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SUCCESSFUL DAYTIMERS

Am glad someone's awake at WLOU/WLLV/WTUV. They need a complete change of local management and a group of new announcers to augment a couple of current ones who are passable and would benefit from new station leadership. I know of several local radio/TV personnel who would fit right in and get the stations squared away from a programming, production and operations standpoint...but does Davidson Media/Golden Door want more than they are getting?

It's also probably time to leave the jury-rigged office/studio complex they're located at and move to properly-equipped new facilities. They need to add necessities such as a proper phone matrix system w/delay and real automation to avoid blunders such as WLOU ID's running on WLLV and vice-versa, large chunks of dead carrier on all three stations during the simulcast hours and many other fiascos.
 
gr8oldies said:
WGTO in Beautiful Cypress Gardens FGL was a daytimer at 50000 watts before they got 1000 watts at nifght.
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For a brief and later period than WAPE, WGTO ruled the summer Gulf beaches around Tampa/St. Pete. Tons of commercials.

I used to take my (then) young daughters down there during the 70's and always brought an AM radio to listen to WGTO.
 
1080 WEEP in Pittsburgh. It was THE Country station back in the 70's. If you were a Country music fan in the Pittsburgh area you listened to WEEP (unless you were close enough for a decent daytime shot at WWVA) WEEP was 50kW daytime, and signed off at sundown to protect WTIC in Hartford. I remember one evening they were testing a night signal (small 10 sec. snippets of country songs, interspersed with their morning guy saying "1080 W-E-E-P, on the air for testing purposes only"), At one point they held a construction permit to drop down to 5kW night and day, directional. I've heard that the night pattern would have required nine or ten towers, and was just too expensive to build. The station is still around, running 50kW daytime only, now running religion. (in the 80's WEEP started migrating the country format to their FM, where it is still running as WDSY)

More recently (mid-90's), 1130 WASP in Brownsville, PA had quite a following amongst the Black Helicopter Crowd in Western PA/West Virginia. Assortment of syndicated and some rather provocative local shows. They put out a very respectable 5kW directional signal which I think dropped to half-power during critical hours. (late day invasions from WBBR in New York were very common). The station was sold and now runs oldies. They lost one tower to a road construction project and now are 1kW daytime non-directional.
 
I've already mentioned WXLW in Indianapolis at the start of this thread as doing well as a daytimer.

Keeping the focus on the Circle City, was fellow Indy daytimer WGEE (owned by Rollins for a number of years) competitive in the 60's and 70's? As I recall from the Vane Jones (remember those?) books of that ear, the format was block programmed with R&B and C&W, perhaps appealing to the transplants who moved up from the south.
 
Bob E. Nelson said:
I've already mentioned WXLW in Indianapolis at the start of this thread as doing well as a daytimer.

Keeping the focus on the Circle City, was fellow Indy daytimer WGEE (owned by Rollins for a number of years) competitive in the 60's and 70's? As I recall from the Vane Jones (remember those?) books of that ear, the format was block programmed with R&B and C&W, perhaps appealing to the transplants who moved up from the south.
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Who can forget WGEE and WXLW?

How about WIGO at 810 KHZ "WeGo"? Easy Gwynn moved there after his WIBC days and before he headed for Florida and retirement.

Although I had moved from Indy by the time. WHYT at 1110 KHZ in Noblesville made a brief appearance. A bit off topic since they went off-air, a sure sign on non existant cash flow.

By the way, the Vane Jones series is available for no cost download from www.amlogbook.com.
 
WALT 1110 in Tampa was a big Top-40 daytimer.
WAPE as a daytimer signed off with their ape call.
WVOK and WBAM signed off with a very rousing version of Dixie. Wish I had had the presence of mind to tape it.
Where I grew up in VA, the two local Top-40 signals were daytimers.
When I got into radio on a full-timer competing with a daytimer, we would make a point of saying "We don't run down at sundown"!!
 
1110 AM in Noblesville, IN resurrected the WFBM calls. At one point they were co-owned with WNON, in Lebanon, but not co-located. They ran big band tapes..then changed calls and owners, then weren't around long after that.
 
HadYourPhil said:
When I got into radio on a full-timer competing with a daytimer, we would make a point of saying "We don't run down at sundown"!!
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When we were kids, there were two Top 40 stations in the market, one a daytimer and one full-time. The full-timer started saying, "We are the station that doesn't run down at sundown." So we told our friend at the daytimer about it and listened to his station.

