Buffalo WYSL 1966

[Fenway1912]

In the fall of 1966, I wandered into the WYSL studios and was greeted by the overnight DJ, Dan Sinatra. This man ranted for an hour that radio was dead.

WYSL followed a trend back then, with the Top 40 station with a weaker signal doing better in the city. Gordon McLendon decided to make WYSL into a Buffalo version of 1050 CHUM in Toronto and it worked.

 

[radiofan2023]

In the fall of 1966, I wandered into the WYSL studios and was greeted by the overnight DJ, Dan Sinatra. This man ranted for an hour that radio was dead.

If he's still around, someone should show him this message board!

 

[SirRoxalot]

You'll find a little more about "Danny Sinatra" on this thread from way back in 2008:

https://radiodiscussions.com/threads/those-were-the-days.541190/post-4798153

I would suggest that McLendon patterned his Buffalo station after one of his string of Top 30 stations around the country, and that 1400 AM, as WBNY, pioneered Top 40 in WNY long before CHUM in Toronto. It's quite possible that the early success of then WBNY influenced the then smaller city of Toronto to try R&R as a format in the late '50s, although it's also likely that it was patterned after the Drake-Chenault success of CKLW in Windsor.

You might want to check out a couple of sources about the history of R&R radio in the two markets:

Rock Radio Scrapbook: WBNY Forgotten Pioneer

CHUM (AM) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Gordon McLendon - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Bill Drake - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org