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Joel Denver and FIL in the Mid 70's

The past month we have heard alot of 40 anniversery of the pop explosion. The thing is were was WFIL 30 years ago. Banana Joe had left in August of 76, and replaced by KC Hill.
The one person in my opion of all the fil jocks is Joel Denver, does not get the credit he deserves for directing the music during the years when fil started not being the Giant it once was. As I recall he started in January of 73 from 9 pm to 1 am and was on Saturday Nights. In 74 when George Michael left (he hoped to get this Shift) instead he became Music Director and his shift was altered from 10 to 2 and his weekend shift was Sunday Night. WFIL was it the dominate powerhouse up unitl 75. The Bill Corsair experment, Jim Nettleton coming back to a Sunday a afternoon shift and not sounding the same as it was in the 60's, and Banana Joe departing in the summer of that year hurt them. In the Fall of 76, when KC Hill replaced the BJ, Randy Robins coming on board in the mid days, Geoff Richards moving to weekends only, Tom Tyler was on longer on weekends (just his weekday mid morining shift), and premire of the first female boss jock-Barabara Sommers, Joel was able to keep it sounding fresh, along with moving his weekend shift to Saturday Afternoon in September of 76. This move to Saturday Afternoon kept a lot of teenages as myself still tuned to fil. In the summer of 77 when fil threw in the towel and started their approch from Top 40 to AC, that is when he left. Let's give him the credit he deserves. Any comments.
 
That summer of '77 almost had the battle won, as Wibbage died that September. WFIL was trying a WIP approach, and "growing up with it's listeners". WMGK as "Magic 103" killed all of that.

Joel always sounded like he was happy to be with you. I was always hoping he'd move over to Nettleton's WCAU-FM 98. Joel's allaccess.com is a fabulous tool for folk in the industry.
 
WFIL was past its prime by 1976. They had been beaten by WIFI-92 in the ratings and no one could stop the inexorable decline of AM top-40 stations. Stations like WFIL just couldn't compete with the sound that FM had. WFIL tried to take on WIP, but that was futile because WIP had the tradition, the adults, and a loyal following. WIP was pulling in 11's and 12's in the ratings at that time. When WMGK got hot, the AC competition grew even more intense. WMGK was #2 in the ratings by 1979.
WFIL never recovered from George Michael's departure for WABC in 1974 and Jim O'Brien's retirement from radio in 1977. They were the biggest attractions for WFIL in the 1970s. They replaced them with Banana Joe and Don Cannon respectively, but it just wasn't the same.
 
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