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WCTC 1450 New Brunswick,NJ

A

alok

Back around 1967 on Saturday nights WCTC would countdown the Top 30 or 40 songs in Central Jersey.

Does anyone know the name the show had and the person that hosted it. I beleive during the week the station was MOR but on Saturday nights it was RnR.

The show sounded good.


Al
 
The show was called the Houseparty Show and was hosted by Larry Harmon who in reality was Larry Berger, later of WPLJ PD fame. It was indeed a great show and in fact I was Larry's fan club president. I also answered the switchboard in the show's later years when hosted after Larry by Nick Hutak. Larry had a pretty wide playlist with way more than just the hits. He played the top 20 based on record store sales results, and also had his Record of the week, Discovery of the Week, and then 3 to 4 even more obscure 45's that he played as part of his Record Battle with the record getting the most votes being declared the Record Battle Winner which would then make the survey and be listed and layed on at least the next week's show.

I am very much still in touch with Larry and have asked him jokingly not to sue me as I have modeled my Relics & Rarities show after the Houseparty Show, with Discovery of the Week, and super express train as Larry used for contests. The show was tons of fun back then as Larry read many dedications, did requests, and had many tab it and grab it's, the equivalent of name it and claim it.

I am glad that someone remembers this show as it was a great Top 40 show for sure!

Dave the Rave
WIBG-FM Air Personality
www.davetherave.com
 
I believe before Larry, the Saturday Night Houseparty show was hosted by "Bob" Breen. Bob's real name was Julian, and he left WCTC for WABC, where he was production director for Rick Sklar. Then he returned to WCTC's parent company, Greater Media in East Brunswick, as group PD, where he created the Magic format, used at WMGK Philly and WMGQ in New Brunswick.
 
Between, WABC and returning to Greater Media as group PD, Julian Breen was PD at KYA in the San Francisco market. He once told me the story of how he "invented" the Magic format based on the jukebox in an Embarcadero bar where he would wait for the Sausilito ferry on his way home from work.

He said the bar offered perfect demos with "successful professionals" of the right age, income, and psycho-graphic characteristics. While sipping a beer and waiting for the next boat, he would observe the patrons choice of music on the jukebox. Their choices were the basis for a radio radio format that was a big success in several major markets, and Central Jersey. I'll bet they never had a clue.

Julian passed away in 2005 at age 63. He lived in Pennington, NJ.
 
Actually Julian did a folk show on Friday night's from 12 midnight to 2am, but he did not do a top 40 show on Saturday nights before Larry Harmon started doing the Larry Harmon Houseparty Show. Larry also did a folk show on Saturday nights/Sunday morning from midnight to 2am called the Muse following his Top 4p Houseparty Show.

Larry told me that the Top 40 Houseparty show started because the station had advertisers interested in such a show, so being that advertising was committed for such a show, Larry was asked to do the Saturday night dedications and request show.

If anyone has tapes of this show salvaged from the days of reel to reel, I certainly would be interested in acquiring such.

Dave the Rave
Air Personality
WIBG-FM


TimeIsTight said:
Between, WABC and returning to Greater Media as group PD, Julian Breen was PD at KYA in the San Francisco market. He once told me the story of how he "invented" the Magic format based on the jukebox in an Embarcadero bar where he would wait for the Sausilito ferry on his way home from work.

He said the bar offered perfect demos with "successful professionals" of the right age, income, and psycho-graphic characteristics. While sipping a beer and waiting for the next boat, he would observe the patrons choice of music on the jukebox. Their choices were the basis for a radio radio format that was a big success in several major markets, and Central Jersey. I'll bet they never had a clue.

Julian passed away in 2005 at age 63. He lived in Pennington, NJ.
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