Worst Top 40 stations and/or worst Top 40 jocks

[MsMusicRadio]

I'll start with WCRO in Johnstown PA. Dayparted big bands and Top 40. Also KDKA in Pittsburgh. Had a four hour talk block from 8-12 during it's prime as KQV's competition. All the kids tuned out at 8. As for worst Top 40 jocks, I'd add KD's Art Pallen. He was great playing MOR, but never got the hang of Top 40 in my opinion. Also WTVR AM in Richmond. Had talk from 10AM to 1PM and a drive time jock named Don Dale who should have been middays. Whatever it took to do 3-7 on a Top 40, Don was just not a good fit. Never had a chance against Big Lee. I'd also add the late Bill Lynch on WMCK "Mighty 1360" when it tried to compete against KQV. Bill was PD and had a slow and relaxing small town radio delivery. He was chopped liver against KQV's nightime guys. Bill must have put himself in the 8-12 slot for some reason.

Any thing else?

 

[radioman148]

The worst Top 40 jock I ever heard was "the Duke of Louisville" Bill Bailey when he worked at WLS.
I know he was a legend in Louisville, but when WLS brought him to Chicago to replace Clark Weber in 1969,
Bailey sounded horrible and didn't fit in at all. He was the worst sounding jock I ever heard at WLS.

 

[Silkie]

First place I check everyday that I am here is "Making Moves". And I check for license renewal dates and sales of stations for a specific station. They have a self-professed "button pusher" who spends her time trying to find out where people live, coincidentally showing up and devising ways of letting it be known if she got anyone to find the information. If I am not mistaken that is called felonious stalking at worst, invasion of privacy at the very least. And making up winners of contests. Guaranteed if the program director wasn't there and the music director wasn't there it would be the same thing. I check every single day, since the owners of the station should have an opportunity to get rid of her before any protests. Nobody in more than a decade has been as bad as that. She has herself a little networking thing going on.

 

[cyberdad]

Off the top of my head, I'd vote for WISM in Madison, WI. Some good talent there, but what I remember was an obscene commercial load....regardless of when you tuned in. Hey....if you're sold out, all that means is that your rates are too low.

I'm not sure if this would qualify, but WMAQ's mid-60s chicken-rock "Q format" struck me as rather lame. Top 40 presentation (albeit low-energy) but with non-top 40 jocks with safe, inoffensive, basically MOR music. The likes of Floyd Brown, Pat Sheridan, Millard Hanson, and Jim Hill spinning "Mrs. Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter", etc. Clark Weber eventually also joined the party, but by then things had morphed into a more standard MOR approach.

 

[radioman148]

Off the top of my head, I'd vote for WISM in Madison, WI. Some good talent there, but what I remember was an obscene commercial load....regardless of when you tuned in. Hey....if you're sold out, all that means is that your rates are too low.

I'm not sure if this would qualify, but WMAQ's mid-60s chicken-rock "Q format" struck me as rather lame. Top 40 presentation (albeit low-energy) but with non-top 40 jocks with safe, inoffensive, basically MOR music. The likes of Floyd Brown, Pat Sheridan, Millard Hanson, and Jim Hill spinning "Mrs. Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter", etc. Clark Weber eventually also joined the party, but by then things had morphed into a more standard MOR approach.

Yeah WMAQ had Bob Hale for a short time after he left WLS and before he went to TV. Talk about "chicken rock"
one day in 65 they played "All My Lovin" by the Beatles followed by Al Martino.

 

[cspotrun]

The worst Top 40 jock I ever heard was "the Duke of Louisville" Bill Bailey when he worked at WLS.
I know he was a legend in Louisville, but when WLS brought him to Chicago to replace Clark Weber in 1969,
Bailey sounded horrible and didn't fit in at all. He was the worst sounding jock I ever heard at WLS.

DITTO! how long did he last at the Big 89.

