What are Pittsburgh's Biggest Radio Failures?

[FreddyE1977]

I vaguely remember sometime in the late 70's/early 80's hearing WEEP broadcast after sundown
"for testing purposes only". Just a loop with snippets of country songs and that announcement
being made over and over again. Apparently they were looking into full-time operation.

 

[kenhawk1160]

Energy 105:

Right format, wrong time...wrong owner. Gateway already inked the deal to sell WKPA and WYDD to Salem, then reneged on the deal. Problem was, Nelson didn't have the cash to maintain a high-maintenance format like this one, and he sure as hell didn't have the money for the lawyers needed to fight off Salem's attorneys, who were going at him with hammer and tongs.

Then there was an internal problem of a former GM who gave away a trip to Sandals Resort on the air without inking the deal first, then bailed. This was part of the mess that George Hart was re-hired by Salem to clean up.

Energy 105 could have kept on going. They had the ratings and the revenue. But so much else was happening, and for what they were doing in terms of an on-air product, it was bad business for Salem to keep a general market station like this one in its portfolio.

Rebel 104.7:

I can best sum it up this way, as I was there:

Never tell your airstaff "there are no rules" and "I'll back you up"...and then fail to do it.

Towards the end, it was a pathetic shadow of its former self. It was almost apologetic in its on-air approach. I was glad to be out of there and in Detroit at that point.

 

[xm41]

Energy 105:

Right format, wrong time...wrong owner. Gateway already inked the deal to sell WKPA and WYDD to Salem, then reneged on the deal. Problem was, Nelson didn't have the cash to maintain a high-maintenance format like this one, and he sure as hell didn't have the money for the lawyers needed to fight off Salem's attorneys, who were going at him with hammer and tongs.

Then there was an internal problem of a former GM who gave away a trip to Sandals Resort on the air without inking the deal first, then bailed. This was part of the mess that George Hart was re-hired by Salem to clean up.

Energy 105 could have kept on going. They had the ratings and the revenue. But so much else was happening, and for what they were doing in terms of an on-air product, it was bad business for Salem to keep a general market station like this one in its portfolio.

Rebel 104.7:

I can best sum it up this way, as I was there:

Never tell your airstaff "there are no rules" and "I'll back you up"...and then fail to do it.

Towards the end, it was a pathetic shadow of its former self. It was almost apologetic in its on-air approach. I was glad to be out of there and in Detroit at that point.

I just remembered that for a short while before the flip to Energy they were calling it Power 105 with a hot top 40 format and same YDD staff.

 

[kenhawk1160]

I just remembered that for a short while before the flip to Energy they were calling it Power 105 with a hot top 40 format and same YDD staff.

Power 105 was a joke. It was a weak attempt at Energy 105 before Nelson was finally convinced to actually spend some real money and launch this format the way it was supposed to be.

An FYI...some of these jocks were making $50K a year...and NOT in AM drive.

Had it not been for Energy 105, Mike Frazer never would have enjoyed the career success he's had in this market for more than 20 years now. He ranks with Cigna and Al Julius as NYC transplants who moved here and made it big. And yes, I know I'm leaving others out...the other names aren't coming to me at this point.

 

[slimmons]

Energy 105:

Right format, wrong time...wrong owner. Gateway already inked the deal to sell WKPA and WYDD to Salem, then reneged on the deal. Problem was, Nelson didn't have the cash to maintain a high-maintenance format like this one, and he sure as hell didn't have the money for the lawyers needed to fight off Salem's attorneys, who were going at him with hammer and tongs.

Then there was an internal problem of a former GM who gave away a trip to Sandals Resort on the air without inking the deal first, then bailed. This was part of the mess that George Hart was re-hired by Salem to clean up.

Energy 105 could have kept on going. They had the ratings and the revenue. But so much else was happening, and for what they were doing in terms of an on-air product, it was bad business for Salem to keep a general market station like this one in its portfolio.


They had the ratings? Was this in the younger demos? Overall, they had the same share in the twos that WYDD did for most of its top 40 existence. Presentation and monikers aside, wasn't 104.7 still just the other hit music station in town?

 

[xm41]

Wasn't 104.7 still just the other hit music station in town?

Since the mid 70's 104.7 was almost always the "other station". They had a brief period of notoriety as Pittsburgh's Heartbeat and Metro Music with a New Wave format in the early 80's but by late 85 they had morphed into a B-94 wannabe. Until the 90's they were hamstrung by a poor signal.

 

[cingram]

Since the mid 70's 104.7 was almost always the "other station". They had a brief period of notoriety as Pittsburgh's Heartbeat and Metro Music with a New Wave format in the early 80's but by late 85 they had morphed into a B-94 wannabe. Until the 90's they were hamstrung by a poor signal.

As was 100.7. Most of the "failures" on these two frequencies can be attributed to the signal problems. Neither
enjoyed real success until they moved in to better serve the city.

C.

