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WNOV and WMCS

S

Scholarm1111

I had a recent chance to visit Milwaukee and do some taping of the 2 AM urbans. I am a former Milwaukee resident (mid-80s through early 90s) so I am always eager to catch up.

I want to give a short report.

I was a bit surprised that WNOV is running Big Boy in the morning now! Doesn't seem to really fit the Urban AC format. I think Yolanda Adams might have been a better fit. Too bad there isn't a nationally syndicated Urban AC morning show beyond Joyner and Harvey which are already on in Milwaukee. On other dayparts, Chaz Saunders is still voicetracking middays and Baisden is on in the afternoons. I was hearing quite a bit more spots than my last visit, especially local advertisers on WNOV, alot of them seemed to disappear after the format change from mainstream urban and local DJs so this is a good sign. In a bad sign, the station was off the air about a month ago for at least a week and now the station website (and stream) have completely disappeared. Anyway, the station sounds good with a tight current-based Urban AC format, hopefully they can find a way to make it work economically. I actually think they did not too badly for many years under the old format - tons of local advertisers. WNOV's urban heritage in Milwaukee goes back to around 1972 or 1973 I think.

WMCS is one of my favorite stations in the U.S. One of the most community minded urban stations in the country with local talk shows much of the day. Giving up the ESPN sports radio partnership at night has really served the station well. Nights are filled with local blues/r and b oldies and the Touch programming overnight. Weekends still sound great with oldies programs and the Touch. What a great sounding station and thankfully still streaming.

On a totally unrelated note but also from the Upper Midwest, another Urban AM WJNZ-AM Grand Rapids is back streaming from their website after a few months of a dead stream. Check out their Touch programming and Joyner and Baisden in the drives. In my heart, I guess I will always have a soft spot for AM urban radio.
 
Thanks for the info about WNOV, that's 41 years in the urban format, pretty impressive. Hopefully it will be maintained for years to come.
 
Had the chance to visit Milwaukee again last week. WNOV is still urban AC during the day but I was hearing some hip hop and r and b cuts mixed in at night. I think the station sounds pretty good at least during the day, the mix is a bit different at night. The station was still signed on at almost midnight, years ago they went off shortly after sundown. It was a treat to hear WNOV now that they no longer have a website or stream.

I still have to really praise WMCS, what a great sounding station, I like the blues/ r and b oldies from 6-11 PM and the Touch all night long. The station just sounds wonderful and brings back alot of memories of my time in Milwaukee in the late 80s/early 90s.

Was also able to catch a bit of afternoon drive on Gospel WGLB-AM as well. No stream for that station either.
 
Scholarm1111 said:
Had the chance to visit Milwaukee again last week. WNOV is still urban AC during the day but I was hearing some hip hop and r and b cuts mixed in at night. I think the station sounds pretty good at least during the day, the mix is a bit different at night. The station was still signed on at almost midnight, years ago they went off shortly after sundown. It was a treat to hear WNOV now that they no longer have a website or stream.

I still have to really praise WMCS, what a great sounding station, I like the blues/ r and b oldies from 6-11 PM and the Touch all night long. The station just sounds wonderful and brings back alot of memories of my time in Milwaukee in the late 80s/early 90s.

Was also able to catch a bit of afternoon drive on Gospel WGLB-AM as well. No stream for that station either.
Click to expand...
WNOV used to be a 250 watt daytime only station. Some years back the FCC allowed them to stay on 24/7
with a nightime power of 5 watts. There are a lot of stations that are allowed to broadcast at night with power levels
as low as 1 watt. The station I'm with has a nightime power of 6 watts which covers anywhere from 5- 10 miles, with a
decent signal, and even further(I've heard up to 20 miles out on a good night), which is enough to serve the majority of
our listeners because our tower is located right in the center of the town we serve, like WNOV is. A lot of stations do not
even bother staying on at night because their tower was built a few miles outside of the population center, and low power
levels would not really hit much but farmland or open fields.
 
Thanks for the info.

WNOV has a pretty good signal after dark in the heart of Milwaukee even with the very low power signal.
 
WMCS has a nice new stream using the Stream the World player. This is a nice improvement over the Abacast thing they had been using. This is a great station, love the music shows in particular

Still no sign of WNOV coming back to the internet.

http://www.1290wmcs.com/
 
Urban AC WNOV-AM Milwaukee has put up a new (very basic) website for its FM translator (Magic 102.5) which I think is a simulcast of the AM. It has a link to a stream but it is not working at the moment. Hopefully we will have a stream of WNOV soon.

Nice to see urban in some form back on 102 in Milwaukee. Of course WLUM at 102.1 was from the late 1970s through the late 80s an urban station.
 
WNOV is putting some more content on their website and a new stream is promised soon.

Interesting changes since I heard it last according to the website. Big Boy is gone from the mornings, voice tracked Chaz Saunders is no longer listed in the middays (too bad actually, I have always thought she was great), Baisden is still on in the afternoons. Hopefully, I can listen for myself soon.

http://majic1025fm.com/
 
I have to agree with your summary of WMCS. I'm from Milwaukee and this station is one of the highlights of my visit. It reminds me of how radio used to sound. Living in NC, I miss hearing the blues.
 
