WLNGs Sock Hop VS WICCs jukebox

[Newpoint]

I think its been a couple years since Mark Edwards brought Sock Hop Saturday Night to WLNG FM from Connecticuts WICC. In my opinion this has to be the utmost in oldies shows. The music and Marks delivery as well as his sense of humor are what makes the show so unique for me, even better than Simone's on WABC. And plenty of Marks fans followed him to Long Island. Even at WICC the show had top ratings. Then the smart folks over there did what they seem to do best and that is make a mess of a good thing and canned the show and Mark.

You should hear how many calls he still gets from Connecticut especially Shelton which is right in WICCs back yard. Tonight a friend from over there called me to say that WICC is back to playing oldies on Saturday night trying to get back the listeners that went to WLNG with Mark. But what did WICC put on the air to compete? Basically an oldies juke box with an occasion voice track from Al Waren and their "tough guy" staff announcer saying you are listening to the Oh Wow Oldies Show. Its a joke but with the people they have running the station over there I am sure this is the best they could do. They even borrowed the name of the show from a program that used to be on their sister station WEBE a number of years ago with Stormin Norman. Talk about a lack of creative thinking.

I am sure even Paul Sidney would have a laugh at this one. Thank you WLNG and Paul Sidney for getting Mark Edwards and Sock Hop Saturday Night on such a great station. This is what real radio should be. Please dont ever let this one get away.

Paul if you read these messages I hope you are feeling better.

 

[Russty]

Re: WICCs jukebox & more

> WICC is back to playing oldies on Saturday night...

This must be a brand new program because there is no mention of it at all on the website. I guess with the sustained popularity of Marc's show, even after forcing him to find a new home, and the trend of other stations running music on weekends, like WABC and the Mark Simone thing, that WICC/Cumulus Media has reconsidered music as a valid form of programming.

It's interesting to look at the WICC schedule and see just how much music has been re-introduced to the schedule over the last couple of years. Al Warren is now on Both Saturday and Sunday Mornings playing music. All Day Sunday there is music with JLB's Italian House Party and Standards By The Sea each repeated twice. There is also the Snooze alarm Show with JLB each weekday morning from 4-5 which is music. Now they add oldies back to the Saturday night slot.

Another interesting note about WICC is their decision to dump the syndicated Neil Boortz show in favor of a local talk host, Jim Buchanan talking about Local CT issues. Kudos to that! That basically leaves the weekday programming with only two syndicated shows, being Bohannon over night, and Klark Howard during the early afternoon. The rest is all live and local talk. WICC still does well in the Bridgeport ratings, and bills well too. You almost have to wonder why a market like Bridgeport that receives the same NYC coverage as we do here on LI, is able to be not only sustainable, but also very successful. Their success makes you wonder why repetitive attempts at similar formats here on LI have always flopped.