 

[xm41]

Since the mid 70's 104.7 was almost always the "other station". They had a brief period of notoriety as Pittsburgh's Heartbeat and Metro Music with a New Wave format in the early 80's but by late 85 they had morphed into a B-94 wannabe. Until the 90's they were hamstrung by a poor signal.

As was 100.7. Most of the "failures" on these two frequencies can be attributed to the signal problems. Neither
enjoyed real success until they moved in to better serve the city.

C.

Yea, who can forget Big Band 101. : They might have had some success if they actually programed a format that anyone older than 70 wanted to listen to. Did they make any money or were they somebody's private passion/hobby? I remember my grandmother always had them on in her house. As a kid I think I heard them running ads for cemetery plots. At the time it kinda creeped me out but looking back I guess they were catering to their listeners.

 

[Parttimer]

Yea, who can forget Big Band 101. : They might have had some success if they actually programed a format that anyone older than 70 wanted to listen to. Did they make any money or were they somebody's private passion/hobby?

WNUF was owned by Milt Hammond, who also owned the Green Sheet classifieds. He liked golf, so they had a Golf Show on weekends, where the jocks had to read stories about golf from the newspaper between songs.

 

[Boss Radio]

J. Milton Hammond. One of the stories is about him is he took a stack of records into the studio and told the DJ they were what he wanted to hear on his drive home.

 

[PHIL Z]

Why not 1080? 4 watts at night. From Hampton Township. When I worked at WEEP in the 80's we couldn't even hear the night signal in the studios downtown, we had to run a phone line from the modulation monitor at the transmitter site to have an air monitor.

Not that it would have made a huge difference but WEEP's post-sunset power facility was from closer-in the Spring Hill site. The authorization at the time specified daytime and critical hours from Hampton. Nevertheless, that 4 watts blanketed a few streets on the North Side and not much else.
[/
Myron told me that he did a study to get some night time power. He designed an array of 6 or 7 towers in a semi circle which would support a large mesh fence about 200 feet high. He would then place one additional tower in the focal point and he would be able to operate with about 50 watts. He admitted that it was not practical. This was to protect WTIC. He didn't think it would be a problem with KRLD.

When Mike Horvath Rebuilt the WWNL Transmitter Plant in 2000 he told me 1080 could run 10 watts at night

 

[PHIL Z]

Washington Broadcasting [WJPA] was Looking at WESA 940/98.3. But Keymarket Got It. WJPA would Have been a beter Choice.

 

[filenz]

J. Milton Hammond. One of the stories is about him is he took a stack of records into the studio and told the DJ they were what he wanted to hear on his drive home.

When I worked for him and WNUF in the early 70's one day I was introducing a set of big band favorites when Milt come into the studio and took the tonearm of the record I was playing on the air, it was a Jimmy Lunciford song. I just looked up at him & shrugged my sholders. He said I never want to here that record again. I said, it was in the library but he didn't care.

 

[Alton]

The whole Steve Hansen era at KDKA. Went from being No. 1 in town to dropping like a brick.

Point on!

 

[MsMusicRadio]

Mighty 1360 and WCeeAE who tried to take on KQV and failed

 

[FreddyE1977]

The Pittsburgh Penguins moving their games from KDKA to KQV/WTAE whose nighttime signals
barely made it out of Allegheny County.

 

[SteelRocker]

Programming Fail: The Man Station at 93.7 after an excellent Active Rock format prior to it.

 

[FreddyE1977]

Labor Day brought a simulcast of Pirate Baseball on KDKA.

They could have done worse.

They have.

 

[Pratte4Life]

Steel- somebody said K-Rock was one of Pittsburgh radio's biggest failures.

Actually, K-Rock did well initially. If I recall, when they had Howard Stern on in the mornings he helped the station earn bigger ratings than they had in the B-94 days.

What killed K-Rock was simply what killed all of the CBS rock properties of that time, The David Lee Roth Show.

So if K-Rock was a failure, it wasn't a "Pittsburgh" failure. It was a national one.

 

[SteelRocker]

Steel- somebody said K-Rock was one of Pittsburgh radio's biggest failures.

Actually, K-Rock did well initially. If I recall, when they had Howard Stern on in the mornings he helped the station earn bigger ratings than they had in the B-94 days.

What killed K-Rock was simply what killed all of the CBS rock properties of that time, The David Lee Roth Show.

So if K-Rock was a failure, it wasn't a "Pittsburgh" failure. It was a national one.

K-Rock was started when Howard came back to the Pittsburgh market. David Lee Roth was a terrible morning show, then what really killed the station was the guy who was absolutely terrible in the afternoons from 3-6, syndicated out of Philly. I cannot recall his name, but that was the final spike in the K-Rock coffin. It was nice having The X and K-Rock and could flip back and forth when one or the other was doing commercials. Now since 2009 I've been here in Lancaster, PA and we don't have anything close as good as 105.9 The X or K-Rock. Thankfully I can listen to The X on Iheartradio.