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WWDC 1260 HISTORY HELP Top 40 or MOR?

T

thebeach33445

Hey Guys:

Can anybody help me with the history of WWDC 1260 in the 50's 60's and 70's?

What was WWDC's format in the 50's and 60's? Was it MOR or Top 40? I found surveys in 1964 saying it was Top 40. I also found playlists in the WPGC memorial site showing that the songs WWDC played was almost identical as WPGC.

I do know that in Sept 1973 WWDC went Top 40 from MOR which lasted till 1981 when it simulcasted the FM.

Thanks for your help

T.J.
 
t.j. said:
Hey Guys:

Can anybody help me with the history of WWDC 1260 in the 50's 60's and 70's?

What was WWDC's format in the 50's and 60's? Was it MOR or Top 40? I found surveys in 1964 saying it was Top 40. I also found playlists in the WPGC memorial site showing that the songs WWDC played was almost identical as WPGC.

I do know that in Sept 1973 WWDC went Top 40 from MOR which lasted till 1981 when it simulcasted the FM.

Thanks for your help

T.J.
Click to expand...

I recall when WWDC/1260 switched from its' MOR to simulcasting WWDC-FM (DC/101) in 1981. I actually had a brief tour of the WWDC studios while attending the 1981 IBS Convention that year. The station had just begun the AM/FM simulcast. The carts for the AM side were still racked in the studio. They had some really nice people giving us the tour. One of the employees remarked about the ending of the MOR format was partially because of the less-than-adequate signal in the Metro DC area. The ground system was in rough shape. They were in the midst of fixing it, at the time. I noticed especially at night that the skywave was kind of encroaching the WWDC coverage area, even in the District. Hard to believe that this was 30 years ago!
 
Sometime in the late 70s WWDC-AM went top 40. I remember Loo Katz was the program director and afternoons. Marty Dempsey was doing nights. I have some hit surveys from the late 70s. I remember WWDC-AM was the first place I heard Van Halen's "You Really Got Me" on top 40. I do believe they went more Hot AC around 1980. I was in college and a fellow DJ at WMUC (The University of Md CHR AM carrier current station) got a job doing weekends and he had to tone down his CHR delivery. He took me to the station one Sunday evening so that he could meet someone for an aircheck critique session. I was sitting in the lobby as they were giving a tour to the FM's new morning show team that was to start the next day. It was this new guy named Howard Stern and his co-host Robin Quivers. I also remember Ron Lewis was there at the time as well as Beverly Fox in their latter-day Hot AC format.
 
WWDC-AM 1260 was a full service MOR radio station from the 50's through 1977. That Summer, it switched to Top 40. In 1980, it became an Adult Comtemporary station. In 1981, it became DC-101 AM, which simulcast Howard Stern in the morning and had separate programming in middays and the evenings. Two years later, it went automated with an Adult Standards format. That eventually went live in several dayparts with Eddie Gallagher in the mornings. It is now WWRC-AM.
 
WWDC in the late 1970s was a good station, but simply could not compete with the nascent FMs; plus WRC was still playing music on 980. There was also a slew of suburban AMs clogging up the band--WEAM, WEEL, WDON, WLMD, WYRE, WPRW, and WINX. Then there were the soul AMs like WOL and WOOK.

Lou Katz brought in the great James Michael Wilson from Detroit and hired Jack Casey from WKYS, but I forget who did mornings. This was not longer after AVCO sold the station to the construction and real estate mogul who owned the building across from Metro Center Howard Stern made famous, under the in-famous Goff Lebhar. I know Goff is famous for Stern but the wildest thing Goff did in my eyes was his hiring of Johnny Holiday to do mornings at WJMD.

An up-tempo rock jock doing beautiful music never quite worked and soon thereafter both Goff and Johnny were gone--and so was WJMD.
 
