September 18, 1966: The Pop Explosion began on WFIL 560 AM

[Jul]

On this date 9/18 in 1966, WFIL 560 AM launches its top-40 format. From http://www.famous56.com :

The "Pop Explosion" was born on September 18, 1966. WFIL, was up until then, a "middle of the road" station, playing standards, with a little rock and roll mixed in. But on that fateful morning in September, WFIL began its' journey to become one of the greatest stations in the nation. With a tight format, great personalities, and fantastic jingles, WFIL took over the number 1 spot in Philadelphia radio, a spot formally occupied by WIBG.

Question; How huge an impact did WFIL had in Philly radio and future Philly top-40 stations like WIFI, WCAU-FM, WEGX, etc

 

[fred flintstone]

A typical Drake-Chenault synthodroid station.
WFIL was not an original, therefore it can not claim to have had influence.
Nobody knew it then, but the days of AM Top 40 radio were numbered.
It did show the Wibbage only kept going because it had lacked meaningful competition.
A lot of vile, nasty people have owned radio station but Wally Annenberg tops the list.

 

[ixnay]

I was 5 years and a few weeks old on 9/18/66, so I don't remember the flip, and probably wouldn't, since we usually had WIP on in our house and on the road at the time.

After my parents divorced a couple of years later, my mom took to listening to WFIL all of a sudden, at least on the road. OTOH my driver to day camp that summer had WIBG on all the time. ;D

Mom stuck with 'FIL until around 1975 (the year of my entry into 9th grade). By then she had joined me in becoming an Eagles (Gabriel and Carmichael, not Henley and Frye) fan. The Eagles at this time were on WIP, and we listened to their preseason games thereon, and one day Mom sampled WIP in another daypart, and liked it so much that she switched back to Six-Ten WIP. So I missed out on the decline of Famous 56, whenever that took place. Therefore, I can't comment on aforesaid decline of WFIL, but I imagine others can. I invite them to comment on that here or on another thread.

ixnay

 

[odomski]

I highly doubt this affected WEGX (Eagle 106), because that moniker and format wasn't on the air in 1966. :

 

[deepstblu]

I was 5 years and a few weeks old on 9/18/66, so I don't remember the flip, and probably wouldn't, since we usually had WIP on in our house and on the road at the time.

I remember a lot of promos on Channel 6 (WFIL-TV then), and for some weird reason I remember seeing the change advertised on grocery bags at Food Fair. ("HITS! HITS! HITS! 24 HOURS!")

 

[AConsultant]

WFIL must have made quite an impact. It is being discussed on this board 40 years later. WFIL was excellent at what it did. The jocks were total pros and understood what following a format meant. It was "light, bright and tight". I can't tell you how many times during my childhood when I would tune from WIBG (which was a habit) and head down to 56 on the dial. The Wibbage Good Guys just did not know when to stop talking and play the music. While WFIL also was talky, the content was relevant and done quickly. The rap normally began as the tail of the song began to fade and the vocal of the next song hit. Generally, I would guess the average amount of talk would have been 10-12 seconds, with no stopping the flow of music, keeping the excitement, tempo, flow, and perception that a lot of music was being played. Of course, NON-STOP MUSIC, MUCH MORE MUSIC and all the other catch-phrases of the format brain-washed two generations of listeners. But it still had the moving, trucking sound that Jay Cook really fine-tuned. Meanwhile, when WFIL first began, WIBG jocks were stopping the music, talking in the cold (no music) and much of the talk from what I remember was annoying. And finally, WFIL had a ton of money to give away, lots of contesting and street visability.

I'll leave you with something Bill Wright, Sr. related to me a few years ago. He was in his car and stopped at the traffic lights on City Ave right at the intersection where the big round Channel 6 building is located. WFIL was in that building then. It was about 9 months after WFIL came on the air. He had his car windows open as did all the cars stopped around him. He had WIBG on his radio but did not hear any of the radios around him tuned to WIBBAGE. But he was hearing the same song coming from the car radios all around him and he began to tune around on his car radio to find what station they had on. It was WFIL. Bill said he knew at that point WIBG's days were numbered.

Was WFIL influential? Why would anyone think that???? LOL.

 

[fred flintstone]

WFIL must have made quite an impact. It is being discussed on this board 40 years later. WFIL was excellent at what it did.

