. The follow-up to their instrumental hit "Cool Aid" on Lizard Records.
An "out-there" hard Funk record. My dad, who worked in Cleveland, went to a store and bought a copy for me. The store proprietor hated it.

WJMO 1490AM. I didn't listen to this Soul station as much as it didn't come in as clearly as WABQ, and I found it later.
There were a few songs I heard only on WJMO. My favorite was "We're On The Right Track" by Ultra High Frequency on Wand Records (A subsidiary of Scepter Records). Using a choo-choo train sound as part of the percussion was inspired. Upbeat, fun.

"Slip The Drummer One" by Lunar Funk. The follow-up to the bigger hit "Mr. Penguin". Quite frankly, this was an uninspired, mostly instrumental, Soul-Funk piece that I like anyway... Bell Records.

CHYR in Lemington, Ontario, Canada. Always dialing around. If our family wasn't watching TV, we'd likely have the radio on and I would, occasionally, put on this station whose night pattern on its night time frequency was very clear in the Cleveland area. At the time they were an Adult Contemporary Top 40 station. One time they played "I Can See For Miles" by The Who which struck me as a, surprisingly, hard rock song for them to play.

I'd like to know when they stopped changing frequencies at sundown. When going from one to the other, they'd introduce a beeping sound, and asked you to dial over and listen for that sound. They'd play it for a bit and than say: "You're back in the beam with Cheer".
 
I remember listening to CHYR/CHIR out of Canada as a teen in the car. My buddy had an old '58 Buick that had six buttons on the radio, one more than the usual 5, so CHYR was in there along with WHK, WKYC, WIXY, WAKR , and CKLW.
"Cheer" only ran 500 watts on 730 nights, but it beamed right across the lake.
In 1993, the CRTC granted CHYR 96.7 FM and the AM signed off and the towers were dismantled. As Mix 96.7 the station serves the southwest Ontario-Chatham-Windsor market.
I have never heard of any other switch frequency arrangements like that.
 
Santa fe said:
I remember listening to CHYR/CHIR out of Canada as a teen in the car. My buddy had an old '58 Buick that had six buttons on the radio, one more than the usual 5, so CHYR was in there along with WHK, WKYC, WIXY, WAKR , and CKLW.
"Cheer" only ran 500 watts on 730 nights, but it beamed right across the lake.
In 1993, the CRTC granted CHYR 96.7 FM and the AM signed off and the towers were dismantled. As Mix 96.7 the station serves the southwest Ontario-Chatham-Windsor market.
I have never heard of any other switch frequency arrangements like that.
Click to expand...
There is still the 690/680 from WNZK, Detroit
 
The station's website history mentions it used 710 khz fulltime at reduced power while the FM was built out and transitioned to in 1993. It also says that in the late '60's they were only 250 watts at 730 khz night. I guess that low dial position and all that Lake Erie water in between really helped!
I am amazed at the Detroit 680/690 deal, the only one of its kind. That station went on air in 1985! Why do all that for an AM in 1985?
 
Santa fe said:
The station's website history mentions it used 710 khz fulltime at reduced power while the FM was built out and transitioned to in 1993. It also says that in the late '60's they were only 250 watts at 730 khz night. I guess that low dial position and all that Lake Erie water in between really helped!
I am amazed at the Detroit 680/690 deal, the only one of its kind. That station went on air in 1985! Why do all that for an AM in 1985?
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The station serves ethnic audiences. That was the only way to serve that audience both day and night
 
Having been born in the early 1980s, I naturally miss stations that were on-air in the mid 90s. Specifically the "next-gen" Buzzard on WMMS that was around I believe from 1994-1997. Brian and Joe, Lou Santini, Spaceman Scott, Jen Wilde, and BLF Bash....dang I still remember the line-up! Great personalities and a great time for alternative rock music, so many different sounding artists/bands mixed together.

I also miss mid-90s WKNR, first time I was ever on the radio was as a caller to Sindelar's show!
 
In general, I miss the Alternative Rock format. It is non-existent in this area, unless you include shows on the local college stations which can be hit or miss. Most recently, the format changes at 92.3 more than 10 years ago and more recently the short-lived format on 107.3.
 
Brian K said:
In general, I miss the Alternative Rock format. It is non-existent in this area, unless you include shows on the local college stations which can be hit or miss. Most recently, the format changes at 92.3 more than 10 years ago and more recently the short-lived format on 107.3.
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107.3 is still Alternative. They just rebranded themselves and added more '90s and 2000's Alt music.
 
I miss the “Radio 92.3” style of Alternative. It seems like they branched out beyond the same handful of gold tracks per 90s band.

The current sound of 107.3 is pretty good, but I wish they’d expand the gold playlist.
 
I miss most stations in 1966, when fuel was 31.9-cents a gallon. 😂🚙🛻

The radio industry began to get bland when broadcast automation equipment and computers became widely available and affordable a few decades ago. Cut staff, run sweepers, spots, and music...save money. Long before the 1996 TelCom bill was passed it began to get boring. And that was before today’s internet existed and ad dollars started drifting away from radio. The industry saw this coming and stayed on the cheap-cheap-cheap path many places. Rare exceptions are still around, of course, but, unfortunately the great ones are the exception.
 
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