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WINZ 940 ALL NEWS

I am sure it was summer 1975, and yes they used NIS. They had quite a ratings bump from it. They were a charter NIS member IIRC.

Before that, it wasn't MOR; it was more of a hot AC/top 40 hybrid if you ask me. And, their slogan, which to this day was *no* promotion for the AM band, was this: "The AM that Sounds Like an FM." I wonder if they said that on WINZ when thunderstorms were around. ;)

I believe they were *supposed* to be MOR in late 74-75, especially when Tom Adams, a popular MOR personality at the time, came on board. But somehow they started playing rock. Wonder what happened to Tom.....he seemed to drop off after NIS.....Anybody?

cd
 
WINZ-AM 940 was already programming an All News format by 1973. As for the exact date it flipped from MOR to All News, I have no record.
 
cd637299 said:
And, their slogan, which to this day was *no* promotion for the AM band, was this: "The AM that Sounds Like an FM." I wonder if they said that on WINZ when thunderstorms were around. ;)

cd
Click to expand...

I believe that only occured on Tuesday's :)
 
jmtillery said:
WINZ-AM 940 was already programming an All News format by 1973. As for the exact date it flipped from MOR to All News, I have no record.
Click to expand...

You'll have to trust me....they were still playing music until 1975. I don't remember a lot of songs, but they did play "Jolene" by Dolly P. I won a prize as well in early '73, a free pass to the County Fair...I had to answer a DJ's question; couldn't have been news. See the Tom Adams post. One of the songs they played during Tom's short stint was "Can't Get Enough" by Bad Company (late '74), which had me (even at 15) wondering what they were doing. I do recall a news story that Tom had no problem playing rock.

For Tom's show only, 94.9 (I think they were Zeta 4 at that time) was simulcasting 940.

cd
 
I loved listening to NBC's NIS it was a very good format with the right mix of local-national news and features.
 
cd637299 said:
You'll have to trust me....they were still playing music until 1975.

cd
Click to expand...

I very distinctly remember seeing a full page ad in the Miami - Herald in the summer of 1973 which was promoting All News on WINZ-AM. Perhaps they started promoting it two years before implementing the format change... Hmm...
 
Maybe they scrapped the idea; I feel that WINZ was trying to establish an identity 1973-1975. I recall how the Tom Adams story made news.

Sure it was 1973? Maybe it was a news *block* and not a 24 hour thing? Would like to see the ad....

I can see most Miami News articles online, but it would be too much work to find. (And, I cannot print them.)

cd
 
jmtillery said:
cd637299 said:
You'll have to trust me....they were still playing music until 1975.

cd
Click to expand...

I very distinctly remember seeing a full page ad in the Miami - Herald in the summer of 1973 which was promoting All News on WINZ-AM. Perhaps they started promoting it two years before implementing the format change... Hmm...
Click to expand...

Can't be 1973 because Tim Baxter and I visited WINZ in 1974 or maybe early 1975 when Alan Michaels was there playing music. Geoff Fisher was down the hall at that new station Zeta-4.
 
Wish I could help, but I didn't join the station until '77.
I was babysitting the transmitter one of the two times they announced that it was 7:07 on 7/7/77 and running the control board one of the two times they announced that it was 12:34 on 5/6/78.
Two of the four announcers who gave those very special timechecks were retired WCKT reporter, Gordon Shaw, and Risa Jill Miller, who later went on to one of the early national radio sports networks.
 
Yep, WINZ was one, if not the 1st NIS station not in NY. While at WINZ Dick Casper helped create it and took it with him when he went to WNWS (790), which did irritate Guy Gannett ownership a lot, but not for long.
Since there are discussions of who owned what, There was a WINZ, WINZ-FM (but not on 94.9) and WINZ-TV. The TV (channel 39) didn't work out and signed off. A little piece of trivia, WINZ was caught up in the TV Quiz show mess of the mid 50's. It was owned by host Jack Berry and the FCC created enough pressure for Berry to sell. WINZ later made news when they stole Cousin Brucie from WINS to replace Bob Green, who decided he wanted to "pursue" Anita Bryant.
 
Wish I had known about the cuz, but that was before I discovered the box with the glowing orange things inside the back cover.
 
wrekfan said:
Yep, WINZ was one, if not the 1st NIS station not in NY. While at WINZ Dick Casper helped create it and took it with him when he went to WNWS (790), which did irritate Guy Gannett ownership a lot, but not for long.
Since there are discussions of who owned what, There was a WINZ, WINZ-FM (but not on 94.9) and WINZ-TV. The TV (channel 39) didn't work out and signed off. A little piece of trivia, WINZ was caught up in the TV Quiz show mess of the mid 50's. It was owned by host Jack Berry and the FCC created enough pressure for Berry to sell. WINZ later made news when they stole Cousin Brucie from WINS to replace Bob Green, who decided he wanted to "pursue" Anita Bryant.
Click to expand...

I PM'd you...WINZ-FM was allocated to 99.9, but I doubt it ever saw the light of day; I'm really not sure that WINZ 39 ever made it to air at all (what year was that?); I'd like to know more about THAT one!

cd
 
I recall listening to WINZ a lot while on vacation in Miami in April, 1971. They were a good sounding Top 40 station at that time....clearly going after WQAM and WFUN...with a much better signal than WFUN...and certainly a signal that could have competed with WQAM. I didn't recall them as Top 40 on visits in previous years...and I am sure that I would have noticed!!! I get the impression that this format didn't last very long. I noted it again in 1972, but that week I was more intrigued by 96.3-WMYQ...
 
wrekfan said:
Yep, WINZ was one, if not the 1st NIS station not in NY. .
Click to expand...

The full presentation by NBC of its NIS service, including details on stations, format structure, etc. is at

http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Station-Albums/NBC-NIS-1976.pdf

Page 152 has a Herald ad for WINZ's kickoff of all news via NIS on June 18. 1975. It was one of a a fairly significant number (33) of stations that started up right with the beginning of the network and located in such diverse places as Omaha, San francisco, Cleveland and Phoenix.

Page 196 names the 33 stations that went on with NIS the first day.
 
jmtillery said:
I very distinctly remember seeing a full page ad in the Miami - Herald in the summer of 1973 which was promoting All News on WINZ-AM. Perhaps they started promoting it two years before implementing the format change... Hmm...
Click to expand...

See the previous post... June 16, 1975.
 
That NIS promotion material was a great glimpse of what was going on in the business back then. Thanks for posting. So how long until NBC dropped the news format at its FM in NYC they called WNWS...and when did 790 pick the calls up in Miami...and did WINZ drop NIS and WNWS 790 pick it up? Or was it a totally different news set up? Did Dick Caspar take it to 790 and how soon was it after WFUN was gone?
 
WNWS in New York carried NIS from it's first day, June 18,1975 until December 31,1976. At the stroke of Midnight, 97.1 switched to a soft rock format and switched calls to WYNY. The NIS service ran until the end of May in 1977. Very few affiliates were on board by the end.

Not sure when 790 picked up the WNWS calls, but I think it was sometime in 1977 or 1978.

I really enjoyed NIS. The service had great sounders, announcers and imaging. It would be nice to have something similar now.
 
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