Because radio geeks have long memories. Because Philly radio has always been on the trailing edge. Because, except for DXers, people in Philly never heard a great Top 40 station. WFIL was an immitator, never an original. A competent immitator non-the-less. Before satellite-delivered formats, there were stations like WFIL copying successful stations in other markets and/or working out of some consultant's playbook - always with all the life, the excitement, the dynamism and the local flavor and color of true Top 40 radio squeezed out. They succeeded because Wibbage was that bad (as you describe); not because WFIL was that good.

I'll leave you with something Bill Wright, Sr. related to me a few years ago.

I can imagine. "Picture a street filled with cars stopped for a traffic light. Imagine car radios all playing the same song on WFIL as the voices of the Wibbage good guys are stilled forever.... WFIL is eve-ill."

 

[WTUX]

I definitely remember the "Pop Explosion" on WFIL. Living in Delaware, WIBG was hard to hear in my area, so I would once in awhile listen to WIBG-FM. A lot of talking, the full 18 minutes of commercials per hour that were allowed in those days.

WFIL brought a fresh sound to Philly radio. Sure it was a Drake format. But when a Drake station came on, it frequently beat out the older Top 40 outlet. This certainly happened in Philly. As I have heard Hy Lit say, he told management to cut back on the ads. Charge more per spot and run fewer of them. When WFIL started with the "much more music" line and played ten in a row, even during afternoon drive, the audience switched to Famous 56 just to avoid the clutter and here music.

The jocks were top notch. Two made the jump to WABC: George Michael and Jim Nettleton. Dr. Don Rose made the jump to California big time.

Was WFIL orginal? No. But it was new to this area and made a significant impact. That's all that really matters.

 

[dustyvinyl]

.....and who would have thought that a zany character like George Michael would become a big-time sports personality in DC?

 

[BRUSSTAR]

WFIL was not an original, therefore it can not claim to have had influence.

That's ridiculous. Much of The Beatles' music can be traced to old school rhythm and blues. Are you prepared to argue The Beatles cannot claim to have influenced future musicians? I know of about a dozen jocks who say Terry "Motormouth" Young was one of their biggest influences. A quick listen of just about any Jackson Armstrong aircheck shows what an influence "Your Leeeee-dah" had on Motormouth. Two of the biggest influences on my style of airwork (whether doing talk, news, or jocking) are Jim Nettleton and Tony Bruno. Does this mean I could never influence anyone?!

99% of what's been done in radio, even stuff from the good 'ole days, was really imitation. I think history judges these endeavors, as others have pointed out, by how much of an impact they had on their markets and the industry overall.

WFIL was one of those stations that came about at the right place, at the right time, and pretty much did just about everything right for a good eight to ten years. It could have lasted longer had Philadelphia not been such an early FM market.

WFIL wasn't an actual Drake station, though like many AM Top 40 ones of the day was heavily influenced and affected by the success of Drake-Chenault. Its programming success was largely the doing of PD Jay Cook, with early guidance from consultant Mike Joseph. (A decade later Joseph would use many of the same techniques to construct his "Hot Hits" format, which of course arrived here in 1981.) It's hard to believe there was a time when a PD (not "consultant", "regional VP of programming", or the like) could have so much power and influence in the crafting and operation of a station. The closest Philly ever had to Drake was probably the Paul Drew era of WIBG, complete with the Johnny Mann jingles but with more of a regional twist to the music.

I don't agree with the severity of Fred's comments about Wibbage, but do realize the station wasn't helped by its failing to adapt to a very changing radio environment. As someone above indicated, Hy Lit and others tried to get management to make adjustments but were usually met with authoritative resistance. By the time changes finally started happening, most of the guys who made the station famous were on their way out, WFIL was firmly in control, and WIBG's fate was sealed. (The signal problems didn't help.) But in its heyday, there was nothing "wrong with" WIBG. It was the right thing in the right place at the right time (just like I said about WFIL's coming on in 1966). And by the mid '60s, that time was probably over.

WFIL, and of course WABC, were two of the most successful non-Drake AM Top 40s of their day. The two had very different sounds, with WFIL's probably sounding closer to the "norm" for the time as Fred alluded. WABC in its earlier days (early '60s), to me, was closer to WIBG in sound. Unlike Wibbage, though, 'ABC quickly evolved and tightened up. And while it wasn't nearly as tight as the other ABC O&O AM Top 40s, its headstart and monster signal kept the station at the top for a good decade following.

