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Best/worst of Charleston

C

charlestondxman

I saw the thread of the best and worst for Columbia and have decided to make one for Charleston.

Worst: 910 AM flipping from their adult standards format to "The Zone" the first time, very lowly rated with no local shows. "Don and Mike"?

Best: Citadel selling 910 to Kirkman to upgrade their sports signal, which wasn't doing well on 1340.

Worst: 99.7's constant moving of formats between the flip from "Breeze" to "Star". Whoever programmed it then was dumb. Satellite classic rock and then all-comedy on that huge signal? Don't forget the simulcast of the Savannah station. Then they went smooth jazz, but Apex stuck Andy Thomas's talk show, C of C basketball and other sports on there.

Best: Apex flipping to "Star". Took the urban market which was almost completely Citadel except for 98.9 and 100.9 and changed it completely.

Worst: 98.9 going to "Chick FM". Whoever made that name up should have been fired. Poor signal, no local shows except in morning, weird music mix.

Best: 102.5 going from basically a satellite station to tying Z-93 for #1 (at its peak) in less than 5 years as oldies with all those great personalities.

What are your best and worst?
 
The worst is about to come for Charleston when Cumulus comes in and takes control of z93, 95sx, 96.9 The Wolf, Magic 107.3, and 1250 WTMA.

Another worst is 92.5 always changing formats from CHR to Urban now to Country. Apex needs to pick one and stay with it. I feel 92.5 should still be The Box as they had something going when they flipped but Apex decided not to put time into it. And it went well with sister station Star 99.7 Urban AC. Apex needed to wait for when z93 becomes a Cumulus station which will go down hill. As for 92.5 in its B 92 days, both 95sx and B 92 seemed always tied in the ratings.
 
Worst by far: the slow sabatoging of Y-102.5, firing Leo Wyndam, Kain Cameron, and Bill Shannon. Transitioning it from a fun, upbeat classic hits station to a sleepy AC was awful, but they do well.
 
Worst: Dumping 96Wave!

Worser: The programming on 98Rock

Worserest: 98Rock's signal

G
 
Best: 96 Wave programming pre-2000

Worst: The Danny V. effect on 96 Wave.

He almost single-handedly turned a great alternative/AAA radio station into sludge-rock. They still paid lip-service to local and regional bands that had some success when they would come around, but basically concentrated on heavier rock, removing the charm and home-grown flavor that was the heart and soul of a great local station. His abrasive, "Hey, get your ass out of bed Charleston" on-air style and musical input basically torpedoed an alternative radio legend.
 
Yeah, definitely. Another one is 105.5 the Bridge. It was a wonderful station when it came on. Mostly local music, great personalities who knew the music, and lots of loyal listeners. Now, except for some of the local music, it sounds like any other rock station.

Another bad move was when 94.3 was forced to drop local talk in afternoons and go to that dumb Schnitt show from Miami. They had Greg Alan for a couple years, and then Casey Bartholomew came in, very controversial, and it was a great talk battle when Rocky D and him were both on in the afternoons for about 9 months in addition to FanTalk.

Now, with Rocky D basically a shill for his causes (bike-riding, talking for weeks about a deadly bike accident), afternoon drive staying local at 94.3 could have killed WTMA. Instead, they have nothing local after 9am, and WTMA stays in business with their syndicated lineup, Richard, and Rocky. Now, the only local talk show afternoons is FanTalk with the same dozen callers, and Nick the Meat Man talking about what's coming up at Earth Fare.
 
Some of best/worse for Charleston from the past:

Best: 95.1 dropping Urban for CHR as 95SX. It was for the best as WPAL and (soon after the change, WWWZ) did a much better job as Urban than the mostly automated "Super 95 Soul" did and allowed WSSX to go to #1 with their Rock-leaning CHR format that they had at the time.
Worst: WSSX moving their CHR format to then-LMA partner WSSP in 1992, allowing them to go Hot AC (first as "Adult Hits" 95SX, then "95 Mix" and "Mix 95.1"). Fortunately, they correct that mistake in 1995, but "Fly 94" never captured the CHR spirit that WSSX had.

Best: Q107 rise in the mid-80s as strong competitor to 95SX.
Worse: Q107's owner going bankrupt, forcing them out of the format by 1991. The frequency did find success soon after as Country formated "Bubba 107.5", but mismanagement later did them in.

Best: WTMA's Top 40 era.
Worst: WTMA difficult time finding a format during the 80s. They did eventually find it in New/Talk after stints in Country, AC and Oldies.

