I was having trouble sleeping last night and was scanning the AM band. I came across Radio Disney WQEW 1560 out of NYC. There were liners mentioning Radio Disney's 15th anniversary. They then did Radio Disney Flashback where they played a song that was a hit during the past 15 years. In this case it was "Men in Black" by Will Smith from 1997. (It's should be noted that Radio Disney is doing the same thing that CBS's WZMX in Hartford is doing. WZMX celebrated 10 years as a Hip-Hop station back in March and since then they've been doing flashbacks playing a song that was a hit sometime during the past 10 years).
My first time hearing Radio Disney was during the month of December. I don't remember if it was 96 or 97. Anyway. My mom was picking up a few things at the store and left me in the car to play with the radio. I picked them up on 740 WGSM from Huntington, Long Island. They had been a Country station, so it was a surprise to me hearing them playing regular music. They didn't have any local commercials, but they had these little announcements promoting their sister stations - "Looking for the great Country Music that used to be on this station? It can now be found on 94.3 FM WMJC." And another announcement they had was "Kids, we know you love this music here on AM 740 Radio Disney. Now we're going to tell you about a station your parents will love - B103 - Good Times & Great Oldies." WGSM 740 lost the rights to radio Disney in December 98 when Radio Disney took over 1560 WQEW in NYC. Today WGSM is Spanish Christian WNYH Radio Cantico Nuevo.
Radio Disney came to Hartford, CT (my market) in May 1998 when an outfit called Hibernia Broadcasting bought Spanish/Italian WRDM AM 1550 (Bloomfield) from Lucio Ruzzier. Call letters changed to WDZK. Hibernia eventually got taken over by ABC/Disney. And Disney took the station silent in September 2010. Blount Communications bought the station and launched religious formamted Life Changing Radio WSDK in March 2011.
My first time hearing Radio Disney was during the month of December. I don't remember if it was 96 or 97. Anyway. My mom was picking up a few things at the store and left me in the car to play with the radio. I picked them up on 740 WGSM from Huntington, Long Island. They had been a Country station, so it was a surprise to me hearing them playing regular music. They didn't have any local commercials, but they had these little announcements promoting their sister stations - "Looking for the great Country Music that used to be on this station? It can now be found on 94.3 FM WMJC." And another announcement they had was "Kids, we know you love this music here on AM 740 Radio Disney. Now we're going to tell you about a station your parents will love - B103 - Good Times & Great Oldies." WGSM 740 lost the rights to radio Disney in December 98 when Radio Disney took over 1560 WQEW in NYC. Today WGSM is Spanish Christian WNYH Radio Cantico Nuevo.
Radio Disney came to Hartford, CT (my market) in May 1998 when an outfit called Hibernia Broadcasting bought Spanish/Italian WRDM AM 1550 (Bloomfield) from Lucio Ruzzier. Call letters changed to WDZK. Hibernia eventually got taken over by ABC/Disney. And Disney took the station silent in September 2010. Blount Communications bought the station and launched religious formamted Life Changing Radio WSDK in March 2011.