Starting Monday, MARK WEST returns to Middletown to host the morning show on WALL. He will do the show from a new "state of the art" studio located at 2 Broadcast Plaza in Middletown. The show is only on WALL and features local news and info for the greater Middletown area. (Plenty of True Oldies, too!)
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New local morning show on 1340 WALL
- Thread starter Bucky Dornster
- Start date
I hope WALL-WEOK will have a brand new website and add a live audio stream...Mark West is a great DJ...wish him all the luck with his new morning show on WALL out of Middletown.
Mark West is streaming his show live at Shoutcast, you can do a search for WALL Radio or use this stream in your win amp media player http://91.217.72.2:7290
That must be great move to bring in local jock back to the airwaves. Mark West can also be heard on WEOK as well. I hope they should bring in more jocks to the "True Oldies" cannon. Why not bring in Bob Miller back to the airwaves to do afternoon drive. He was doing mornings on the former "Oldies 97.7" before "Mix" came along, he used to play oldies, but why not bring Rick McCaffery back from his retirement on Friday nights to do the "Solid Gold Jukebox". I like him a lot better than Don K Reed especially the "Doo-Wop Cruise" on Fridays playing nothing but doo-wop music. I hope doo-wop music never dies. I hope to see WALL/WEOK to bring in local people soon. I hope so.
It would be great if WALL added more local talent to the station. Another station that lacks local programming is WPLJ HD 2 they should at least have a local show on in the morning. Example of a great True Oldies station is WLS-FM in Chicago, they have local on air DJs including Dave Fogel mornings-Greg Brown-afternoons-Tom O’Toole-weekends. Both WALL & WPLJ-HD 2 have room to improve local radio personalities on air.
As I was listening yesterday morning that WEOK did not carry Mark West's local morning show from WALL, but 1390 still carries Scott Shannon's "True Oldies Channel" instead of local programming. What's the point?
disney fanatic said:
This is really a sweet business Deal for Cumulus. They get an excellent, locally well-known jock Mark West, and not only does it cost them nothing he is paying them to be there. According to the above-mentioned article, Mark is leasing time on WALL for his show. I wonder if sells and keeps the revenue from the advertising. His show sounds like old time radio, with time and temperature checks, like we used to hear. I have to wonder did Mark only want to be on WALL, thus speaking directly to his local audience, or is Cumulus being greedy and wanting to charge him separately for each station. To be fair Mark is also on WPDH-HD2, but not many people have radios that can receive it. I suppose it makes financial sense to Cumulus to do it this way, but having his show on WEOK as well could attract more listeners, instead of Scott Shannon 24/7. I have nothing against Scott, but in the business they call, that overexposed. When did WEOK/WALL last show up in the ratings? Not in this century!
The show is not on WEOK, because it is geared exclusively for Orange County and Middletown. The point is to bring local radio to the Middletown area, and to revive the legendary, classic sound of WALL Radio.
Found this info. on the Web about WALL Radio's History...
History (to 1999)
WALL signed on in 1942, the first radio station in the western part of Orange County. Part of a parade of low-powered local stations that signed on in the period leading to and after the 1941 NARBA treaty and realignment, WALL originally sought the WMID calls (for MIDdletown). However, an FCC mixup led to another station at 1340 MHz in Atlantic City, New Jersey to get the WMID calls whereas the Middletown station got the WALL calls that were intended for Atlantic City (named after that city's sea WALL). Other stories insist that the call letters were indeed correct, and WALL was named for the Town of Wallkill, which neighbors the city while WMID was named for nearby Middle Township, NJ where the station owner resided.
Identity crisis aside, WALL signed on with a full-service popular music format with a heavy amount of local news, and with only newspapers as competition were very successful. The station was owned by the Community Broadcasting Corporation whose partners were Roger Clipp, an executive with Triangle Publications (WFIL Philadelphia) and another Pennsylvanian, John Morgan Davis who was a politician, ultimately serving as Lieutenant Governor of PA.
In 1950 they hired Jim Patt from WNBH in New Bedford, MA, as GM. He ran the station until 1972. On-air personalities included Bill Swanwick ("Breakfast With Beaming Billy"), Jerry Wax ("The Wax Works"), Joe Ryan (who seemed to stay with the station forever) and Big Jim Pappas. The success of the local news operation goes to Al Larsen. Sales Manager during this period was Johnny Zaimes.
