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buffalo radio history questions(help)

T

thebeach33445

Hey Guys:

I was wondering if you all can help me on some questions I have:

1. What was the format of 1270 WHLD from the 50's to 1980?

2. What was the format of 1230 WNIA from the 50's to 1980? I saw on some posts that WNIA was once top 40 and urban before going top 40/oldies WECK in 1980.

3. What was the format of WJJL 1440 from the 50's to 1980?

4. I know Stan Jasinski had WMMJ in 1965 was the format Country?

5. What was the format for WUSJ 1340 and WLVL 1340 from the 50's to 1980? I do know WUSJ changed to WLVL on Oct 15, 1975.


Thanks guys for all of your help!! I love reading the past posts. It is bring back lots of memories when I was in Buffalo in the 80's!!

T.J.
 
1. Mostly religious and ethnic/foreign language programming in the mid day hours. IIRC, early mornings and late afternoons to sign off time were mostly Middle or the Road music.

2. I'm not sure what they were playing when they first signed on the air, but WNIA was soon a Top 40 station and would continue to be up until they suddenly - and voluntarily - signed off the air for about a year, I think in 1976. IIR, this was due to being cited for EEO issues. When they went back on the air the next year, they were Oldies for a short time, but Urban slowly took over the station until they became all Urban for a few years as "Supersound 12." When they became WECK in 1980 they became AC/Oldies for less than a year and then went to The Music of Your Life.

3. I believe in the 50's they were doing block programming for a time. I have read many times that Ramblin' Lou did a country show and Jerry Farrell was doing some kind of Top 40 type show way back. Don't know much about their 50s years beyond that. In the 60s, in addition to running network programming, they were mostly MOR, in time evolving into AC(like a lot of stations).

4. They were country in the later 60s - I remember that. Not sure if they were doing country in 1965.

5. I remember WUSJ prior to 1975 and the call change as being similar to WJJL - MOR/AC programming with block programming thrown in for good measure. In 1975, when they became WLVL they went to an all beautiful music format. This didn't work too well and by the late 70s they went to AC under Hank Nevins.
 
cee said of WNIA, "2. I'm not sure what they were playing when they first signed on the air, but WNIA was soon a Top 40 station and would continue to be up until they suddenly - and voluntarily - signed off the air for about a year, I think in 1976. IIR, this was due to being cited for EEO issues. "

That whole issue was a battle station founder Gordon Brown (the Rochester based broadcaster who'd started WNIA in 1957 and launched WSAY in Rochester way back in 1936) fought largely over his deep dislike of regulators and paperwork, even though ironically his actual hiring practices were pretty much OK and he even hired some of the first African-American announcers in the history of Western NY radio back in the 30s and 40s at WSAY. Gordon was a cantankerous cuss right to his passing in 1979, according to those who knew and worked with him. There were license challenges to both stations, which caused him to take WNIA dark for a while apparently out of spite although he never did the same at WSAY. He never actually lost the license to either station. He did put both stations up for sale in the late 1970s, but died before any deals could be made. Chet Musialowski bought WNIA from his estate, and Lew Dickey and the predecessor company of Cumulus bought WSAY the same way at the same time back at the end of 1980. (Of course, WECK stayed commercial through several different owners, even CBS for a while before Dick Greene took over recently. The Dickey family didn't make it with WSAY and eventually spun it off to the WXXI Public Broadcasting Council, which took it news/talk and did make a go of it in a way neither Brown nor Dickey ever did.)

"When they went back on the air the next year, they were Oldies for a short time, but Urban slowly took over the station until they became all Urban for a few years as "Supersound 12." When they became WECK in 1980 they became AC/Oldies for less than a year and then went to The Music of Your Life.

Supersound 12 even went through more changes before Gordon Brown's estate sold the station to Chet Musialowski. I remember dropping by at the end, when it had morphed back toward a more CHR/pop format largely staffed by Buff State communications students. Their faculty adviser, Jim Seward (who's now on the faculty at St. John Fisher College in Rochester) was essentially de facto PD. The station actually sounded tighter and better than it had before, although the students running it were clearly green and inexperienced.

