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Happy Birthday Magic 96 2-27-07

C

CrazeeCarroll1

Although the station is long gone i wanted to say thanks to all of those jocks through the years who gave the Carolina's one special station... Had Magic still been around today they would have turned 20 years old at 5PM... I guess I am felling like the good ole' days today :). CC1
 
I wholeheartedly agree! Don Schaeffer put together what still stands today as one of the best airstaffs and music formats in Charlotte radio history.

Just a hunch...Will Rogers never met anyone at Clear Channel, did he?
 
Isn't Magic 96 where Dick Harlow used to be the GM? If so, I met quite a few of the employees of that station and they really were a great group. CC just never seems to mind stomping on good talent. :p
 
Funny just a couple of days ago I went by the "Magic Corner" and thought about the station, even though i never worked there.

It's not strictly Clear Channel's falut though. You and I of course wish that they wouldn't have bought the station if they were not committed to the format. The problem is Magic has one of the strongest signals in the area. Now that is worth quite allot and made the station very attractive to Clear Channel.

Oldies station have been dying all over. The problem is as we get older the Oldies audience is moving out of the coveted 18-49 demographic. Another factor is Oldies stations are stuck in the '60's as soon as they start adding '70's music the ratings go down. In the '70's the top 40 audience started to fragment, the '60's was the last time we were all together musically.

Magic had a great run, we all wish it had been around longer but as we all know radio is a business and that's about it. So instead of lamenting the passing of Magic I will celabrate their long run as an Oldies station.
 
Thanks for remembring, Carroll! And yes, Dick Harlow was the GM during the last days of Voyager and into the Dalton ownership. He's now in RDU.
 
They had their second reunion just a few weeks ago and, sadly, I couldn't make it again, (although I did not work there I did get an invite!) it was scheduled during Mardi Gras again and I have commitments for live remote broadcasts at that time every year, Brother Dave should have some pics up from the last reunion soon on his Tragic 96 website.

Kahuna
www.thatwasradio.com
 
Mike Sheridan said:
The problem is Magic has one of the strongest signals in the area. Now that is worth quite allot and made the station very attractive to Clear Channel.
Click to expand...
Where I live interference is a problem. Occasionally I only pick up 96 Rock.

In the west, though, I'm sure things are quite good.
 
CrazeeCarroll1 said:
Although the station is long gone i wanted to say thanks to all of those jocks through the years who gave the Carolina's one special station... Had Magic still been around today they would have turned 20 years old at 5PM... I guess I am felling like the good ole' days today :). CC1
Click to expand...
I remember those first days. They were stunting with every format imaginable before finally revealing what they would do. I remember beautiful music at one point.

The DJ played a phone call from a listener and said there would be lots of Motown. This was while they were still playing 80s music.
 
Yeah Chimp it is ironic that oldies stations have come full circle and play the same music that Magic started out with... I guess you could say magic was ahead of its time... CC1
 
Don Schaeffer's mix of the 60s, 70s and 80s my favorite of all the Charlotte music formats I've heard over the years. It was the best variety I've heard to date. If I was programming a station, I would pattern it exactly after that format. His airstaff was also among the best. If I remember correctly it was like this...

MORNINGS: Don Schaeffer, with Bill Curtis (news) and Magic Meteorologist Paul Delagato
MIDDAYS: Bobby ("Bobba-Lou") Lewis - Middays
AFTERNOONS: Drew Lane with Tequila Duru (news) and Paul Delagato
EVENINGS: Vicki Lewis (no relation to Bobby, although she sometimes said he was her little brother)

I fail to recall who was doing overnights to start out, but Bill Young (whom I worked with at 'XRC in the mid-80s) eventually was hired to do overnights. He moved up from there and over time became known as "Magic Man" Bill Young. Anyone know where he is these days?
 
The music mix was right on track... Although it was 60's70's80's from what I remember there were no currents just a lot of recurrents plus 60's and good 70;s tunes thrown in for good measure... If a station wanted to do what today's definition of oldies is they could use the playlist from the two years that magic was playing music up through the eighties and get decent ratings... CC1
 
Bill Young has retired from radio and lives in Florida.
 
Are you talking about the Bill Young who was fired by Rita Thorne at Clear Channel-Charlotte, for an indiscretion with the Promotions person? Just curious . . .
 
I'm not sure about that. I lost track of Bill Young when he moved to Charlotte.

He worked at 95.7 WXRC in Hickory from August 1985 through about December 1986 back when Greg Mull was the PD and the station was called "The Rock". I was the weekend part-timer there in those days. When he left 'XRC, he did a brief stint at the Fox on evenings using the name Michael Van Zant. I then heard him on Magic sometime probably in late 1987 and then on 96.9 WTDR in the mid-90s.
 
Another little memory tidbit just popped into my tiny little mind. When Bill Young was doing overnights at Magic, he did an all-request segment for a few hours that was called "The Middle of the Damn Night".
 
I think he was the Program Director for WHSL "Whistle 100", which is now WVBZ "The Buzzard" in Greensboro. When Capstar was bought by Clear Channel, they changed their 100.3 station from "The Fox" (very brief time), to Whistle 100, which was patterned after a station in Greenville/Spartanburg. We always thought it amusing that Bill Young had a "rock" background but was programming Country. He had a very high opinion of himself and became known as Bill "Dung". He later went to Charlotte and was eventually fired for having a trist with the female Promotions Person. I heard he was caught in the act by Rita Thorn who fired them both.
 
Another Bill Young memory...I actually heard him say this...(keep in mind he was programming the Country station)..."I don't get this whole George Strait thing. I mean, what do people see in him?"

We laughed about THAT comment for weeks!
 
OK, we have the update on Bill Young now. Anyone know where Jim Reary, Bobby Lewis, Drew Lane, Vicki Lewis and the rest of 'em are now?

Last I heard, Don Schaeffer was PD at Christian station J93.3 in Atlanta
 
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