I have an old reel-to-reel aircheck of WWDC-AM's "Oldies/Grease Weekend". They broke out the old jingles and cranked up the reverb to obnoxious levels. It was great! I think Steve Dreppard was working there at the time. I forget what name he used to go by. I can't remember if this took place during the top 40 or the AC days. I have to get my reel-to-reel fixed so I can listen to it again.
 
Here's where amandfmmorningside.com can come in handy with figuring out the formats. The week of October 8th, 1966 in the Evening Star:
http://www.amandfmmorningside.com/wpgc_playlist_1966_10_08th.html
WWDC's top ten playlist consists of ? & the Mysterian's "96 Tears", Count 5's "Psychotic Reaction" and 4 Tops "Reach Out". Then go to the next week of October 15th, 1966: http://www.amandfmmorningside.com/wpgc_playlist_1966_10_15th.html
WWDC's top ten suddenly consists of "Summer Samba" by Walter Wanderly, "Born Free" by Roger Williams and "The Wheel of Hurt" by Margaret Whiting. Sounds like a format change to me.
 
Here's another fascinating transition for WHMC in Gaithersburg. 12/31/66 they're playing everything on the top 40. Their Top Ten consists of "I'm A Believer" by the Monkees, "I'm Losing You" by the Temptations and "Standing In The Shadows Of Love" by the 4 Tops. In the same week they're playing "That's Life" by Frank Sinatra, "Mame" by Herb Alpert and "Open Up The Door" by Dean Martin. 1/7/67 the whole Top Ten consists of Frank, Dean and Herb Alpert plus "Hawaii" by Henry Mancini, "I've Lost My Heart Again" by Jerry Vale and "Ghost Riders" by Baja Marimba Band. They lost their Evening Star reporting status by 1/28/67. But they regained their Evening Star reporting status on 11/9/68. This time their Top Ten consists of "Electric Lady Land" by Jimi Hendrix, "Cheap Thrills" by Big Brother and Holding Company and "Electric Mud" by Muddy Waters.
 
Both playlists have Bob Raleigh's name on it. Was Tiger Bob Raleigh there for the transition? If you follow the charts, I notice on November 12th that "Good Vibrations" by the Beach Boys is in the Top 10. Then the following week "You Keep Me Hangin' On" by the Supremes is in the Top 10 and then the following week "Mellow Yellow" by Donovan is in the Top 10 and then The Monkees "I'm A Believer. None of which ever charted on
Billboard's MOR charts when they were hits. But also in the Top 10 each of those weeks "Mame" by Herb Alpert, "Sugar Town" by Nancy Sinatra and "That's Life" by Frank Sinatra. Was WWDC backpedaling their sudden switch to MOR or were they an early version of Adult Top 40?
 
Here's another format shift for you. WEEL started doing a "rock thing" in October of 1969. October 4th, 1969 the #1 song on WEEL was "Jean" by Oliver with Gary Puckett & the Union Gap at #2. Then October 11th, 1969 the top 10 consists of Janis Joplin, Blind Faith, Iron Butterfly, The Band and Vanilla Fudge. That format continues until April 11th,1970 when the #1 song is "Message of Love" by Jimi Hendrix Experience. Then April 18th, 1970 their top 10 consists of The Supremes, Bobby Sherman, Dionne Warwick, Marmalade, Ides Of March, Simon & Garfunkle...and who could forget "For The Love Of Him" by Bobbi Martin.
 
ronlewis said:
WWDC-AM 1260 was a full service MOR radio station from the 50's through 1977. That Summer, it switched to Top 40. In 1980, it became an Adult Comtemporary station. In 1981, it became DC-101 AM, which simulcast Howard Stern in the morning and had separate programming in middays and the evenings. Two years later, it went automated with an Adult Standards format. That eventually went live in several dayparts with Eddie Gallagher in the mornings. It is now WWRC-AM.
Click to expand...

That's pretty much correct but not quite. In the 60's, WWDC was a full-service personality station with MOR pacing, but the music was close to top 40 without the hard stuff. I'm pretty sure the evening show, hosted by (the original) Bob Raleigh, was targeted to a top-40 audience until the late 60's.
 