A few minutes later, we heard him say, "Some stations don't have to run down at sundown; they are run down twenty-four hours a day!"

We then switched over to the full-time station and NEVER heard anything about "running down at sundown" again. True story.
 
Ken Tucky said:
How can any mention of Indiana & successful daytimers not mention the legendary WERK, Muncie! 250 Watts through 6 towers!
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...and now - 1 watt at night. And the lights on all six towers put out how many watts?
;)
 
Unfortunately, not even 1 watt at night now! Even though radio-locator still shows 'em "alive," the towers were all dismantled around 2000... For awhile they operated with 67 watts off a damned longwire (or something)... When they had their full 250-watt "flamethower" status, 2 whole watts were squeezed out of tower #6 (the one that protected WONE in Dayton, off to the east!) The whole configuration looked like the old WIBC in Indianapolis, only with a fraction of 50,000 watts! I only wish I still had pictures of it!
 
Ken Tucky said:
Unfortunately, not even 1 watt at night now! Even though radio-locator still shows 'em "alive," the towers were all dismantled around 2000... For awhile they operated with 67 watts off a damned longwire (or something)... When they had their full 250-watt "flamethower" status, 2 whole watts were squeezed out of tower #6 (the one that protected WONE in Dayton, off to the east!) The whole configuration looked like the old WIBC in Indianapolis, only with a fraction of 50,000 watts! I only wish I still had pictures of it!
Click to expand...

Longwire? Ho Ho. Pardon me for being just a wee bit sarcastic, but needing 6 towers on a 250w station to "protect" larger stations 1mHz off your frequency makes the words "wrecking havoc" come to mind.


Just a wee bit...
:)
 
I'm coming in late to this movie, but WJJD in Chicago was fairly successful in the late '50s and early '60s. Not your typical daytimer, however, with a 50kw signal and additional operating hours on account of being allowed to stay on until sunset in Salt Lake City (not to mention pre-dawn operation if KSL happened to be off the air).

I've been wracking my brain trying to think of a successful daytimer meeting David's criteria (post 1995). Can't think of any, although I'm sure there are a probably a number of brokered and paid religion stations that are enjoying success at the cash register.
 
WERK gave new meaning to the idea of "shoehorning" an allocation. Protecting 980 in Dayton, 970 in Louisville, 990 in Jasper, 980 in Danville and of course 1000 in Chicago 9and probably several I missed).
 
Ken Tucky said:
How can any mention of Indiana & successful daytimers not mention the legendary WERK, Muncie! 250 Watts through 6 towers!
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And 990/WERK was a GREAT radio station, too. At its Top 40 peak (early seventies?) WERK could have competed in any market in America, given a competitive stick. Which, of course, was always the problem with daytimers...

Thanks for jogging our memories!

PS: The earlier mention of Indy's WXLW in this same thread is tied directly to WERK. Bill Shirk?
 
In the Poughkeepsie,NY market we had 950 WHVW, Hyde Park NY . They signed on in 1963 with just 500 watts using much used equipment . It was put on the air as a project by students of Tom Durffey of a local community college . They had a top 40 format, the only local station to try that . For 500 watts they did a great job, a tip to their engineering . They used the liner 950 crispy kilocycles. Of course there were far fewer local stations on the air then but by the early 70’s they had a whopping 51% of the audience . WHVW accomplished this while competing with the nations most listened to station music radio 77 WABC in New York City about 75 miles away . A fellow daytimer WEOK used to brag about with 5kw they had more power than all other mid Hudson valley stations combined . WHVW’s retort was we have more listeners than all other mid Hudson Valley stations combined .Unfortunately by the mid 70’s Mr. Durffey ran afoul of the FCC and was forced to sell. The new owners decided the day of music on AM were over and changed the format to all news and the calls WHPN. They went through a variety of formats and owners and sadly most people don’t even know WHVW is on the air . But it was great while it lasted . The station had some great Dee Jays including 'Large Sarg' who I recently heard went on to work for talk radio 77 WABC under another name for many years leaving only a short time ago .
 
Early in this thread a poster mentioned Huntsville's 1550/WAAY, but incorrectly identified them as a fulltimer in relation to 1000/WTAK's relative success. In fact, both stations deserve prominent mention as extremely successful daytimers.

