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WBMW-FM "B106"

M

mleach

Back in the mid 80's, the Washington area had a third top 40 CHR FM station. Besides WAVA and Q107 there was "B106" at 106.7 FM.

Exactly how long were they top 40? How well did they actually do? Reason I bring that part up, in the late 80's when I attended the Columbia School of Broadcasting, one of the instructors there had just quit from WBMW and since she was there during the "B106" days. One day before class I asked her about "B106" but as I found out that was one subject she really didn't want to talk about. No problem talking about WBMW but NOT its days as B106. The only thing she mentioned about "B" was that they had good ratings, had the money ( they had brought in Billy Idol and The Bangles to play the Patriot Center in 1987 ), great staff BUT....it was SCANDAL that did B106 in. That part ( the scandal ) she point-blank refused to talk about.

OK what exactly was this "scandal" that killed B106 WBMW?

The only thing I can remember was late Sunday night in the Spring of 1987 ( maybe it was early Summer ) I was listening to a call-in talk show on Q107 WRQX and I can remember some caller asking the host, despite this being on Q107 a question about B106. Something like "..what is going on over there? change?". The Q107 host as I can recall said "..while we can't comment about the incident involving WBMW-FM but we can tell you B106 is about to change format.." Again what was this "incident"?

I do know that in during 1986, B106 did sound great not too mention having one of the collest bumper stickers around and the jocks sounded great. I believe they were even using the same jingle package that Richmond's Q94 at the time were using. Then by June 1987 ( give or take a month or two ) , I tuned into B106..the jingles were gone, those bumper stickers were yanked from stores and the jocks sounded so sad I had almost expected to to start crying on the air

Last year going through my old stuff, I found my old B106 sticker and remembering this stuff I actually emailed Dave Hughes at DCRTV to ask what happened to B106. As a big of a fan of 106.7 he is/was, I thought for sure I would get an answer. Ah..no response !! Emailed him again..same results. Hmmmmmmm

Inquiring Minds Want To Know.
 
There is some of this history over on wikipedia for WJFK. B106 was a CHR from spring of '85 until spring of '88. Ratings were good in their area but the signal wasn't good in the northern suburbs of DC.

The scandal as I heard it was that "Crocket" and "Marty w/ the party" had sex w/ an underage girl in a company van. We're both fired an I'm guessing the owners didnt want anything to do w/ CHR after that. Crocket later resurfaced on 95.9 WKHI in Ocean City in the early 90s. NOt sure about Marty or if there were any jail sentences...
 
If I may add more to this old topic:

What happened was that March of 1987, Marty Dempsey and Davy Crockett had called a woman list posing as "Don & Mike" on B106 and told her that she had won a free trip and had arrange to met the two of them in a parking lot across the street from the station where she was sexually assaulted in B106's van. As it later turn out, this would be not the first time the two had been trouble while employed with B106. A few weeks later, the duo was arrested for a statutory rape charge stemming from 2 1985 incidents, both involving underage teenagers.

This incident, as well as the sale of the station from EZ Communications to Infinity, spelled the end of B106. The station abruptly flipped to Adult Rock by May, 1987, then switched to Jazz/New Age a few months later.

It also needs to be noted that the real Don & Mike was out of town at the time in Dallas on a contest trip for WAVA and, when they came back, was question by the police. Since there were plenty of witnesses to their whereabouts at the time of the incident, the acquisitions against them were dropped. They did talk about it on the air which even led to Q107's morning show to call them while they were on the air as well. Both WAVA and Q107 had asked listeners to call the police if they have any further information on the incident.

Robyn
 
Thanks for the clarification. I don't ever recall him ever being referred to as Davy, though. It was always just Crockett. When he resurfaced on WKHI, he used a different name. And when he returned to DC airwaves on the resurected Z104 in the late 90s, he didn't use Crockett either. I can't remember what name he used though.
 
I did screw up on a few things.

1: Don & Mike was in Tulsa, OK at the time doing a show, not Dallas.

2: I think I've got Crockett's name confused with another jock that went by the name Davy Crockett. This Crockett had worked at Z104/Frederick, MD, WMMR-FM/Baltimore and later went to Q106/Harrisburg, PA.

Here's a bunch of archived Washington Post stories about the arrests (sorry, you would need an account to access the full story).

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-1315731.html

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-1316090.html

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-1310731.html

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-1311101.html

It's sad about what happened to B106, but I think even if they didn't wound up with a negative image due to Crockett and Dempsey's actions, the station was doomed when EZ Communications sold out to Infinity.

Robyn
 
Thanks for the links.

However why is it that I get the feeling that radio is one of the few businesses where if one would get busted for this sort of thing...chances are they can still continue to work in radio?

Ten years ago Winchester's 92.5 WINC-FM had a very popular afternoon jock named Jason Taylor..so popular that with his help WINC was able to beat Q102 in the local ratings for the first time..ever !! Then Jason gets busted for having sex with a 14 year old girl and WINC gave him a choice..either quit or get fired. He quit. Yet despite the crime and I am pretty sure by law he had to register as a sex offender however from what I can recall he was offered some pretty big job offers to continue to work in radio including gigs in a few bigger markets such as Indianapolis, Denver, and Dallas ,however in the end I think he had taken a job in Pennsylvania..in radio.

makes one think doesn't it?
 
RobynWattsV2.0 said:
Since there were plenty of witnesses to their whereabouts at the time of the incident, the acquisitions against them were dropped.
Click to expand...

Perhaps, the word you're looking for is accusations, not acquisitions.
 
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