Historical Questions Regarding WIBG (990)

[Youngblood]

I just went to Radio-Locator.com to view the daytime pattern of 50 kilowatt WNTP (990 AM).

Since I an not from the Philly area, I am looking for answers to a few questions regarding this frequency, especially during the 1950s and 1960s when WIBG was THE Top-40 station in the market.

1. Is the directional pattern/coverage area of the present WNTP very much different than what it was back "in the day" when WIBG existed?

2. It appears that the Trenton area is just within the strongest ("local") coverage area of WNTP. If I had been a Top-40 radio listener in the 1960s living in the Trenton/Princeton, NJ area, would the station I listened on a regular basis probably have been WIBG?

3. How many towers did WIBG have at the Lafayette Hill/Plymouth Meeting studio and transmitter site? How many towers does WNTP have there today?

4. What type of area is the neighborhood around the site? Residential? Industrial? Combination of both?

Thanks in advance for the help!

 

[fennessy]

In about 1959, WIBG went to a five-tower array 50,000 watts day with five sticks, 10,000 watts nighttime with 4 sticks. As WZZD, the augmented the pattern to 4-towers, which opened up the back end of the lobe ( more signal to the Lehigh Valley, and wider to the northeast and southwest). If you lived in Trenton, WIBG was super-modulated and usable in the daytime, as was WFIL. WIBG's nighttime had noise underneath, and hash marks to the left from 1000 WCFL in Chicago, which at times was louder and cleaner at night than Wibbage.

Trenton had nighttime Top 40/Oldies & R&B on The Ron Diamond Show from 7-11:30PM weeknights, which dominated in the ratings there and in adjoining Lower Bucks County. Trenton also had a daytime only Top 40, WAAT at 1300 until September of '68.

Hope this helps.

 

[apco25]

> In about 1959, WIBG went to a five-tower array 50,000 watts
> day with five sticks, 10,000 watts nighttime with 4 sticks.
> As WZZD, the augmented the pattern to 4-towers, which opened
> up the back end of the lobe ( more signal to the Lehigh
> Valley, and wider to the northeast and southwest). If you
> lived in Trenton, WIBG was super-modulated and usable in the
> daytime, as was WFIL. WIBG's nighttime had noise underneath,
> and hash marks to the left from 1000 WCFL in Chicago, which
> at times was louder and cleaner at night than Wibbage.
>
> Trenton had nighttime Top 40/Oldies & R&B on The Ron Diamond
> Show from 7-11:30PM weeknights, which dominated in the
> ratings there and in adjoining Lower Bucks County. Trenton
> also had a daytime only Top 40, WAAT at 1300 until September
> of '68.
>
> Hope this helps.
>

Kevin, what station was Ron Diamond on in Trenton, and what years was he on. What was the top 40 stations in Trenton were in the 50's -60's. And how long was WIP a top 40 station?

 

[fennessy]

Ron Diamond, who had already been doing a nightly Blavat-esque Oldies and Top 40 show on WIFI out in Norristown, started doing 9-11:30PM on WTTM 920. WTTM was a typical MOR station by day, from 7-9PM they did an R&B/Jazz show hosted by Charile Giter, The Bonnie Price Charlie. Diamond started in late '66 early '67, and stayed until the summer of '70, when he purchased an FM station in San Jose and split for the coast. Len Murray who had been Program Director of WAAT, came over to take over Diamond's show, and continued it for another 2 years.

Trenton's Top 40 station in the fifties and sixties was WAAT. Formerly WTNJ, the station became WAAT in 1959, was 250 watts non-D at 1300 daytime only...with a surprisingly good signal. In 1965, WAAT applied for a power increase to 5000 watts, and deployed a 4-tower array in Washington's Crossing PA, about 11 miles from downtown Trenton. At the same time, WAAT flipped from Top 40 to Country, to copy the success of another marginal AM outside Philly, WEEZ in Chester. In the early sixties, WAAT had some great jocks pass through the doors, Ray Gilmore, Dean Tyler, Harry Newman, Humble Harve Miller and Frank X. Feller. The format flip happened when the new power was deployed, in January of 1966. The format never caught on, but more importantly, the power increase and new pattern never worked. The station was now dwarfed by the huge adjacent signal of WBUD, 5000 watts, shooting downtown from a mile away. The pattern was unstable, the station's PA signal was superior to its New Jersey signal, and WAAT converted back to Top 40 on April 1, 1967.

The lineup of WAAT Modamerican Radio 13 was Bill Todd in AM Drive, program director Len Murray in middays, and holdover from the previous two formats, Jimmy Parsons The Cannonball in afternoons. In an era where the huge Wibbage-WFIL war was raging with tight playlists, tight formatics and big money giveaways, WAAT was less slick, played a 100 song playlist...was too square in middays, and too obscurely hip at other times.

WAAT ownership decided to scrap Top 40 in September 1968, claiming that the sales force couldn't sell spots in a racially divided Trenton. WAAT converted to MOR, the same format already on the air at WTTM, WBUD and WHWH...and in Bucks County, WBCB. WAAT did a Top 40/Oldies request show on Sundays for another two years, before Len Murray landed across town at WTTM.

WAAT should have evolved into being an R&B station...and the format change was just an excuse for an anemic sales staff who didnt want to represent a radio station that had black folks listening to keep their jobs. As a Black formatted radio station, WAAT would have been number one, and would have better served the emerging non-white population in adjoining Bordentown, Bristol, Burlington and other areas the WAAT signal served.

In 1970, WBUD went Top 40 until 1975, when WPST morphed into an FM incarnation of CHR on FM.

WIP's flirtation with Top 40 lasted about a year, in 1961. A lot of the big names on that station later on signed on at WIP to do Top 40, including Joe Mc Cauley, Jim Tate, Dick Carr, Tom Brown ( who was calling himself T-Bird). WIP was "Color Channel 61".<P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by fennessy on 10/06/05 08:02 PM.</FONT></P>

 

[mwebster]

Kevin, how much of an impact did New York's Top 40 stations, especially flame-thrower WABC, have in the Trenton-Princeton area during this period?

 

[fennessy]

WABC was a player, and a must pre-set on your radio. Beginning in 1968, WOR-FM was beginning to be sampled in the home.