Best: WKTM's Top 40 and Album Rock formats in the 70s/early 80s.
Worst: Dropping Album Rock in the early 80s for Country. Smartly, they drop that for Classic Hits/Oldies by 1987.

Best: WAVF's sign-on as a Album Rocker (and later as a Modern Rock station) in 1985.
Worse: (As already mentioned) Poor programming decisions after 2000 eventually killed them.

Best: WCSC's switch to AC as WXTC.
Worst: WXTC dropping AC for 70s Oldies in the mid 90s.

Best: WEZL's Country format.
Worst: Like many stations now, just a shell of its former self.

Worst: WWHT attempt at Dance-CHR. Between WSSX and WKQB, there was no room for a 3rd CHR.

And to add the the worst of the worst pile: Hurricane Hugo devastating the Charleston radio landscape in the early 90s.

Robyn
 
RobynWattsV2.0 said:
Best: WCSC's switch to AC as WXTC.
Worst: WXTC dropping AC for 70s Oldies in the mid 90s.
Click to expand...
Excuse me, what? WCSC was an AM station. Maybe you know something I don't. But the WXTC I remember was on 96.9 FM. And if it was WCSC-FM at one time, it wasn't AC. I remember a cable channel in Myrtle Beach in the late 70s with colorful advertising on screen, using a single font for everything, but back then that was quite innovative. The music was "Ecstasy", a beautiful music station called WXTC. It may have eventually gone AC, but it wasn't WCSC-FM at that time.
 
vchimpanzee said:
RobynWattsV2.0 said:
Best: WCSC's switch to AC as WXTC.
Worst: WXTC dropping AC for 70s Oldies in the mid 90s.
Click to expand...
Excuse me, what? WCSC was an AM station. Maybe you know something I don't. But the WXTC I remember was on 96.9 FM. And if it was WCSC-FM at one time, it wasn't AC. I remember a cable channel in Myrtle Beach in the late 70s with colorful advertising on screen, using a single font for everything, but back then that was quite innovative. The music was "Ecstasy", a beautiful music station called WXTC. It may have eventually gone AC, but it wasn't WCSC-FM at that time.
Click to expand...

Calm down, vchimpanzee. It was AC as Lite Rock 97 WXTC by 1985. Here is some video during that time (thanks to John Quincy for videotaping this back in the 80s). And yes, both Mark Cardnella and Donna McCoy sounded fantastic here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_--CAUVA4k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9qQH3ddShc&feature=related

Robyn
 
RobynWattsV2.0 said:
vchimpanzee said:
RobynWattsV2.0 said:
Best: WCSC's switch to AC as WXTC.
Worst: WXTC dropping AC for 70s Oldies in the mid 90s.
Click to expand...
Excuse me, what? WCSC was an AM station. Maybe you know something I don't. But the WXTC I remember was on 96.9 FM. And if it was WCSC-FM at one time, it wasn't AC. I remember a cable channel in Myrtle Beach in the late 70s with colorful advertising on screen, using a single font for everything, but back then that was quite innovative. The music was "Ecstasy", a beautiful music station called WXTC. It may have eventually gone AC, but it wasn't WCSC-FM at that time.
Click to expand...

Calm down, vchimpanzee. It was AC as Lite Rock 97 WXTC by 1985. Here is some video during that time (thanks to John Quincy for videotaping this back in the 80s). And yes, both Mark Cardnella and Donna McCoy sounded fantastic here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_--CAUVA4k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9qQH3ddShc&feature=related

Robyn
Click to expand...
Who says I wasn't calm? I just wanted to make sure the information was accurate. That change happened close to ten years after the call letters became WXTC.
 
vchimpanzee said:
RobynWattsV2.0 said:
vchimpanzee said:
RobynWattsV2.0 said:
Best: WCSC's switch to AC as WXTC.
Worst: WXTC dropping AC for 70s Oldies in the mid 90s.
Click to expand...
Excuse me, what? WCSC was an AM station. Maybe you know something I don't. But the WXTC I remember was on 96.9 FM. And if it was WCSC-FM at one time, it wasn't AC. I remember a cable channel in Myrtle Beach in the late 70s with colorful advertising on screen, using a single font for everything, but back then that was quite innovative. The music was "Ecstasy", a beautiful music station called WXTC. It may have eventually gone AC, but it wasn't WCSC-FM at that time.
Click to expand...

OK, sorry.

