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WLIR History

J

JH_Radio

Can someone explain the history of WLIR?
From what I can tell bassed on seeing aircheck listings, they were AOR until Aug 2 1982. At 6:00 AM they became alturnitive with John DeBella doing mornings.... No? (I have the '82 aircheck...) so am gathering from what I hear from that.
I have no idea what happend between 82 and 2001, but when I was here in 2001, 92.7 WLIR was flirting with what seemed to be a Dance/CHR/Modern Rock format.
Then something happend and they became spanish sometime between 2001 and the last four months of 2004. I hear some rumbelings of it changing way out east to WLIR with the "LIR" format at 107.9.
Now I am hearing there are three channels with no jocks, they are all chill and it is a trimmocast 105.3 (which I thought was "Party 105.3" Dance,
107.9 and some other channel (I want to say 106.3?

Can someone explain to a verry confused radio geek what happend with this format/station?
I think somehow WDRE got tangled up in the 92.7 mess which I so don't get because WDRE was doing Modern Rock in Philly, and started up in 1992. Were there two WDRE's too?

Thanks
John
<P ID="signature">______________
John
E-mail: [email protected]
AIM: RainAngelsRule
MSN: [email protected]</P>
 
> Can someone explain the history of WLIR?
> From what I can tell bassed on seeing aircheck listings,
> they were AOR until Aug 2 1982. At 6:00 AM they became
> alturnitive with John DeBella doing mornings.... No? (I have
> the '82 aircheck...) so am gathering from what I hear from
> that.
> I have no idea what happend between 82 and 2001, but when I
> was here in 2001, 92.7 WLIR was flirting with what seemed to
> be a Dance/CHR/Modern Rock format.
> Then something happend and they became spanish sometime
> between 2001 and the last four months of 2004. I hear some
> rumbelings of it changing way out east to WLIR with the
> "LIR" format at 107.9.
> Now I am hearing there are three channels with no jocks,
> they are all chill and it is a trimmocast 105.3 (which I
> thought was "Party 105.3" Dance,
> 107.9 and some other channel (I want to say 106.3?
>
> Can someone explain to a verry confused radio geek what
> happend with this format/station?
> I think somehow WDRE got tangled up in the 92.7 mess which I
> so don't get because WDRE was doing Modern Rock in Philly,
> and started up in 1992. Were there two WDRE's too?
>
> Thanks
> John
>

There's a decent history of the station here:

http://www.wlir.fm/927_wlir_history_page.htm

For a while, when they were using the WDRE call letters, they simulcasted in Philly. Then when they went back to WLIR on LI, the Philly station kept the WDRE calls. Now the WDRE calls are back on LI at 105.3

You can read other posts on this board for the latest disaster/travesty to happen to WLIR.
 
> Can someone explain the history of WLIR?
> From what I can tell bassed on seeing aircheck listings,
> they were AOR until Aug 2 1982. At 6:00 AM they became
> alturnitive with John DeBella doing mornings.... No? (I have
> the '82 aircheck...) so am gathering from what I hear from
> that.
> I have no idea what happend between 82 and 2001, but when I
> was here in 2001, 92.7 WLIR was flirting with what seemed to
> be a Dance/CHR/Modern Rock format.
> Then something happend and they became spanish sometime
> between 2001 and the last four months of 2004. I hear some
> rumbelings of it changing way out east to WLIR with the
> "LIR" format at 107.9.
> Now I am hearing there are three channels with no jocks,
> they are all chill and it is a trimmocast 105.3 (which I
> thought was "Party 105.3" Dance,
> 107.9 and some other channel (I want to say 106.3?
>
> Can someone explain to a verry confused radio geek what
> happend with this format/station?
> I think somehow WDRE got tangled up in the 92.7 mess which I
> so don't get because WDRE was doing Modern Rock in Philly,
> and started up in 1992. Were there two WDRE's too?
>
> Thanks
> John
>
I can tell you that at the very beginning, dawn of the 70s, they were "Avant Garde Rock radio", Mike Harrison at the helm,while in school, I was doing thev "Avant Garde Rock Report" ,which they taped over the phone and broadcast,cos I was too young to drive,and in their earliest days, they tried to take on BAB head to head and couldn't do it; the late 7os,early 80s "New Wave" saved the day, as they joined forces with the then new Island Ear, a publication I wrote for,and made history as a ground breaking, cutting edge station responsible for the early success of U2,Depeche Mode, the Police, and too many others to name.
 
