Anyone miss the old WNEW-FM?

[Seltzer]

WNEW-FM was a wonderful station in its heyday. But WPLJ proved to be a worthy opponent by following one basic premise.....play the hits.

It would be very difficult for WNEW-FM to exist today. What is todays AOR...Breaking Benjamin, Disturbed, Godsmack, would not meld very well with
the 70s rock staples. Bad programming decisions led to this stations demise.

Great station that if it had evolved like MMR in Philly, could be still be relevant today.

 

[RadioJunkieMike]

WNEW-FM was a wonderful station in its heyday. But WPLJ proved to be a worthy opponent by following one basic premise.....play the hits.

well, yes, but comparing a free-form format ('NEW) to a station as tightly-playlisted as 'PLJ was ... is really apples-to-oranges. Granted, Muni had a knack for hiring jocks with very commercial (some would even say pedestrian) taste, 'but PLJ, with its often-hilarious train-wreck segues (John Denver to Led Zep to Joni Mitchell) was pure Top 40-with-album-cuts. And yes, 'PLJ beat the pants off 'NEW, ratings-wise.

I do agree that 'NEW should have "evolved" -- had they segued into a Triple-A type format back in the early '90s (as San Francisco's KFOG did) they might still be doing that today.

 

[BobSmolarek]

I don't miss it, the presentation was boring.

 

[Ozman]

eddie Trunk was local on WNEW so yes!

 

[NoMoreLurking]

Anyone else miss the old WEAF?

 

[DJ Mo]

I liked WNEW-FM 102.7 when it was "Mix 102.7" & they played 90's dance & freestyle.

 

[erwin33]

I liked WNEW-FM 102.7 when it was "Mix 102.7" & they played 90's dance & freestyle.

Yes me too, totally other station than the old WNEW but a good one. I never hear a radiostation like that anymore.

 

[lalumia]

"they were very loyal to New York punk"...
you are kidding, right? the station that rejected showing any support for proto punk acts like the Velvet Underground,The MC 5 ,Iggy And The Stooges,and The New York Dolls back when they were new and needed support?
during the NY punk era, the played safe WNEW-hippie style 'punk' like Talking Heads, Mink De Ville and Patti Smith,who were not really punk at all, and they played the wimped out version of The AOR Clash(from the third album on, not the early, true punk Clash; The Clash simply traded off the punk tag for 'edge' afterwards);
there was never any regular support for solid NY stars like Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers, early Blondie, Wayne County, Tuff Darts(the Robert Gordon version),Cherry Vanilla, minimal airplay for the Ramones in 76/77.....I could go on....they were never a real rock station, they were an MOR 'free form' sham,an umbrella for folks singers with acoustic guitars, from day one until their 'good riddance' exit....

 

[lalumia]

I agree,Matt99X, the WPIX FM version was far superior,although in short order, they tightened up their playlist quickly and fled 'punk' for 'new wave' as quickly as they could; no one was brave enough to embrace the 'hard' element of a genre and stick to it,fearing there'd be no listeners;
heavy metal suffered the same fate at WNEW FM;
the only genre to spring from the streets of NY ,as punk did, and show up in full hardcore force on NY radio, unadulterated, was the urban version of punk,HIP HOP, and the NY stations that stepped out to play the real 'bangin' version of the genre, enjoyed the rewards of doing so for many years...
PUNK was never so lucky,and the result is that a true genre like HIP HOP over whelmed rock in the 90s and took over the mainstream without going mainstream (can we say EMINEM, a hip hop punk rocker if ever there was one?)
that's why rock radio is the shambles that it now is,deservedly so...the wimps that ran from what they should have been playing are now, hopefully,unemployed

 

[frozenfiresb]

I miss the way the NY FM dial looked in 1999.