For his part, Musialowski, who IIRC was WGRZ-TV's sales manager at the time and bought WECK as a side business, thought he could take on WBEN and WGR with a similar hot AC personality format and make a big dent in both stations' ratings and revenue. The station sounded pretty good, and even had a news operation for a time in an attempt to be a full service alternative. But with a 1000 watt signal on a graveyard channel it could never match its competition. It'll be interesting to see how Dick Greene, who's a far more experienced radio man than Musialowski was when he tried it, can make a more ambitious and locally oriented format work this time around. So far, so good, I gather...
 
1. What was the format of 1270 WHLD from the 50's to 1980?

VoiceGuyJack, where are you?! WHLD did a variety format, including blocks of Top 40 as well as Iney Walens and the Rico family. Guys like Sal Panoessa & Ken Kiedrowski could better answer your questions.

2. What was the format of 1230 WNIA from the 50's to 1980? I saw on some posts that WNIA was once top 40 and urban before going top 40/oldies WECK in 1980.

WNIA was almost always Top 40, maybe even Top 100, until Gordon Brown prepared to sell it to Chet Musialowski. For a while before the sale closed, WNIA was off the air. I think Chet petitioned the FCC to get the station back on the air, because the value of his investment was being adversely affected by the station not being on the air. Gordon Brown begrudgingly put it back on the air with a soul slant. Imagine if WUFO was on 1230 back in the day? The Hound wouldn't be able to use one of his classic lines, "We don't run down at sundoown..."

3. What was the format of WJJL 1440 from the 50's to 1980?

WJJL has been home to some very noteworthy performers: The Hound, Ramblin' Lou, Joe Chille, Tony Magoo, Bob Wells, Danny McBride, Rick Bennett, Lenny Rico, Bob Kobernus, Tom Daro, the list goes on...

4. I know Stan Jasinski had WMMJ in 1965 was the format Country?

Margaret Mary Jasinski, IIRC. It went on as a Country station, 1kW two tower directional daytimer, rpotecting Cleveland and Baltimore. With Country, it went up against WWOL, but it did a light AC for a stretch. The anchor man of the station was always Stan "Stash" Jasinski who billed more in two hours than the station billed the remainder of the day. Some of the best stories about WMMJ come from Steve Mitchell. It went back to Country after Schriver bought it and it's been that way ever since.

5. What was the format for WUSJ 1340 and WLVL 1340 from the 50's to 1980? I do know WUSJ changed to WLVL on Oct 15, 1975.

Paul Oates, current morning guy at WLVL and for years now, reflected not too long ago that 1340 has had the WLVL call letters longer than it held the WUSJ call letters. Amazing, especially for guys who worked at WUSJ. Here's another radio station that served as a proving ground for some outstanding talent. Like? Tom Joles, Clip Smith, John Murphy, Steve Mitchell, Tom Donahue, Tom Atkins, Dick Kelsey, Tom Hohensee, Robert W. Taylor (as Alexander Moore long before RWT worked with Harv Moor), JR Reid (Reid Rocks) and so many more. WUSJ was a "little WBEN" for a long time with local personalities, an MOR format, a small studio orchestra and a strong local news room (it was owned by the Union Sun & Journal and first went on the air as an FM on 99.3) providing local service with a flamethrowing 250 Watt signal. The best source of WUSJ lore is most likely JR Reid who did Top 40 at night on a signal that I used to tune in on the catwhisker well south of Walden Avenue and Union Road when I was lad.


Thanks guys for all of your help!! I love reading the past posts. It is bring back lots of memories when I was in Buffalo in the 80's!! T.J.
 
I think Chet petitioned the FCC to get the station back on the air, because the value of his investment was being adversely affected by the station not being on the air. Gordon Brown begrudgingly put it back on the air with a soul slant.
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I'm pretty sure they went off the air in summer 76 and returned maybe a year or so later going All Oldies and morphed into R&B Supersound 12. I wasn't aware of Chet trying to buy the station that early, as WNIA stayed on the air live from 1977 to the time Chet took over the keys in 1980.