AM Top 40 buffs nationwide, even today, largely hold Jay Cook's WFIL in a very high regard. I don't disagree.

 

[Time Traveler]

WFIL must have made quite an impact. It is being discussed on this board 40 years later. WFIL was excellent at what it did. The jocks were total pros and understood what following a format meant. It was "light, bright and tight". I can't tell you how many times during my childhood when I would tune from WIBG (which was a habit) and head down to 56 on the dial. The Wibbage Good Guys just did not know when to stop talking and play the music. While WFIL also was talky, the content was relevant and done quickly. The rap normally began as the tail of the song began to fade and the vocal of the next song hit. Generally, I would guess the average amount of talk would have been 10-12 seconds, with no stopping the flow of music, keeping the excitement, tempo, flow, and perception that a lot of music was being played. Of course, NON-STOP MUSIC, MUCH MORE MUSIC and all the other catch-phrases of the format brain-washed two generations of listeners. But it still had the moving, trucking sound that Jay Cook really fine-tuned. Meanwhile, when WFIL first began, WIBG jocks were stopping the music, talking in the cold (no music) and much of the talk from what I remember was annoying. And finally, WFIL had a ton of money to give away, lots of contesting and street visability.

I'll leave you with something Bill Wright, Sr. related to me a few years ago. He was in his car and stopped at the traffic lights on City Ave right at the intersection where the big round Channel 6 building is located. WFIL was in that building then. It was about 9 months after WFIL came on the air. He had his car windows open as did all the cars stopped around him. He had WIBG on his radio but did not hear any of the radios around him tuned to WIBBAGE. But he was hearing the same song coming from the car radios all around him and he began to tune around on his car radio to find what station they had on. It was WFIL. Bill said he knew at that point WIBG's days were numbered.

Was WFIL influential? Why would anyone think that???? LOL.

Still...WIBG did last another 11 years or so, until 1977. By that time, many former AM Top 40 powerhouses were dropping like flies. I believe that WFIL lasted another four years, until it flipped to Country in 1981.

 

[AConsultant]

WIBG did "survive" as you mentioned. But it was painful. I don't recall the actual numbers at the time, but the ratings ratio was sobering. It was something like for every 10 listeners WIBG had, WFIL had 100. WIBG did have a bit of success in 1971-1972 when Don Cannon, and Don and John Wade were there, but that didn't last long. Actually, WIBG was sounding good during their few final years, but WFIL had made too much of an impact by that time. You mentioned 1977 as the end of WIBG. It is interesting too that by that time, the AM erosion was severe and WIBG had nothing to lose, and WFIL was losing listeners by the double-decker bus loads. WFIL had tinkered quite a bit with the format by that time. They had lost Don Rose already, as well as Dave Parks and George Michael. Also, they began to try a more adult approach. Actually some experimentation began earlier when WFIL brought in Bill Corsair (from WCAU-AM) to do an all-night talk/music show. That was a disaster and didn't last long. Jay Cook the PD at WFIL was already prepping for his next career move because he was open about WFIL's future, and it didn't look good. FM was killing AM in every major market....witness WABC changing to DISCO! If I remember right, that happened in 1977-78? So really, those last years of the 70s brought with them the end of the great TOP 40 AM stations. As good as WFIL was, the AM stigma became too big an obstacle. Even WABC couldn't survive as a music station on AM. The fact is, no matter how much debating one can do about the attributes of WIBG and WFIL, those years were the most exciting radio years in the country. You could drive from Philly to Los Angeles or north to south wherever you lived and hear some of the best radio and best radio talent ever...on AM. Now, you can hear the same boring format clones in every city across the country, with passionless and clueless voice-tracked announcers and the same old 10 songs being played surrounded by boring imagers and plenty of commercials. The only really exciting thing about radio now is hearing an audiovault (to name one) or computer failure to change the monotony of what radio has become.

Just a final note: I remember WFIL's "Helping Hand Marathons". One was held at the Echelon Mall in Voorhees, NJ in 1972. Patco's high-speed line had to run 3 times the normal trains to accomodate the Philly listeners traveling to the mall. It was a three day event, Friday-Sunday, and with the exception of the late night hours, the mall parking lots were so packed with people that the mall management almost cancelled the marathon halfway through because businesses were complaining that nobody could even get into the mall itself. The entire parking areas surrounding the mall were flooded with people on every side. Shuttle buses from the Patco station to the mall were running continully. WFIL was broadcasting live in a store overlooking one of the parking areas and they had continuous enetrtainment performing on flatbed trailers in the parking lot. I realized the power of radio at that time. It was Echelon's version of Woodstock. But WFIL, and AM radio had that power. Quite amazing considering the state of radio today.