 

[firepoint525]

No particular station here, but I would say any station that interrupts its music too much for sports presentations! On some Saturday afternoons, it would be almost impossible to find music on the radio because of all the college football on the air! (I realize that sports is economic necessity, especially on small-town radio, but I still found it quite annoying! )

 

[MsMusicRadio]

Even at the stations I consider "worst", they had some good jocks too like Clark Race at KDKA, Tom Ogburn at WTVR, and Lou Janis at WMCK. Any of these stations could have been better, but they just kept too much of their previous MOR imaging creating a sound that for the most part was just "off". Or they kept long talk blocks that seriously interupted continuity. WMCA had talk from 11PM-1 AM, but it somehow did not distract from their sound. WKYC in Cleveland did Top 40 much better that sister station KDKA.

 

[radioman148]

The worst Top 40 jock I ever heard was "the Duke of Louisville" Bill Bailey when he worked at WLS.
I know he was a legend in Louisville, but when WLS brought him to Chicago to replace Clark Weber in 1969,
Bailey sounded horrible and didn't fit in at all. He was the worst sounding jock I ever heard at WLS.

DITTO! how long did he last at the Big 89.

Not long, less than a year.

 

[cyberdad]

No particular station here, but I would say any station that interrupts its music too much for sports presentations! On some Saturday afternoons, it would be almost impossible to find music on the radio because of all the college football on the air! (I realize that sports is economic necessity, especially on small-town radio, but I still found it quite annoying! )

If we're going to use that definition, I'd say interruptions for infomercials and/or paid religion. Presumably also economic necessity but more annoying than a good ol' ballgame any day.

"We interrupt this program to annoy and irritate you"....Monty Python (John Cleese IIRC)

 

[radioman148]

No particular station here, but I would say any station that interrupts its music too much for sports presentations! On some Saturday afternoons, it would be almost impossible to find music on the radio because of all the college football on the air! (I realize that sports is economic necessity, especially on small-town radio, but I still found it quite annoying! )

If we're going to use that definition, I'd say interruptions for infomercials and/or paid religion. Presumably also economic necessity but more annoying than a good ol' ballgame any day.

"We interrupt this program to annoy and irritate you"....Monty Python (John Cleese IIRC)

Does anyone remember the old "Pardon My Blooper" series produced by Kermit Schafer?

"We interrupt this news bulletin to bring you a program".

 

[Silkie]

As I have said elsewhere, enjoy the good ones while you have them, because there comes a day when they just decide they are going to fade into cyber oblivion somewhere, and you have them no more. We remember them, and yet they never had a clue who we were.

 

[firepoint525]

No particular station here, but I would say any station that interrupts its music too much for sports presentations! On some Saturday afternoons, it would be almost impossible to find music on the radio because of all the college football on the air! (I realize that sports is economic necessity, especially on small-town radio, but I still found it quite annoying! )

If we're going to use that definition, I'd say interruptions for infomercials and/or paid religion. Presumably also economic necessity but more annoying than a good ol' ballgame any day.
"We interrupt this program to annoy and irritate you"....Monty Python (John Cleese IIRC)

At least those are tucked away in overnights or early Sunday mornings.

 

[cyberdad]

If we're going to use that definition, I'd say interruptions for infomercials and/or paid religion.

At least those are tucked away in overnights or early Sunday mornings.
[/quote]

That's where they should be, but increasingly they're turning up in other time slots. CHUM in Toronto comes to mind as a place where these were getting sprinkled in all of the time...especially on weekends. Of course, that was mostly right before it got blown up.

 

[firepoint525]

If we're going to use that definition, I'd say interruptions for infomercials and/or paid religion.

At least those are tucked away in overnights or early Sunday mornings.

That's where they should be, but increasingly they're turning up in other time slots. CHUM in Toronto comes to mind as a place where these were getting sprinkled in all of the time...especially on weekends. Of course, that was mostly right before it got blown up.

You have my condolences. At my (former) station, we ran infomercials, but they were, and still are, religious Christian talk. Now you could argue why a "Christian" station is running infomercials, but that is another topic. (It was actually a way to sell unsold air time.)