The station was ultimately sold to R. Peter Straus who owned WMCA in New York City ("home of the Good Guys"). Straus had plans to become NYS senator and bought WALL as well as stations in Utica and Geneva so his editorials could be heard. Along came Bobby Kennedy and Straus's plans fell apart and he ultimately sold the stations. Patt stayed to run WALL for Straus, putting WALL-FM on the air, but when Straus sold he decided it was time to retire to Ft Myers, FL, where he teamed up with Roger Clipp again to put a station on the air in that market.
By the 1960s, WALL would evolve to a Middle of the Road format and in 1965 would add FM service at 92.7 MHz (today's WRRV). It was with the FM launch that WALL evolved into a Top 40. In the period between 1967 and 1977, under program directors, Larry Berger, Dave Charity, Art Livesay, and Jim Frey, WALL was virtually unbeatable in every ratings survey despite new local sign-ons and serious competition from New York signals including WABC and WNBC.
In 1974, staffers at WALL recorded a satirical tape known as "NINE!" that purported to be an industry marketing pitch. The tape, which takes place at fictional radio station AM 900 WVWA/Pound Ridge, New York, documents the progression of the top 40 station from an awkward station with odd sound effects, rambling disc jockeys, much wasted dead air space, and wildly inaccurate weather forecasts to a finely tuned, professional sounding station with various gimmicks, catch phrases and promotions popular among radio stations and consulting firms as the time. However, the station determines it must go one step further and strip out all spoken word content, leaving only a rapid-fire, barely intelligible station identification once an hour and the word "NINE!" exclaimed between each song. Radio industry insiders of today consider the tape to be both ironically humorous and inadvertently prophetic for foretelling the adoption of elements such as rapid-fire station identification, emphasized station branding, increased automation and less emphasis on local disc jockeys. (Fybush)
At about 8:00PM on Sunday evening, December 21, 1975, WALL suffered a devastating fire which gutted its North Street studios, killing several residents in a third floor apartment, and forcing the station to move to an abandoned block long Armory building on Middletown's Highland Avenue. WALL was off the air less than 30 minutes as a result of the fire. Using remote broadcast equipment that was stored at the WALL transmitter site on Monhagen Avenue, the station quickly began broadcasting from the transmitter building using records borrowed from employees. The old Armory building had already been purchased by then owner, Orange Communications, with the intent of moving the radio station there within a year. Instead, the move happened overnight while flames and smoke still arose from the North Street studios. WALL signed on from the Armory building at 6am the morning after the fire, using remote equipment borrowed from sister station WHVW, Hyde Park, NY. This was due in part to rapid action in moving WALL's telephone and broadcast lines by the local telephone company and the overnight installation of new teletypes by the Associated Press. Temporary studios were quickly constructed in a basement gym. Permanent studios were eventually constructed as originally planned on the second floor of the Armory, with offices on the first floor.
In 1979, WALL and sister WKGL (the former WALL-FM) were purchased by a consortium headed by media mogul Robert F.X. Sillerman and legendary New York air personality Bruce Morrow ("Cousin Brucie"). Headquartering their group in Middletown at the Armory, by now re-christened Broadcast Plaza, major changes took place with WALL flipping first to a top 40/adult contemporary hybrid format, and later to Adult Standards; WKGL, meanwhile, would go to an oldies format. The drastic change was not a long-term success and in 1985 WALL began to regroup by bringing in program director Rob Dillman and flipping to a higher energy oldies format. With this change came the acquisition of sports programming such as New York Mets baseball, New York Giants football, and various local sports and other community events. Additionally, WALL rehired some of the air talent from its Top 40 heyday, including Joe Ryan. The changes proved successful and WALL achieved ratings not seen since the early 1970's. One of the best promotions in Hudson Valley radio is WALL Radio's "45th Anniversary Reunion Broadcast". This storied promotion occurred on the weekend of August 2–3, 1987 when the station celebrated its "45th" Anniversary...the station looked back to its past and reunited air personalities that weekend including "Cousin Brucie" Bruce Morrow, Howard Hoffman, Dave Charity, Dick Wells, Randy West, Gene Pelc, Al Faust, Art Livesay, Alex Miller, Jim Frey, Mark West, Ray Arthur, Jimmy Howes, Gene Brownold, Jon LeMieux, Jim Pappas and Al Larson.
The community mindedness of WALL would be short lived as in 1988 Orange & Rockland Utilities purchased WALL and WKGL from Bell Broadcasting whom had purchased the station from Sillerman-Morrow. With the sale came a mass purge of staff with WALL flipping to a satellite News/Talk format in all but mornings. There would be no 50th Anniversary celebration: Joe Ryan died, as did news man Al Larson.