I enjoyed reading what these two stations are up to these days. I can remember in the early-mid 1980s WNOV played tons of rap, probably as much as any station in the Midwest. They were ahead of their time. Of course now it's hard to imagine any young format on AM outside of Radio Disney.

Does anybody remember WAWA? I have fond memories of that station from the 70s. Can WMCS trace any of their history back to WAWA even if they are on two different frequencies? What was on 1290 before WMCS? Was that the old WZUU-AM?
 
Hey, this is Milwaukee urban radio history that is also dear to my heart!

I believe 1290 became urban in 1985 or 1986 as WMVP it ran the original "Heart and Soul" format from ABC Radio straight off the satellite. Oh, the memories, that is the station where I cut my classic soul teeth (a bit too young to remember much of it from the 60s and 70s). Prior to this I think 1290 was WLZZ-AM and at that time was still owned by the owners of WZUU (Malrite communications?). I think they had a local mainstream oldies format prior to the format change to Heart and Soul. Even earlier in the 80s WZUU-AM simulcasted the FM's Adult Contemporary format (I think) best known for the DJ Larry the Legend. What I can't tell you is whether the format change to Heart and Soul happened under Malrite or Willie Davis's All Pro Broadcasting ownership. I tend to think it might have been a few years prior to Willie Davis buying the station. I know that he owned 1290 by the late 80s (1988/1989).

On WAWA-AM, I am a bit fuzzy, I do remember it in the 80s but I am not sure when it signed off the frequency. Of course WLUM 102.1 was WAWA-FM up until the early 80s. The format was urban until around 1983 when dance and top remixes were integrated into the format with the urban cuts. By 1986/87 the station was still playing the top urban contemporary hits of the day including things that did not crossover to the pop chart but mixing in alot of top 40 including stuff like Bon Jovi, it actually got kind of weird at times.

By the late 80s, WMVP had a strong local urban AC presentation with a deep community focus that pretty much continues to the present time (though they have recently picked up more syndicated shows). WMVP gave up its call letters to a Chicago sports station in the early to mid-90s.

I have alot of airchecks of WLUM from 1984-87, I hope to post them somewhere in some form in the not so distant future.

By the late 80s WLUM segued to a dance top 40 format and it was left to WKKV in the early 90s to provide Milwaukee with an urban FM. Originally, WKKV played it very safe, with alot of crossover and an urban AC orientation. And in the early to mid-90s, 103.7 in Milwaukee had a rather unique Rhythmic/Urban/Adult Contemporary format. 98.3 in Milwaukee started in the late 90s as Jammin Oldies and then sequed to Urban AC.

To get back to the original question, yes, WMCS claims some WAWA heritage when it claims it has been around for 30 years. Technically, this is not true though it probably is true that Willie Davis owned companies have had an urban AM radio presence in Milwaukee that long.
 
I agree that WLUM got pretty weird with its urban/pop format. I believe they did transition to rhythmic top 40 that was heavy hip hop for awhile sometime after V100 had gained traction. Then V100 skewed younger with a heavy hip hop rotation under Tony Fields leadership. WLUM then transitioned out of the format.

Another weird format was 103.7 with the urban/lite rock hybrid. I'm curious if there were other stations in the country that tried similar messes.
 
I have several WLUM airchecks primarily from 1984-86 and will post when I can. It actually was pretty cool when they first started mixing the pop/dance remixes with the urban in 1983 or so but by 1985/1986 they were mixing pop rock stuff like Bon Jovi and Glass Tiger with r and b chart only stuff like Michael Cooper, Shirley Jones and the O'Jays. I can't imagine too many other urban stations around the U.S. were doing the same. I am not even sure that the original plan with V100 was to go full fledged urban, they started out as a very light, crossover urban AC, I remember alot of Michael Bolton "When a Man Loves a Woman" right after the format change.
 
Scholarm1111 said:
On WAWA-AM, I am a bit fuzzy, I do remember it in the 80s but I am not sure when it signed off the frequency. Of course WLUM 102.1 was WAWA-FM up until the early 80s. The format was urban until around 1983 when dance and top remixes were integrated into the format with the urban cuts. By 1986/87 the station was still playing the top urban contemporary hits of the day including things that did not crossover to the pop chart but mixing in alot of top 40 including stuff like Bon Jovi, it actually got kind of weird at times.
Click to expand...

Actually WAWA was on AM 1590, and like WNOV 860 it was a daytimer. Willie Davis' All Pro Broadcasting bought 1290 which became WMVP (Now WMCS) which is a 24 hour signal and signed off 1590.
 
Thanks for the details! Looks like a fairly complete history is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WMCS

The article says the year of All-pro buying WMVP 1290 and signing off WAWA 1590 was 1988. So from about 1985 to 1988 - 860, 1290 and 1590 all had urban formats of some type and WLUM-FM stayed with the format in a hybrid form until the late 80s.
 
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