 

[odomski]

This is what this board is all about...radio. I have enjoyed reading the history of such legendary Philadelphia stations such as WFIL and WIBG. Also, I liked reading about the Echelon Mall music event! Great story. Thanks to all for the history lesson...Mr. Consultant, WTUX, George, Fred/Mike, among others for providing information.

I'm also very happy this thread didn't include unimportant, useless ramblings from a certain Radio-Info contributor...despite that person starting this thread. (However, A Thumbs Up to Julius for bringing up the topic). There are some threads left that folks can actually discuss real, important, and worthy radio topics.

 

[Jul]

Are the 2 top-40 stations in Philly right now 96.5 and 102.1 FM come even close to WFIL and WIBG in terms of success and the way the format was programmed?

 

[amfmsw]

Ahh...Wibbage and Wiffel. (Too bad WIBG didn't hold onto 94.1FM!)

But what about that upstart, way ahead of it's time, the lovely sounding WIFI 92? They brought a new meaning to the word "compression". CBS Volumax and Audimax fed into Shure Level-Locks!

Long John Wade, Gardner from Magic, Hy Lit, Ron Diamond, Joe Niagara...all had turns there. And that famous, musshy, seemingly ONE jingle they had.

Oh, and I think Don Cannon didn't start at WIBG till about 73 or 4. He was on WIP and WNEW before then.

 

[odomski]

I think I spoke too soon. :

I don't think you can even compare Tired 96.5 and Q102 to WFIL and WIBG. I feel there is no comparison. Four totally different stations...two totally different eras of music. Tired 96.5 and Q102 are stations that feature music filled with Ebonics and "gangsta speak." Top 40 back then is nowhere near what Top 40 is today. Just my opinoin.

 

[yocco]

You are so correct. Frankly, comparing any station today to WFIL, WABC, WLS, WCFL. CKLW, and WKBW is ridiculous. Especially CHR today to Top 40 of yesterday. It was a much more mass appeal format back then.

 

[8638]

Q

Love this thread! And, it is correct to state that Wired and Q couldn't hold a candle to WFIL and WIBG. Even though it seemed the station was all over the map in the early/mid 70's, I always had a warm spot in my heart for Wibbage. I especially liked the imaging they used in 1971-72 "WIBG, where your friends are!" After that, they tried an "FM station on the AM band thing," with Tee Morgan as one of the jocks, I think. And WFIL was at the top of their game from the start of the Pop Explosion, right through about 1975-76 or so. Great station, tightly programmed, warm personalities, and lots of music!

At least when Wibbage was killed, they got to have a Wibbage Wake, which lasted two weeks, I think. A great way to send a once grand radio lady to her rest! Most of the air talent of years past showed up, along with some who were never Wibbage good guys (Jerry Blavat).

Even if radio had songs to play other than gangsta crap and American Idol wannabees, there would never be a rivalry like that of Famous 56 and the Big 99. The big boys have homogenized and researched all of the fun out of radio. Don't let the personalities be personable and talk with the listeners, don't dare try playing a song that hasn't been focus group tested to death. In short, be bland, boring, predictable...and watch the exodus to iPods, internet streams, etc. Not that Beasley would ever do it, but could you imagine the mayhem if Wired did something on the scope of the Helping Hand Marathon? Drive by shootings, rape, pillage....

Radio says I'm too old (46) to be valued as a listener. No problem, I've about given up on radio anyway.

 

[dustyvinyl]

We also had a great radio debate in my part of Bucks County in the late fifties as to which station was better, WIBBAGE Radio 99, or 77 WABC from NY. Cousin Bruce Morrow or Hyski and Niagara. As we were "cruisin'", we could switch back and forth between the two stations, altho' WIBG had the best reception. We also had a low power AM, 1300 WAAT that played great music but could not compete with the big boys. What a great time for radio, though!

 

[yocco]

Yeah.. I remember that WIBBAGE wake. Here's the million dollar question. How many stations today would ever get a send off like what some of these great old stations got? The answer is none. And why? Because..sad to say..no one would care. And why would no one care? Because there was never any magic to begin with.