In 1994, Orange & Rockland would sell WALL and WKOJ (ex-WKGL) to the Poughkeepsie-based Crystal Radio Group with the sale closing in early 1995. Though this meant initial changes on the FM side, WALL's ratings-depleted talk format would continue undisturbed. This would last for most of the rest of the 1990s. The memory of old Top-40 AM Radio died when WALL died. WKOJ would only last a short time in call letters, then the call were changed to WRRV and that what it is called today 2009.
History (to 1999)
WALL signed on in 1942, the first radio station in the western part of Orange County. Part of a parade of low-powered local stations that signed on in the period leading to and after the 1941 NARBA treaty and realignment, WALL originally sought the WMID calls (for MIDdletown). However, an FCC mixup led to another station at 1340 MHz in Atlantic City, New Jersey to get the WMID calls whereas the Middletown station got the WALL calls that were intended for Atlantic City (named after that city's sea WALL). Other stories insist that the call letters were indeed correct, and WALL was named for the Town of Wallkill, which neighbors the city while WMID was named for nearby Middle Township, NJ where the station owner resided.
Identity crisis aside, WALL signed on with a full-service popular music format with a heavy amount of local news, and with only newspapers as competition were very successful. The station was owned by the Community Broadcasting Corporation whose partners were Roger Clipp, an executive with Triangle Publications (WFIL Philadelphia) and another Pennsylvanian, John Morgan Davis who was a politician, ultimately serving as Lieutenant Governor of PA.
In 1950 they hired Jim Patt from WNBH in New Bedford, MA, as GM. He ran the station until 1972. On-air personalities included Bill Swanwick ("Breakfast With Beaming Billy"), Jerry Wax ("The Wax Works"), Joe Ryan (who seemed to stay with the station forever) and Big Jim Pappas. The success of the local news operation goes to Al Larsen. Sales Manager during this period was Johnny Zaimes.
The station was ultimately sold to R. Peter Straus who owned WMCA in New York City ("home of the Good Guys"). Straus had plans to become NYS senator and bought WALL as well as stations in Utica and Geneva so his editorials could be heard. Along came Bobby Kennedy and Straus's plans fell apart and he ultimately sold the stations. Patt stayed to run WALL for Straus, putting WALL-FM on the air, but when Straus sold he decided it was time to retire to Ft Myers, FL, where he teamed up with Roger Clipp again to put a station on the air in that market.
By the 1960s, WALL would evolve to a Middle of the Road format and in 1965 would add FM service at 92.7 MHz (today's WRRV). It was with the FM launch that WALL evolved into a Top 40. In the period between 1967 and 1977, under program directors, Larry Berger, Dave Charity, Art Livesay, and Jim Frey, WALL was virtually unbeatable in every ratings survey despite new local sign-ons and serious competition from New York signals including WABC and WNBC.
In 1974, staffers at WALL recorded a satirical tape known as "NINE!" that purported to be an industry marketing pitch. The tape, which takes place at fictional radio station AM 900 WVWA/Pound Ridge, New York, documents the progression of the top 40 station from an awkward station with odd sound effects, rambling disc jockeys, much wasted dead air space, and wildly inaccurate weather forecasts to a finely tuned, professional sounding station with various gimmicks, catch phrases and promotions popular among radio stations and consulting firms as the time. However, the station determines it must go one step further and strip out all spoken word content, leaving only a rapid-fire, barely intelligible station identification once an hour and the word "NINE!" exclaimed between each song. Radio industry insiders of today consider the tape to be both ironically humorous and inadvertently prophetic for foretelling the adoption of elements such as rapid-fire station identification, emphasized station branding, increased automation and less emphasis on local disc jockeys. (Fybush)
At about 8:00PM on Sunday evening, December 21, 1975, WALL suffered a devastating fire which gutted its North Street studios, killing several residents in a third floor apartment, and forcing the station to move to an abandoned block long Armory building on Middletown's Highland Avenue. WALL was off the air less than 30 minutes as a result of the fire. Using remote broadcast equipment that was stored at the WALL transmitter site on Monhagen Avenue, the station quickly began broadcasting from the transmitter building using records borrowed from employees. The old Armory building had already been purchased by then owner, Orange Communications, with the intent of moving the radio station there within a year. Instead, the move happened overnight while flames and smoke still arose from the North Street studios. WALL signed on from the Armory building at 6am the morning after the fire, using remote equipment borrowed from sister station WHVW, Hyde Park, NY. This was due in part to rapid action in moving WALL's telephone and broadcast lines by the local telephone company and the overnight installation of new teletypes by the Associated Press. Temporary studios were quickly constructed in a basement gym. Permanent studios were eventually constructed as originally planned on the second floor of the Armory, with offices on the first floor.