That makes sense. The Top 40 stuff in heavy rotation at night was probably what was cracking the Top 10. It seems that everybody was all over Beatlemania. With the exception of WMAL, everybody seemed to be doing Top 40. Perhaps after Beatlemania died down a bit everyone realized the playing field was oversaturated with Top 40. WWDC seemed to go even more MOR and started playing Jerry Vale and Margaret Whiting. WHMC seemed to go more MOR and then rock. WEEL looks like they tried an album rock phase. WPGC seemed the "most" Top 40 of all the Washington AM stations. Judging by the playlists, WEAM seemed a little watered down. I was surprised by how aggressive WINX was. I worked there in the 80s when they were oldies, then MOR, then Adult Top 40, then MOR, then nostalgia. They always seemed to shy away from the heavy stuff regardless of what format they were. I always remembered as an oldies station, Rolling Stones "Satisfaction" kept going in and out of the format almost on a weekly basis. Sandpipers and Rooftop Singers were always safe.
 
Hey Guys:

Speaking of Top 40, would anybody know if WFBR 1300 was ever a Top 40 or was it always MOR?

I found a 1958 survey showing WFBR as a Top 40.

I also noticed in wikepedia it says that WFBR was a Top 40 in the 60's but in the yearbooks from 1970 to the 80's it shows the format as MOR.

Thanks

T.J.
 
Wasn't WWDC the first US station to play "I Want to Hold Your Hand", which broke the Beatles in the colonies?

ixnay
 
I remember WFBR in the early 80s as a personality driven Adult Contemporary featuring Johnny Walker in morning drive. As for WWDC, they were the first station to play the Beatles. The story I was told by Irv Lichtenstein was something along the lines of, they had gotten a stewardess to pick up a copy of the record when she was in England and brought it back to the states. They played the song on WWDC and it was an instant smash. It was a "Predicted Hit" on WWDC the week of 12/20/63. If you go to amandfmmorningside.com in the weekly survey to the week of October 17th, 1964 there's a fascinating story.
http://www.amandfmmorningside.com/wpgc_playlist_1964_10_17th.html
Beatles music released only in the UK, and not on any American releases makes it's way onto WPGC's Top 3. No other station in the Washington market has it including WWDC. 1260 may have broken the Beatles in the US, but WPGC broke exclusive material when it counted.
 
ixnay said:
Wasn't WWDC the first US station to play "I Want to Hold Your Hand", which broke the Beatles in the colonies?

ixnay
Click to expand...

Ihave heard the story about WWDC and the Beatles however it need to be said that this can be a very very touchy subject.

Yes some say it was WWDC who did it BUT what about Dick Biondi on Chicago's WLS? Some say it was HIM who had done it. Martinsburg, West Virginia's WEPM-AM clamined to have done the Beatles first and actually had promoted it too for a time but stopped when they had received a "love letter" OK a C&D letter from ABC radio telling WEPM that they will take this to court if it has to be...wonder if they would had done the same with WWDC had they had promoted them doing the Beatles first? Joey Reynolds at Buffalo's WKBW ( there was a stewardess giving a copy story with KB as well ) and LA's KFWB Bill Balance were also said to have aired the Beatles first. Oh there was WA..BEATLE C....

One can post all the links on this subject they want BUT I guess it goes down to geography. Fans of WLS will NEVER admit that someone else including WWDC had beat them in the Beatles game...likewise with west coasts fans of KFWB too...oh well **sigh**.
 
From what I've read, "Please Please Me" had charted on WLS some 10 months earlier. But Capitol Records was not convinced The Beatles would be suitable for American audiences. Then a high-school student in the DC area saw a story about the group and its popularity in England on CBS Evening News. She contacted WWDC personality Carroll James and told him that she thought the group would be popular here. So James imported a copy of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and played it. Listener reaction was strong, and the demand convinced Capitol to release Beatles records in the U.S.
 
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