Robyn

Calm down, vchimpanzee. It was AC as Lite Rock 97 WXTC by 1985. Here is some video during that time (thanks to John Quincy for videotaping this back in the 80s). And yes, both Mark Cardnella and Donna McCoy sounded fantastic here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_--CAUVA4k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9qQH3ddShc&feature=related

Robyn
Click to expand...
Who says I wasn't calm? I just wanted to make sure the information was accurate. That change happened close to ten years after the call letters became WXTC.
Click to expand...
 
Before Valentine's Day 1985, 96.9 WXTC was Beautiful Music and had been one of the top rated stations in Charleston for years. On 2/14/1985 WXTC dropped the Percy Faith and 101 Strings format for Light AC and became "Lite Rock 97FM." Numbers remained strong, but the demos got a lot younger.

WCSC-AM became WXTC-AM when John Rivers sold WCSC-TV and WCSC-AM/WXTC-FM in, I believe, 1986. The TV station went to one buyer and got to keep the calls while the radio stations were purchased by a group headed by Ralph Guild of McGavern-Guild fame. Later call letters for the then former WCSC-AM were WCSE (sounds like WCSC) and WZKG (when the station carried the Kool Gold oldies format).

Also, when WAVF came on in 1985 they were AC. They transitioned into album rock a little while later.
 
John Quincy said:
Before Valentine's Day 1985, 96.9 WXTC was Beautiful Music and had been one of the top rated stations in Charleston for years. On 2/14/1985 WXTC dropped the Percy Faith and 101 Strings format for Light AC and became "Lite Rock 97FM." Numbers remained strong, but the demos got a lot younger.

WCSC-AM became WXTC-AM when John Rivers sold WCSC-TV and WCSC-AM/WXTC-FM in, I believe, 1986. The TV station went to one buyer and got to keep the calls while the radio stations were purchased by a group headed by Ralph Guild of McGavern-Guild fame. Later call letters for the then former WCSC-AM were WCSE (sounds like WCSC) and WZKG (when the station carried the Kool Gold oldies format).

Also, when WAVF came on in 1985 they were AC. They transitioned into album rock a little while later.
Click to expand...
I do remember WAVF having sort of an AC sound, but not AC the way most people thought of the format then.
 
Best: Wicks, I believe, moving Sunny from 100.5 to 96.9 replacing that low-rated smooth jazz. Mark Carandella was canned, but that format did great for most of a decade.

Worst: 950's try at a talk format aimed at Berkeley County around '05 or '06 (Berkeley traffic reports). Literally lasted about a month before Kirkman put country on it. Really, that signal should be a lot more. Ever since Kirkman bought it, it's basically been a Berkeley booster for their main stations.

They've tried sports 3 or 4 times (I believe with every sports radio network), was talk once or twice before and then they flipped it to country. Right when that station was starting to get listeners, they flipped it to the 4th sports station (with the local stuff simulcast from 910). It was hard when Kirkman basically put all their sports that couldn't fit on their other stations on 950.

Best: 1250 going news/talk in '89. Having an all news-talk format with Dan Moon, Rush and the other shows they aired. Hard to believe that they were country music before the switch.

Worst: 105.3 moving in from Moncks Corner to Charleston as "Star". Few people listened, and it got low ratings. You already had 95SX, Sunny, and Alice at the end airing parts of the same music. Then they went to Cool, and did really good with Jammin' Oldies (what they called Groovin' Oldies).

Was there a news/talk station before WTMA?
 
charlestondxman said:
Was there a news/talk station before WTMA?
Click to expand...

I believe WCSC-AM had some talk and sports shows in their schedule during the mid to late 80s, but they were not a full-on news/talk station (they were Oldies at the time).

Robyn
 
Speaking of WTMA, I love to listen to them. They are probably my favorite talker in the state. They may not have Limbaugh or some of the other big ones, but I think their local shows and selection of national shows are all very good. Better than 94.3 and definitely WYRD
 
910 AM (WKCN were the calls) was news/talk before WTMA switched from mostly satellite-delivered country to N/T on June 1, 1989. WTMA, under the ownership of Bill Dudley, "stole" a lot of the programming that was on WKCN, including a young upstart named Rush-something. (From the radio karma department: 10 years later WSCC "stole" Rush and a few other shows from WTMA.)

WCSC ran a bit of talk programming. They had "Sports Talk" with Phil Kornblut (sp?) plus Tom Snyder's show at 10 p.m. But mostly they were music.
 
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