Speaking of Starview......after Central PA's original full-time AOR was killed by newcomer FM 104 WTPA in the fall of 1980, owner Al Dame decided to drop the nearly-decade old format (although it was greatly refined after Al purchased the station, from Gordon Mow or some named like that, in 1976). In the winter of 1981, The Music Of Your Life debuted on 92.7. If you think Adult standards is boring today, you should've heard it before they started introducing so-called "contemporary' titles to the format. Music Of Your Life is a format that was rarely done on FM and for good reason! Finally in August of 1983, Dame sold the station and it became top 40 92 Rock. The next time Music of Your Life showed up in Central PA was in January 1984 when Great Scott killed Hot Hits WFEC and changed the call letters back to WHGB.
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Bad stations/ formats of yesteryear in Central PA
- Thread starter RockofHBG
- Start date
I think someone touched on this earlier. After RJ Harris left as PD at WCMB (he made them a full service AC), fat Harvey made a disasterous series of moves. First of all, he brought his former Baltimore AM guy, Commander Jim, to AM at WCMB. Great pipes, zero content, meglomaniac. He topped this by hiring a new PD named Ed Thompson. Ed was from Mission, KS. Ed and fat Harvey had this brilliant idea. It was (ready?) SSSSUUUUPPPEEERRR C-M-B! Yup, that was it. Ed upended the lineup. He changed the music, to what nobody could figure. And the station, which now sounded like crap and was being clubbed by WKBO and everyone else, dumped big time. Eventually one of the McKenna brothers (Jim I think, he was the smart one) got rid of fat Harvey and whomever replaced him got rid of Ed, Jim and brought in someone that "got it".
But to my ear, that was one of the worst formats ever in Central PA. Fortunately, it was short lived.
But to my ear, that was one of the worst formats ever in Central PA. Fortunately, it was short lived.
smartestguyintheroom said:
I was still a kid (about 18 I think), doing my first "paid" year, when SuperCMB was launched. Rich Hill came with Ed Thompson, calling himself Bobby Sherman. I really got tired of breaks that included nothing but, "Super C M B!" Even as a kid in the business, I knew it was one of the dumbest things I'd ever heard. I'll never forget walking out into that narrow hallway to see "Uncle Harvey" walking faster than I'd ever seen him walk, carrying only his goldfish bowl. Out the door he went without a word. Never saw him again.
J
John-Summers
Guest
Still on the Super CMB fiasco: Didn't the guy from Kansas call himself "CC Train?" Or was that somebody else? And wasn't there some kind of big contest involving opening a safe that was a disaster?
Do you remember "The Ultimate Weapon"? Right before CMB went "super" they teased they had the ultimate weapon. I have a copy of the promo I got from Rich Hill. It is a 10 minute or so chronicle of hit clips and sound bites through the years, beginning in 1948, when the 1460 frequency moved from WHP to WCMB, through 1978. At the end, the narrator says: now you have the ultimate weapon: music power??????. Music power was never defined. There were no long sweeps and as stated in an earlier post, the music quality was a train wreck. The joke at the time was, yes WCMB had the ultimate weapon, but forgot to buy the ammo.
RockofHBG said:
That promo was probably the best thing about Super CMB; after that, it went downhill fast. I believe the promo was produced by Buzz Morgan? Buzz's real name was Lee... can't remember his last name, but he had awesome pipes and was incredibly skilled with the razor blade. He also drove truck, which is what he ended up doing after he left CMB, I believe.
The station's legal ID, also created by Buzz, was ironically a clip from the Bee Gees' "Tragedy" played backwards.
Buzz Morgan was Lee Arthur. He had last worked at WLAN-AM. Lee was also a truck driver. Whenever things wern't going well in radio.....he'd go back on the road. After WCMB, Lee did mornings for about a week on Z-107. He didn't use a name because Z was in the process of assigning their trademark Civil War/old west air names. After a week or two, WLAN-FM97 made him an offer. He left for LAN without notice, prompting Bob Zimmerman to declare that he'll never work in the business again.......and start imposing non-competes. He was Buzz Morgan again on WLAN....but I don't think he stayed there that long....and I believe he was replaced by John St. John. Don't know what happened to him from there, but I think Bob's proclaimation ended up coming true after all.
B
bl40modulimiter2
Guest
I worked with Lee Arthur/Buzz Morgan in the early '80's at KBO---he did some part time for us, Tim Burns was PD.
