How did Philadelphia radio stations handle the JFK assassination?

[rich610]

Yesterday was the annviersary of President Kennedy's assassination. How did Philadelphia radio stations handle the tragedy? In 1963 KYW was not a news station, and most of the AM stations played music. I know that the WCAU airchecks from that day are on reelradio, but I'm interested in what the other stations did, especially the two most popular stations, WIP and WIBG. Thanks.

 

[Jul]

Yesterday was the annviersary of President Kennedy's assassination. How did Philadelphia radio stations handle the tragedy? In 1963 KYW was not a news station, and most of the AM stations played music. I know that the WCAU airchecks from that day are on reelradio, but I'm interested in what the other stations did, especially the two most popular stations, WIP and WIBG. Thanks.

If you want to hear audio of WCAU-AM's coverage from that day: http://www.broadcastpioneers.com/wcau11-63.html

 

[BRUSSTAR]

In 1963 KYW was not a news station, and most of the AM stations played music.

And of course, KYW wasn't even KYW anymore...

I'm guessing as a major-market NBC O&O, WRCV-1060 carried whatever the network fed. I'm unfamiliar with the scope of WRCV Radio's local news offerings; perhaps Hy or Sam Lit might be able to shed some light in that department (while he had left by '63, Hy did work briefly for 1060 during NBC ownership).

I know by 1963 WFIL had a heavy amount of ABC Radio committments, so I'd imagine 560 ran mostly network coverage as well. There was a decent-sized local news department by then, so local reaction most likely was included. Somewhere around here I have a copy of the Inquirer from either the 23d or the 24th; I'll have to check to see if there was any mention about radio coverage (specifically about co-owned WFIL).

 

[amfmsw]

I remember WPAZ 1370 in Pottstown carrying wall-to-wall Mutual News.

WABC carried blocks of ABC News, and the music was completely changed for the weekend. It was all soft balads. Very respectful.

WRCV was running NBC News anchored from NY and Washington DC, cutting away to Dallas.

I, for the life of me, cannot remember what WIBG did, nor WFIL for that matter.
It was actually television news coming of age that weekend.

 

[WTUX]

While WABC went to soft pop, most stations in the Delaware Valley went to classical music. Most older stations had classical lp's in the library. Newer stations, like the host of new stations which went on the air in '62 & '63, sometimes had classical available. If not, stations like WSER in Elkton, MD aired an area FM station, in this case WJBR.