The one thing the webpage didn't address was the effort to syndicate WDRE in the early 90's. Jared signed on the 98.5/Westhampton frequency back then and simulcasted 92.7 on it. Eventually they bought 103.9 in Philly (now CHR/Rhythmic WPHI) and a station in Albany (96.3?) and started the DRE Radio Network. At one point they were on two stations in the Cape Cod, MA market and even had an affiliate in Little Rock, AK which used the KDRE calls.

In the mid-90's, Russ Mottla became the PD and decided to take the station in a harder direction with more Indie music. He rechristened the stations the UN (Underground Network.) It was a colossal failure, as longtime WLIR/WDRE fans were turned off to the angry, grunge based sound. It led to the breakup of the network. Affiliates dropped away and the Jared/TMO stations wound up going local and eventually were sold off. By then the WDRE calls moved to Philly and 92.7 started using WLIR again. When TMO sold Philly to Radio One, the WDRE calls moved to 98.5 where they stayed until that station became the Bone.

Mike Thomas


> There's a decent history of the station here:
>
> http://www.wlir.fm/927_wlir_history_page.htm
>
> For a while, when they were using the WDRE call letters,
> they simulcasted in Philly. Then when they went back to
> WLIR on LI, the Philly station kept the WDRE calls. Now
> the WDRE calls are back on LI at 105.3
>
> You can read other posts on this board for the latest
> disaster/travesty to happen to WLIR.
>
 
> The one thing the webpage didn't address was the effort to
> syndicate WDRE in the early 90's. Jared signed on the
> 98.5/Westhampton frequency back then and simulcasted 92.7 on
> it. Eventually they bought 103.9 in Philly (now
> CHR/Rhythmic WPHI) and a station in Albany (96.3?) and
> started the DRE Radio Network. At one point they were on two
> stations in the Cape Cod, MA market and even had an
> affiliate in Little Rock, AK which used the KDRE calls.
>
> In the mid-90's, Russ Mottla became the PD and decided to
> take the station in a harder direction with more Indie
> music. He rechristened the stations the UN (Underground
> Network.) It was a colossal failure, as longtime WLIR/WDRE
> fans were turned off to the angry, grunge based sound. It
> led to the breakup of the network. Affiliates dropped away
> and the Jared/TMO stations wound up going local and
> eventually were sold off. By then the WDRE calls moved to
> Philly and 92.7 started using WLIR again. When TMO sold
> Philly to Radio One, the WDRE calls moved to 98.5 where they
> stayed until that station became the Bone.
>
> Mike Thomas
>
I think the Underground Network garnered something like 0.6 rating for 'DRE in the Nassau/Suffolk book back then. I don't recall though that the music the UN played was "angry and grunge-based". As I recall, the UN was in response to Z-100 basically occupying the same musical ground as 'DRE. It did prove to be a "colossal" failure though.
 
> > The one thing the webpage didn't address was the effort to
>
> > syndicate WDRE in the early 90's. Jared signed on the
> > 98.5/Westhampton frequency back then and simulcasted 92.7
> on
> > it. Eventually they bought 103.9 in Philly (now
> > CHR/Rhythmic WPHI) and a station in Albany (96.3?) and
> > started the DRE Radio Network. At one point they were on
> two
> > stations in the Cape Cod, MA market and even had an
> > affiliate in Little Rock, AK which used the KDRE calls.
> >
> > In the mid-90's, Russ Mottla became the PD and decided to
> > take the station in a harder direction with more Indie
> > music. He rechristened the stations the UN (Underground
> > Network.) It was a colossal failure, as longtime WLIR/WDRE
>
> > fans were turned off to the angry, grunge based sound. It
>
> > led to the breakup of the network. Affiliates dropped
> away
> > and the Jared/TMO stations wound up going local and
> > eventually were sold off. By then the WDRE calls moved to
>
> > Philly and 92.7 started using WLIR again. When TMO sold
> > Philly to Radio One, the WDRE calls moved to 98.5 where
> they
> > stayed until that station became the Bone.
> >
> > Mike Thomas
> >
> I think the Underground Network garnered something like
> 0.6 rating for 'DRE in the Nassau/Suffolk book back then. I
> don't recall though that the music the UN played was "angry
> and grunge-based". As I recall, the UN was in response to
> Z-100 basically occupying the same musical ground as 'DRE.
> It did prove to be a "colossal" failure though.
>

...about the only positive to come out of the Underground Network was Lazlow and his "Underground Harddrive" reports, which I believe are still syndicated.
 
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