Does anyone remember WHEX 1580/Columbia prior to going oldies in the fall of '72. They were attempting to do a news/talk format.....but they played music when calls weren't coming in. They did some specialty shows by phone line with "stringer" type reporters. There was a Manheim show, Lititz show, and Wrightsville show as well as a Columbia show as I recall. The rest of the time was filled with WHEX personalities taking calls and playing a bad AC mix. On weekends it was all music with Top 40 and on Sundays from 1pm on it was Progressive Rock.....and I remember how they would promote this......"because Sunday's are progressive." A guy named Steve Singer was the host and also played progressive in the evenings during the summer. The talk segments sometimes were bizarre....with the same people calling talking about nothing. The personalities would try to get things going. The GM Ed Moshier, who also did mornings, once called the White House and left a message for then President Nixon to "get the hell out of Viet Nam. He also created panic during the Agnes flood.....HEX stayed on 24 hours during that event. They threw in the towel in the fall of '72 and went OLDIES.....and during the latter days of this format, before going dark, they sounded incredible.
They went dark because they attempted to trade every expense they could. You still need cash occasionally. The station is still on today although from a different tower site. I believe it is a Spanish/religious format.
the station in Columbia was also doing talk format in 1991...I think a guy named Ted Barns owned it then and he did an airshift at1580 and also did a 3 hour air shift on a talk radio network that went out of business a year or so later. i think it was called the "american radio network". I talked to him from time to time back then ( I hope I got his name correct) and he seemed to be a pretty good guy. wonder what ever happened o him and the station. PS when they were broadcasting out of Park city Mall in the70s they were owned by a former teen idle of the 50s named Jimmy Clanton. he did an air shift every day . that ownership is the one who changed the calls to WHEX
I think his name was Ted Byrne (not sure of the spelling). Seems to me that someone on this board awhile back said that Ted had passed away. Not sure on that one. To my knowledge 1580 is now dark...they were last WVZN...with Spanish Religion. Other than the Bob Brooks/Phil Sargent era of 1580HEX in the mid 70's...1580 also was a pretty good little station as WCOY in the late 60's when Ed Wickenheiser was running the place. It was MOR.....but well programmed....a nice little local station. Saturday mornings they did a Top 20 countdown(with CHR) featuring a different high school student every week as guest DJ. It was broadcast live, I believe, form a local department store, which sponsored it. Bill Kauffman was the host. They didn't try to be anything other than local. When the new owners took over around 71, they tried to make it a Lancaster station. They built new studios in Park City Mall. They intended to move the entire operation to that location. The problem was....they did all of this before getting FCC approval....and were shot down. They could only broadcast a certain percentage of programming from Park City.
WORK was mentioned in an earkier post. In addition to their "block programming" toward the end, they had their moments of trying to be more contemporary. There were times that I recall them to move more toward what some would consider a HOT AC today. The old WGAL was the same way. From what I hear, someone from Steinman would hear this attempt and shut it down. So they would go from playing some of the lighter hits...back to playing the Ray Conniff Singers. On another note.....who was the guy who used to read news on ORK, who when he couldn't pronounce a foreign name would insert "FRID DE GROAT"...or something like that?
RayThomas said:
I think that type of station back then would have been the original form of "A.O.R." - namely, all over the road!
Interstate 78 said:
I believe that they changed call letters to WNCE and revived the beautiful music format that had previously been 101 in 1995 after purchased by Keystone. That format lasted a few years until Cumulus bought the station and moved it to their Harrisburg studios. I am sipping coffee from a NICE 92.1 mug as I type this. The irony. ;D
responding to Bossjock post of 2/17 about WORK. the jock you asked about who would substitute "Frid D Grote" for any foreign name he could not pronounce was Stan Deppen. Stan did the evening shift (7 to mid) at had to do a 15 minite news block at 11pm. He would also use "Frid D Grote" for any tennis names he didn't know how to say. I knew Stan well and he had a very unusual sense of humor. Before he worked at WORK he worked in Red Lion at the old WGCB> the calls stood for "God, Christ and the Bible. they sold blocks of time to evangelist....and one day duirng his air shift, Stan was listening to one of those guys and began laughing. He could not stop and had to be rushed to York Hospital with a collapsed lung. he litterly almost "died laughing". by the way he did die in Myrtle Beach, S>C about 4 or 5 years ago. He also had a recording studio in Red Lion and made some money recording high school bands and choirs and making records that he would sell to the students parents. To this day I sometimes think of "Frid D. Grote"...and chuckle.
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