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WQLT

T

theradioguy2004

Guest
I have been in radio for what seems like forever starting when I was a kid back in the mid 70's at WQLT in Florence Al. At that time it was a new CHR station with jocks who went on to great jobs including Rusty Walker formally Sam Darwin, Ron Wallace known then as Your Buddy Ron and managed by a guy names Chuck Manson who was a real radio guy ( Not someone who just saw radio as a cow cash operation like monopoly game pieces. Anyway at the time it was a great station competing with 2 other CHR stations in the area. It is now an AC station as far as I know.
I want to know when and why it went AC and did they just get rid of the high energy jocks that were there at the time. I know the change could have been because of WVNA at the time one of those elevator music stations when AC and that might have made the management afraid they would only be left with teens. If anyone knows the history of the station from 1975 or so to not let me know. Working there was one of the best times of my life even if the pay was low. We did a lot of insane things and as the audience was kept in sapience so were they jocks the way the station was run and we were truly a team.
 
Jeff would love to hear more about this as well. I've been digging for Florence radio history and didn't get much in the way of results.
 
"Your Buddy Ron....for Sears Junior BAZAAR-AH!"

That was a great radio station. I stole lots from my memeories of them when I got to be a PD a few years later.
 
WQLT has slowly evolved into the oldies/AC station that it is today. There was not a specific time that I can recall when you could say it is now oldies/AC. The jocks have also evolved in much the same way. WQLT has been my favorite station since the 70s when they increased power to 100Kw. It allowed all of us in the Tennessee Valley to listen to them.

I have often wondered what happened to several of their former jocks like Ron Wallace(where is he now?). I can even remember him at WMSL in Decatur along with Charlie Mattox, who went on to WAAY. Maury Buchanan was another that went on to WVOV as Chris Tyler and is now in Nashville with Mission Discovery. Mid-day guy now has been there for years and is another one I grew up with at WVOV, Charlie Ross/Dave Tipps.
 
One of the things I stole was the name "Jeff Rivers;" gave it to a night guy down in McAllen-Brownsville in 1984. I don't think he did much damage.
 
This may be a little off subject but I find this kinda strange. Q107 IDs their station at the top of the hour as "WQLT, Florence, Decatur, Huntsville" but they never once have ever shown up in the Huntsville numbers. At all. With the success of the 2 AC stations Huntsville has along with the early success of the new Classic Hits on 100.3, I would think that WQLT would show up with atleast a few tenths of a share bare minimum if nothing else, especially since Decatur and Athens are part of the Huntsville market. What's up with that?
 
If I recall correctly they changed over to what is now their current format somewhere around 1990. For much of the 80s it was Them, WVNA and a station out of Russelville competing for CHR. WQLT dropped to a mostly 70s-80s format first, then the Russelville station went away, and flipped to classic rock to country sometime in the mid 90s. WVNA dropped CHR around 1993 and went classic rock which its been ever since.
 
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