At any rate, one of these infomercial advertisers faxed us an affidavit questioning why they didn't get any response from their infomercial(s) on our station. There was a "multiple choice" type form to mark the correct reason. One of the choices was actually something to the effect of "infomercial aired as scheduled, but there was no response"! Well, duh! Anyhow, someone from our station had to fill that thing out, and fax it back to them. Our station is a 50,000-watt AM blowtorch, and the infomercials aired during the day, but our station is virtually unknown, and virtually unheard, here.

 

[Silkie]

If we're going to use that definition, I'd say interruptions for infomercials and/or paid religion.

At least those are tucked away in overnights or early Sunday mornings.

That's where they should be, but increasingly they're turning up in other time slots. CHUM in Toronto comes to mind as a place where these were getting sprinkled in all of the time...especially on weekends. Of course, that was mostly right before it got blown up.

You have my condolences. At my (former) station, we ran infomercials, but they were, and still are, religious Christian talk. Now you could argue why a "Christian" station is running infomercials, but that is another topic. (It was actually a way to sell unsold air time.)

At any rate, one of these infomercial advertisers faxed us an affidavit questioning why they didn't get any response from their infomercial(s) on our station. There was a "multiple choice" type form to mark the correct reason. One of the choices was actually something to the effect of "infomercial aired as scheduled, but there was no response"! Well, duh! Anyhow, someone from our station had to fill that thing out, and fax it back to them. Our station is a 50,000-watt AM blowtorch, and the infomercials aired during the day, but our station is virtually unknown, and virtually unheard, here.

LOL - we have one of those kinds of stations. They turn up from out of town to make sales out of their market and listening area. In fact, they fade out and then you get a snippet; then they fade out and then a snippet. ROFL. So then they try to sell everyone on listening on the Internet, which nobody does, because they can't hear the station to go there. Then they announce that they are the local station. HA HA HA.

 

[gr8oldies]

I can think of a couple of horrible examples locally to me where I grew up. WERM in Wapakoneta, OH, while not full time top 40 ran the "6 to 10" club at night. This station was the definition of mom and pop radio. The modulation was just horrible, the records were cue-burned and it was just...bad. Good and bad..WMER in Celina, OH. 740 watts ERP and had just come off running Drake Chenault's "Hit Parade" when it went top 40. Positives: the local morning and midday shows, and a live request show on Thursday nights. Very good: hauling all the equipment out to the Mercer County Fair for a week of live broadcasting, remote turntables and all. Very Bad: The automated hours sounded like one of those very slow speed logger tapes, as they were producing their own. They'd also be unmanned overnights when they weren't supposed to be, which sometimes meant the same commercial stuck.

I can remember "KQ102" in Canton, MO from my brief foray into the Quincy-Hannibal market. Low budget so it was understandable.

Worst top 40 jock: Me! Tom clay never did much for me.

 

[MsMusicRadio]

Herb Oscar Anderson . Might have been great on MOR, but not a good fit for 77 WaBeatle C. Also the late Henry DaBecco on KQV. Even though we were sort of friends, he was also better for MOR and admitted he did not like KQV music and did get out and go to a B/EZ station when B/EZ had jocks and later did TV voice overs.

 

[Stuart]

The "Worst Jock' ever (from a person not in the radio business, but as a listener) has to be...

Danny Bonaduce (I know he is from the 90s' to present, but I thought it was a good topic)

Thanks,
Stuart

 

[radioman148]

Herb Oscar Anderson . Might have been great on MOR, but not a good fit for 77 WaBeatle C. Also the late Henry DaBecco on KQV. Even though we were sort of friends, he was also better for MOR and admitted he did not like KQV music and did get out and go to a B/EZ station when B/EZ had jocks and later did TV voice overs.

HOA didn't like Rock & Roll. He used to read the newspaper while the records were playing & the engineer would have to get his attention to let him know the record was ending.