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WOR Celebrates 90 Years On The Air

Interesting that the article says they signed on (in February) with Al Jolson singing "April Showers." You have to wonder why they picked that particular song. Unless it was on the top of the Hit Parade that week in 1922, when the Charleston was the big dance rage. Just think if they had played the Charleston first we might consider WOR to be a former "Dance Station" that never should have switched format!

The comment was made that WOR sounds only like 70 now. Actually, looking at a list of WOR's programs in the 1950s and 1960s it certainly sounds a lot younger now than it did then. Some people used to refer to it as the "little old ladies station" and they were guys who actually worked there.

Still for decades it was, by far, the top rated, and top billing, NYC radio station with the various John Gamblings holding down morning drive. Talk about "keeping it in the family" grandpa started with the shift in 1925, his son joined him in the 50s and took it over around 1959, and his son John R. is still doing it this morning. And for many of those years, it was one of the best paying gigs in New York radio.

Bamberger's Department Store has long since been acquired by Macy's and the building is now some kind of super secret telecommunications hub, with a basement rail line, and WOR continues to go on.

Give it credit, it is still also trying to be a trailblazer and make HD AM work, even if the carrier whistle gets a touch annoying.

Interesting that in radio's early days, two of the three NYC area radio stations were in Newark. WOR had its transmitters in Carteret, and WJZ, now WABC, had its transmitter in Bound Brook and both stations were trying hard to serve NYC and Philadelphia with one signal each.

Also interesting is that Bambergers started WOR to sell radios, not advertise the store. Some reports say they were selling crystal radios at $25 each, which was probably an average week's wages then. And now you can get a working FM radio in a dollar store for a dollar, but you can't get WOR on that kind of radio. Times change, but WOR still marches on with a John Gambling leading the band.
 
If it weren't for school closings, I'd never have known the station existed in the 60's. It was that "other station with the TV call letters" between WMCA, WABC, and WNEW (for my grandfather).

But rich in firsts for radio in the pioneering days.

Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!
 
there is nothing to celebrate at WOR. They really still sound like a station of the 40's. WOR'st station in the country.
 
How did their signal change with their recent tower relocation?
Used to be a DA-1, now a DA-2.
 
ai4i said:
How did their signal change with their recent tower relocation?
Used to be a DA-1, now a DA-2.
Click to expand...

On paper, WOR is DA-2, but check out the patterns; it's still DA-1. The D and N patterns are identical. Even the augmentations (there are four of them) are identical. The current pattern differs slightly from the pattern at the most recent former site (Lyndhurst?) however. When the station moved a few km several years ago, the pattern was tightened slightly to increase protection to a now-dark co-channel legacy Class B in western QC. I think the calls were CKVM. That mod must have decreased WOR's signal a bit in Rockland County and far northern areas of New Jersey.
 
Its easy to criticize WOR, but they obviously fill a niche. You can't hang in there for 90 years and not be doing something right.
 
TimeIsTight said:
Also interesting is that Bambergers started WOR to sell radios, not advertise the store. Some reports say they were selling crystal radios at $25 each, which was probably an average week's wages then. And now you can get a working FM radio in a dollar store for a dollar, but you can't get WOR on that kind of radio.
Click to expand...
Ironically, even today, WOR is the only signal I can pick up reliably on a crystal radio, day or night. Unfortunately, due to its wide bandwidth, I get to hear WOR's glorious telephone-quality 5 kHz audio mixed in with a tremendous amount of hissing from their HD Radio sidebands!
 
Ironically, even today, WOR is the only signal I can pick up reliably on a crystal radio, day or night. Unfortunately, due to its wide bandwidth, I get to hear WOR's glorious telephone-quality 5 kHz audio mixed in with a tremendous amount of hissing from their HD Radio sidebands!

That's so they can simulate the sound of a 78 RPM record! :D
 
WOR: 90 years old, but the "I-BUZ" (as one poster calls it) makes them sound over 100! :D
 
This morning John Gambling quoted something Steve Adubato said on "On The Line" on WOR last night. Is Adubato the new host from 8 to 10 pm? Or is "On The Line" some kind of feature? WOR's website shows nothing at 8 pm, followed by Joy Brown from 9-12.

I've tried listening to Adubato's various fill-ins on WABC and WOR over the years and always found myself drifting away after a few minutes. Yeah, he's knowledgeable, yeah he's opinionated, yeah he's a competent radio host, but there's something missing. He's not very personable and doesn't bring anything unique to the table.

WOR seems to be reverting to the kind of bland, third-rate radio it was before rehiring Gambling and adopting the "news/talk" positioning statement.
 
Is Adubato the new host from 8 to 10 pm? Or is "On The Line" some kind of feature?
Click to expand...

On Thursday night WOR joined a PBS simulcast of "On The Line With Governor Chris Christie" hosted by Steve Adubato.

The program was done live from the NJTV studios at Montclair State University, and is done periodically and carried on WNET, and the NJTV public TV stations. Sometimes Newark-based Jazz radio pubcaster WBGO joins in too.

WOR is a prominent member of the NJ Broadcasters Association, and has a lot of listeners and advertising clients in New Jersey. It can't make any money on "On The Line" since there are no breaks for spots, so it was probably carried as a PR thing. It certainly brought more people into the total audience.

Steve Adubato has managed to carve out a pretty big niche for himself on public TV. His business model is forming non-profits to produce public affairs talk shows, and then soliciting grants and donations from big money organizations to fund his productions, and he gets a respectable salary out of the pot. The shows are then offered to the non-profit TV and radio stations and in the New York area they are seen on all three with WNET and NJTV carrying them daily, and WLIW carrying them weekly.
 
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