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History of 102.1 WMKE

No. Wikipedia is far from an accurate source.
Many FM stations before the late 60s did not have formats the way we recognize them today. Some were block programmed, and while WMKE may have had some programs of Broadway show tunes, that was not is full-time format, it was more of a "standards/jazz/folk... music for grown ups but not classical" type of station. Here is an example of WMKE's weekday schedule from the Milwaukee Sentinel radio listings in Sept. 1962:

Sign on at 11a
11a - Melody Madness
1p - Musical Matinee
5p - Dinner Serenade
7p - Stereo Showcase
8p - Vocal Varieties
9p - Starland Ballroom
10p - Wing It Time
11p - Relaxing Time
Sign off at Midnight
 
Last edited:
Huff said:
No. Wikipedia is far from an accurate source.
Many FM stations before the late 60s did not have formats the way we recognize them today. Some were block programmed, and while WMKE may have had some programs of Broadway show tunes, that was not is full-time format, it was more of a "standards/jazz/folk... music for grown ups but not classical" type of station. Here is an example of WMKE's weekday schedule from the Milwaukee Sentinel radio listings in Sept. 1962:

Sign on at 11a
11a - Melody Madness
1p - Musical Matinee
5p - Dinner Serenade
7p - Stereo Showcase
8p - Vocal Varieties
9p - Starland Ballroom
10p - Wing It Time
11p - Relaxing Time
Sign off at Midnight
Click to expand...
Middle-of-the-Road (a majority of vocals both group and solo) which would also at that time have contained a lot of instrumentals, or Beautiful Music (majority of beautiful instrumentals) which was then a sub-group of Middle- of-the-Road. The fact that they indicate "Vocal" Varieties might mean most of their programming was instrumental. "Ballroom" suggests dance band music "Relaxing" and "Dinner" and "Melody" would have been mostly instrumental. "Wing It" could have stood for Jazz or executor's choice! "Broadway show tunes" could have meant Original Cast recordings or just show tunes as interpreted by various artists. "Stereo Showcase" could have presented a Classical or Light Classical LP as well as popular. Many FMs of that day had popular instrumentals and/or vocals days and evenings an hour or two of instrumental or light jazz dinner Music, an hour of Original Cast show recordings, an hour of two of Classical or Light Classical, an hour of Jazz, then an hour of instrumental late eve "make-out" music as we used to call it. But the local newspapers would print only the programs of the Classical segments so many folks assumed that they were Classical stations only which usually was not the case at all. Though a few did have afternoon and morning hour concerts of Classical music as well as evenings. But, as the gentleman has mentioned, few FM programmers thought in terms of full-time formats in 1962. Looking back we might look at the majority of what they played and label them MOR, Beautiful, Classical, Top 40, or whatever for the sake of classification but that would be only a kind of shorthand and would not tell the whole story.
 
Huff said:
No. Wikipedia is far from an accurate source.
Many FM stations before the late 60s did not have formats the way we recognize them today. Some were block programmed, and while WMKE may have had some programs of Broadway show tunes, that was not is full-time format, it was more of a "standards/jazz/folk... music for grown ups but not classical" type of station. Here is an example of WMKE's weekday schedule from the Milwaukee Sentinel radio listings in Sept. 1962:

Sign on at 11a
11a - Melody Madness
1p - Musical Matinee
5p - Dinner Serenade
7p - Stereo Showcase
8p - Vocal Varieties
9p - Starland Ballroom
10p - Wing It Time
11p - Relaxing Time
Sign off at Midnight
Click to expand...
Awesome find. Thank you. You wouldn't have a weekend schedule too?
 
kevtronics said:
I'm surprised to discover those calls didn't belong to a Radio Disney station.
Click to expand...
Don't know if they could have got them as WMKE was/is on LPTV channel 8 (later7) beginning in 1994. Of course long after being on 102.1 and then on 1340 twice first with a separate country format from WBCS-FM and later in 1983 as a short lived gold based AC.
 


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