Although there was a time when 1000 was a thorn in WAAY's Top 40 side--during the seventies as WVOV--the station really became a star daytimer in the eighties & nineties as AOR WTAK, maintaining a Top 5 ranking right up through 1993 when it finally passed the rock baton to FM. There may be enough evidence to declare 1000/WTAK "The Last of the Truly Successful AM Daytimers" (at least in the English-language/mainstream format/good-size market division).

But 1550/WAAY has a special place in the pantheon, too. Although the station currently on 1550 is (sort of) a fulltimer, with 44 watts directional at night--burning up several blocks of northwest Huntsville--the WAAY of 30 years ago was a daytimer. A big one--with 50,000 watts (but, yes, waay up at the top of the dial)--but still just a daytimer. Yet is was a whopping #1 in Huntsville with a 15 share (12+) as late as 1979... when CHR WZYP arrived. The end was brutal, with WAAY slipping from that 15 share down into the zeros by 1987... and going dark in 1989!

Wham! Sure, it happened fairly fast all across the country. But (as the late-date success of 'TAK & 'AAY attests) FM was fairly late arriving full-force in Huntsville, so when the curtain fell on 1550/WAAY, it fell hard!!!
 
radiolistener66 said:
Early in this thread a poster mentioned Huntsville's 1550/WAAY, but incorrectly identified them as a fulltimer in relation to 1000/WTAK's relative success. In fact, both stations deserve prominent mention as extremely successful daytimers.

Although there was a time when 1000 was a thorn in WAAY's Top 40 side--during the seventies as WVOV--the station really became a star daytimer in the eighties & nineties as AOR WTAK, maintaining a Top 5 ranking right up through 1993 when it finally passed the rock baton to FM. There may be enough evidence to declare 1000/WTAK "The Last of the Truly Successful AM Daytimers" (at least in the English-language/mainstream format/good-size market division).

But 1550/WAAY has a special place in the pantheon, too. Although the station currently on 1550 is (sort of) a fulltimer, with 44 watts directional at night--burning up several blocks of northwest Huntsville--the WAAY of 30 years ago was a daytimer. A big one--with 50,000 watts (but, yes, waay up at the top of the dial)--but still just a daytimer. Yet is was a whopping #1 in Huntsville with a 15 share (12+) as late as 1979... when CHR WZYP arrived. The end was brutal, with WAAY slipping from that 15 share down into the zeros by 1987... and going dark in 1989!

Wham! Sure, it happened fairly fast all across the country. But (as the late-date success of 'TAK & 'AAY attests) FM was fairly late arriving full-force in Huntsville, so when the curtain fell on 1550/WAAY, it fell hard!!!
Click to expand...

When did WAAY receive night authorization?
 
radiorob2.0 said:
When did WAAY receive night authorization?
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This station has had a weird history. It was originally a Class IV fulltimer on 1490, then switched frequencies to 1550 with 5-kw day... then added 500 watts night from a separate XMTR site... then in 2007 dropped to just 44 watts at night in order to operate from one transmitter site.

I would, however, cede to anyone who was personally involved with WAAY back in its 1970s heyday to clarify the technical history.
 
For many years, from the 1950's to the early 1970's WTUX in Wilmington DE was a daytimer (1Kw) that played "Beautiful Music" aka Elevator Music. They had a good following. Eventually the station was sold went Nostalgia and started operating 24/7 (low power at night) and later sold again, now to Clear Channel and operates 24/7 (low power at night) as AM 1290 The Ticket WWTX (Fox Sports Radio).

An earlier poster mentioned WNRK AM 1260 Newark, DE. It went on the air in 1963 as a daytimer. It too eventually went 24/7 (Low Power at night). Today the calls are WNWK and is still 24/7 and is entirely in Spanish as a Mexican ( not Hispanic) Music formated station.

Both AM 1260 and 1290 do show up in the 12+ numbers for the Wilmington market, granted with pretty low numbers, but for many years AM 1260 (WNRK) (WAMS) didn't show at all. AM1290 during the Nostaligia phase had better numbers than it does today, but after not showing at all for a couple of years as WWTX Fox Sports Radio, it is encouraging for CC to see the numbers finally starting to rise as word has gotten out about a sports talk station that also does air a local sports talk show, plus local sports.

So neither station is where they were back in their "hey day", but both have improved since their lowest times.
 
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