When Betty Korvan was inducucted into the Radio/TV Hall Of Fame last fall, Denny Sanders did the honors. At one point, he produced a copy of a 1980s Arbitron book, and started quoting some of Betty's ratings, just to illustrate to the current generation just who this person was and how successful she was, in the days when few women were on the air. She had 11 and 12 shares 12+ and 25s 30s and 35 shares in 18-34. Later, I went over to the table and asked to see the ratings book. Denny said "sure" and handed it to me. Sure enough, WMMS had double figures across the board in 12+, and huge, huge shares in 18-34. 20s 30s. On Saturday night, they had a 40 share of 18-34. I saw the figures.
As far as other AORs not switching to CHR reporting in order to get credit for INXS, Prince, Tears For Fears, etc, it was probably due to the fact that most AORs were not playing that music to begin with. WMMS always broke new music (their trademark) had a pop-rhythm sensibility (Hall and Oats, AWB, Isley Brothers) even in the 1970s which set them apart from most AORs. They even used to play some occasional Motown and oldies. They were an unusual station and broke a lot of rules back then.
Don't know how I can answer the Prince question. Larry Bole is still at Warners in Cleveland after all these years. Why don't you call him and ask him. I am sure that he will tell you.
The split in 1986 among the staff happened pretty much for a reason that you alluded to: Malrite hired a national PD (their first) about 1985, and he wanted WMMS to become more of a typical AOR, regardless of the fact that the ratings were spectacular.
He wanted emphasis on Deep Purple, Foghat, and other hard-rock dinosaur bands. These bands were still being played by MMS in those days, but the national PD wanted NOTHING BUT this stuff, like what most AORs were doing nationally. However, most AORs were dying nationally in the ratings (I guess he never looked at ratings outside of Cleveland either). As soon as Gorman and Sanders and the others split to establish the original, new-music based WNCX, Malrite's national PD (as predicted) swooped down and pulled most new music, re-establishing Foghat block parties and other outdated features. The result was the station lost all the female and 25+ gains that it made over the past few years, and when WNCX switched to 100% classic rock several months later, they finished off WMMS in males. The station got caught in a classic "squeeze play", and Malrite's big shot national PD didn't have the sense to see it coming, unlike like most of the WMMS local staff.
By the way, this "squeezeplay" of AORs (CHR on one side, fulltime classic rock on the other) pretty much finished off legends like WNEW-FM, KSAN and KMET in the 1980s. These stations refused to embrace the newer, hipper more rhymic stuff, and found themselves unable to compete with fulltime classic rockers.
By the way, I agree with your statement about the call letters. WMMS has not been a leading station, in either ratings or programming innovation for many years. It is sad to hear this once-great station groping around with no clue, sounding as common as the rock station in Scranton.