In 1979, WALL and sister WKGL (the former WALL-FM) were purchased by a consortium headed by media mogul Robert F.X. Sillerman and legendary New York air personality Bruce Morrow ("Cousin Brucie"). Headquartering their group in Middletown at the Armory, by now re-christened Broadcast Plaza, major changes took place with WALL flipping first to a top 40/adult contemporary hybrid format, and later to Adult Standards; WKGL, meanwhile, would go to an oldies format. The drastic change was not a long-term success and in 1985 WALL began to regroup by bringing in program director Rob Dillman and flipping to a higher energy oldies format. With this change came the acquisition of sports programming such as New York Mets baseball, New York Giants football, and various local sports and other community events. Additionally, WALL rehired some of the air talent from its Top 40 heyday, including Joe Ryan. The changes proved successful and WALL achieved ratings not seen since the early 1970's. One of the best promotions in Hudson Valley radio is WALL Radio's "45th Anniversary Reunion Broadcast". This storied promotion occurred on the weekend of August 2–3, 1987 when the station celebrated its "45th" Anniversary...the station looked back to its past and reunited air personalities that weekend including "Cousin Brucie" Bruce Morrow, Howard Hoffman, Dave Charity, Dick Wells, Randy West, Gene Pelc, Al Faust, Art Livesay, Alex Miller, Jim Frey, Mark West, Ray Arthur, Jimmy Howes, Gene Brownold, Jon LeMieux, Jim Pappas and Al Larson.
The community mindedness of WALL would be short lived as in 1988 Orange & Rockland Utilities purchased WALL and WKGL from Bell Broadcasting whom had purchased the station from Sillerman-Morrow. With the sale came a mass purge of staff with WALL flipping to a satellite News/Talk format in all but mornings. There would be no 50th Anniversary celebration: Joe Ryan died, as did news man Al Larson.
In 1994, Orange & Rockland would sell WALL and WKOJ (ex-WKGL) to the Poughkeepsie-based Crystal Radio Group with the sale closing in early 1995. Though this meant initial changes on the FM side, WALL's ratings-depleted talk format would continue undisturbed. This would last for most of the rest of the 1990s. The memory of old Top-40 AM Radio died when WALL died. WKOJ would only last a short time in call letters, then the call were changed to WRRV and that what it is called today 2009.
WEOK simulcast history
While WALL was left alone and did moderately well given its signal and status in the market, Crystal Radio had problems with WEOK given the aging demographics of that station's longtime adult standards format. Looking at an opportunity to fortify their holdings, in August 1999 Crystal decided to join WEOK with WALL and renovate WALL's talk format into a station that would target all of the Hudson Valley. On September 6, 1999, WEOK dumped pop standards and joined with WALL to simulcast talk, a format known as NewsTalk 13.
Up against the highly rated WABC from New York City, and sharing much of its programming, plus having programming that was considered to be too "Poughkeepsie-centric" by Middletown listeners, the NewsTalk 13 simulcast struggled to find an audience. In August 2000, the ESPN Radio programming that the station aired nights and weekends became the full-time format of the station. Soon, Aurora Communications would purchase the assets of the Crystal Radio Group. Both NewsTalk 13 and the ESPN Radio simulcast featured a large amount of sports rights including Yankees baseball, Giants and Jets football, and Marist College basketball.
Aurora's ownership of the station would prove to be short lived as in October 2001 they would be purchased by Cumulus Media, a deal that would close the next March. In September 2002, WALL and WEOK would flip to a Spanish language Hot AC format as El Ritmo ("The Rhythm"), the first Spanish-language station in the Hudson Valley.
Poor ratings and poor revenues led Cumulus to flip the stations in March 2005 to Radio Disney, ironically a format which the stations nearly had flipped to three years earlier.
On February 22, 2010 the WEOK-WALL simulcast dropped Radio Disney for Scott Shannon's The True Oldies Channel. This syndicated format is very similar to the Top-40 WALL of the mid-80s.
WEOK and WALL are no longer a true simulcast, as they run liners,jingles, and commercials specific to each station.
On April 11, 2011 WALL began originating a portion of its programming from Middletown. Former personality Mark West has returned for the morning shift, and does 6-10a from a studio in Middletown. Bob Schaeffer, formerly of WVOS, does local news during the show.
