WIOQ (Before Q and Solid Gold)

[JH_Radio]

Wasn't WIOQ a rock station for a long time?
so that meant philadelphia had what. 4 rock stations?
WXPN as AAA,
WMMR as AOR or AAA,
WYSP as Rock40 or classic rock,
and WIOQ?
so WIOQ was a AOR station then?
Thanks,
John

 

[HGN2001]

WIOQ waffled quite a bit through the early part of the seventies. It started as a call-letter change from WFIL-FM with a soft rock Popular 102 format. Then they went a little softer with Stereo Island, and then it was back to Popular 102 again. This began to morph into a more Rock-CHR sound that then morphed into progressive rock.

They stayed that way for a while as different owners came in and tinkered with the format, as they backed off the progressive sounds to a more adult-rock sound. Then later in the 80s they went all-oldies before settling on the CHR format where they still exist today.

 

[kenneykop]

BTW 106.1 HD2 uses the waterfall for their top of the hour ID .

 

[HGN2001]

Waterfall - interesting term for it. I assume you mean this:

The full Stardrive - Intergalactic Trot album track is here:

 

[HGN2001]

That selection began life as a radio ID in about 1974 when the WIOQ program director Roy Laurence found the moog-instrumental album in the production library and began culling it for various ID breaks in place of the old Popular 102 jingles. As the station was leaning more toward rock, those old jingles just didn't cut it, so he'd record his voice over top of various sections of that LP. Eventually the "waterfall" portion took over as the favored track to use on the ID breaks and ultimately became the station top of hour ID. That lasted throughout the rest of the 70s and well into the 80s.

 

[JH_Radio]

I'm surprised it would have been used in the 80s with the rock format.
Harvy in the morning, maybe?

 

[deepstblu]

WIOQ was trying to make their way toward what we now call a AAA format--they even positioned themselves as something like "Philadelphia's Rock Alternative" before the oldies move--but they were doing it as a commercial station with no indie product, just '80s major label music. Think Suzanne Vega, Bruce Hornsby, Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill"...if they had kept going into 1988 10,000 Maniacs probably would have become one of their core acts. I suspect that much of their audience eventually found their way to WXPN, as Helen Leicht and David Dye from their air staff did.