For his part, Musialowski, who IIRC was WGRZ-TV's sales manager at the time and bought WECK as a side business, thought he could take on WBEN and WGR with a similar hot AC personality format and make a big dent in both stations' ratings and revenue. The station sounded pretty good, and even had a news operation for a time in an attempt to be a full service alternative. But with a 1000 watt signal on a graveyard channel it could never match its competition.
Click to expand...

He did not run it part time. He left Channel 2 and upon taking ownership of AM 1230, he became full time General Manager. Trying to take on KB, GR and BEN proved not to be a good business model. The air staff was entirely young talents hungry to work in the Buffalo market and willing to do so for low pay. They did sound pretty good considering everything. Getting a zero in the ratings led to this original format's quick demise and a switch to the more realistic Music of Your Life format, which became an immediate hit with the upper demos abandoned by other AM stations. The switch shortly after of WADV to WYRK didn't hurt.
 
I worked at WMMJ in most of 1967 so I may as well over a few memories. The station's call letters stood for Maria and Michelle Jasinski who were Stan's two daughters. We've all heard of Country & Western but WMMJ's format could be best described at Country and Polish. A singing cowboy known as Jack Rivers did the morning program. He often wrote and produced his own singing commercials. He was followed by Steve Mitchell and the rest of the day was polkas. Eventually Stan's program was preceded by another polka program hosted by Happy Harry Kostrzycki, making the mix almost as much polkas as country. Prior to the spring of 1967 WMMJ's News Director was Gary Deeb who would later move to print and become a TV critic. Jack Kelly (John Szczepanik), formerly of WKBW and WYSL, also was a WMMJ alumnus.

During the mid 1960s Stan and two partners had an application before the FCC to establish Channel 29 TV. The opposing applicant was the Courier Express. Stan was scared to death that something might go on the air on WMMJ that could jeopardize his chances of getting the TV station. I remember one incident
when Happy Harry played a polka about a girl whose arms resembled the branches of an apple tree. Stan quickly banned the song as offensive. What would he have thought of rap?

In late 1967 WMMJ dropped the country completely and switched to a taped music service which was pretty much elevator music, but the afternoon polkas continued. When Stan's Ultravision company got the construction permit for WUTV, he sold WMMJ to Ramblin' Lou and WXRL was born. Stam died in Arizona a couple years ago.
 
Wonder who's getting the better ratings with the Big Guy? Stan Jasinski or Dan Lesniak. They were once friends, then competitors. Dan bet on FM (he won) Stan bet on AM, then TV.
 
What's going on in heaven is anyone's guess. Here on earth, Dan's WADV enjoyed tremendous popularity. It was impossible to go into an audio store that didn't feature WADV on the receivers for sale. Dan and Stan worked side by side at WKBW prior to 7/4/58 but after that there was no love lost between the two of them. George "Hound Dog" Lorenz also worked at WKBW in the mid 1950s. Although they programmed to very different audiences, there was some rivalry going on between Lorenz , who founded WBLK, and Jasinski. Similarly, Lorenz and Lesniak were rivals. One employee of WADV told me that every night Dan said a prayer that Lorenz would remain alive and well. Lesniak's reasoning was that if the Hound died, new owners would take over WBLK and it might compete with WADV. WADV would later become WYRK.

I'm pretty certain that WNIA was born in 1956.
 
Hey Jim Pastrick....how are you....thanks for the mention....

When I was on WHLD in the early 70s the format was.....if you want to buy the time you can be on the air.........

The station had a traditional morning show with MOR music followed by religion, religion and more religion and Iney ( Inez) and news and county western and polkas and I got the afternoon shift vacated by Bob Wells........the music was MOR but got to be more top 40 as the stations day got longer.....( 5kw daytimer) ....During the summer from 6-9 it was basically all top 40...Music Power from the Power city.....


Ken Kiedrowski
 
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