While WALL was left alone and did moderately well given its signal and status in the market, Crystal Radio had problems with WEOK given the aging demographics of that station's longtime adult standards format. Looking at an opportunity to fortify their holdings, in August 1999 Crystal decided to join WEOK with WALL and renovate WALL's talk format into a station that would target all of the Hudson Valley. On September 6, 1999, WEOK dumped pop standards and joined with WALL to simulcast talk, a format known as NewsTalk 13.
Up against the highly rated WABC from New York City, and sharing much of its programming, plus having programming that was considered to be too "Poughkeepsie-centric" by Middletown listeners, the NewsTalk 13 simulcast struggled to find an audience. In August 2000, the ESPN Radio programming that the station aired nights and weekends became the full-time format of the station. Soon, Aurora Communications would purchase the assets of the Crystal Radio Group. Both NewsTalk 13 and the ESPN Radio simulcast featured a large amount of sports rights including Yankees baseball, Giants and Jets football, and Marist College basketball.
Aurora's ownership of the station would prove to be short lived as in October 2001 they would be purchased by Cumulus Media, a deal that would close the next March. In September 2002, WALL and WEOK would flip to a Spanish language Hot AC format as El Ritmo ("The Rhythm"), the first Spanish-language station in the Hudson Valley.
Poor ratings and poor revenues led Cumulus to flip the stations in March 2005 to Radio Disney, ironically a format which the stations nearly had flipped to three years earlier.
On February 22, 2010 the WEOK-WALL simulcast dropped Radio Disney for Scott Shannon's The True Oldies Channel. This syndicated format is very similar to the Top-40 WALL of the mid-80s.
WEOK and WALL are no longer a true simulcast, as they run liners,jingles, and commercials specific to each station.
On April 11, 2011 WALL began originating a portion of its programming from Middletown. Former personality Mark West has returned for the morning shift, and does 6-10a from a studio in Middletown. Bob Schaeffer, formerly of WVOS, does local news during the show.
Mark West's stream on WALL this morning seems to be down, hope he can fix that soon. BTW, Mark West's stream is on WALL & WPDH HD 2 not WEOK as mentioned here...
disney fanatic said:
[size=10pt]WALL stream is back a la cart (when streaming) new url is http://178.159.0.11:7590 or can always be found (when streaming) at shoutcast under "WALL Radio".[/size]
Found a resume of Mark West...its interesting to see that Mark has worked at WWDJ in NYC...btw, they left WTBQ Warwick, New York out where he was there a few years from 1994.
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/mark-west/11/549/A56
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/mark-west/11/549/A56
There is really a dividing point between the old WALL and the new WALL - that point is when O'Grady sold to Sillerman and Brucie, and all references to WALL Land were replaced by The Bright Orange Sound. When you think of it, the old WALL, which did include Art Livesey, Jim Frey, Bruce Wayne Allen and I believe Alex Miller (as well as those earlier names mentioned) was a different station. It was truly local hometown radio that had longevity and a great sound... a launching ground to NYC radio. The new WALL, ala Bright Orange Sound brought a very polished and refined sound. In the beginning it was all about Brucie. He did a show for two hours each day - 4p-6p. Then when 1510 came around, Brucie was doing a show there too, and would split his time between Middletown and Dover, NJ. That is when the wheels started falling off, and formats started changing in Middletown... Sillerman and Bruce were out in 84... so, 5 or so years versus that old legacy WALL.....
Not entirely true. In the 80's from about 1984-1988 (under Dick Bell's ownership), WALL enjoyed a resurgence. They had jettisoned the Big Band format of the early 80's and leaned into an oldies based AC format. Still with a big commitment to local news and community events, WALL reached audience levels not seen since the early 70's. In fact, in the Orange County ARB breakouts, WALL was often a close third to WHUD and WPDH, often beating WSPK and its own sister WKGL 12+.
It wasn't until O&R's ownership that a programming change brought a talk format and the downward slide. WALL never recovered.
It wasn't until O&R's ownership that a programming change brought a talk format and the downward slide. WALL never recovered.
my comments reflected through the sillerman morrow years, through 84. reflecting on the period 84-88, under Dick's ownership, you need to look at the financial side of the picture, too. while saddled with enormous debt, dick tried to continue what he knew... however, it didnt work financially. i wouldnt blame dick, -- he took on an opportunity that most station veterans would take on - the chance to own the station(s) they put their life into..
True, financially. WALL billed quite well for its size, but the FM lagged. The debt service, was in the end, insurmountable and owed unsurprisingly to SFX. Bell Broadcasting reached out to O&R for it's help and backing, and ironically, they destroyed it.
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