FM Rock is officially dead in New York City

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March 10, 2009

<NYT_HEADLINE version="1.0" type=" ">CBS’s K-Rock Is Switching to Top 40 </NYT_HEADLINE>

<NYT_BYLINE version="1.0" type=" ">By BEN SISARIO
</NYT_BYLINE><NYT_TEXT>Making its third identity change since Howard Stern left for satellite radio three years ago, WXRK in New York, better known as K-Rock, will switch to a Top 40 format, the station’s parent company, CBS Radio, announced on Monday.
Instead of the “active rock” K-Rock has been playing — mostly classic rock, with some harder-edged current rock in light rotation — the station, to be known as Now FM (92.3), will play music from acts like “Kanye West, Beyoncé, Pink, Flo Rida, Akon, Katy Perry and Justin Timberlake,” according to the announcement. The change will be made at 5 p.m. on Wednesday.
K-Rock’s ratings have been suffering ever since Mr. Stern’s departure, and CBS Radio is hoping that the format change will bring in a larger and more youthful audience, said Karen L. Mateo, a spokeswoman.
Once one of the New York area’s top stations, K-Rock has seen its share plunge in recent years, going from a rock format to talk and back to rock again. In the January ratings from Arbitron, the radio ratings service, K-Rock was ranked No. 21 in the market for all listeners age 12 and above; Z100, the Top 40 station that Now FM will be competing against, was No. 2. Z100, or WHTZ-FM (100.3), is owned by Clear Channel Communications, CBS Radio’s biggest competitor.
“There’s obviously a huge audience out there,” Ms. Mateo said, “so clearly there’s an opportunity for growth for a station like K-Rock.”
To promote the new format, Now FM will play 10,000 songs in a row, with “limited to no commercial interruption,” Ms. Mateo said.
Two weeks ago, CBS Radio switched the format for another of its stations, KLSX-FM in Los Angeles, to Top 40. It competes against another powerhouse Clear Channel station, KIIS-FM.
Sean Ross, a radio analyst at Edison Research in Somerville, N.J., said that station owners have flipped to the Top 40 format with the realization that pop music in the “American Idol” era has an appeal that crosses generational lines.
“This is a good time for mainstream Top 40 radio,” Mr. Ross said. “It’s doing better with younger listeners than hip-hop, and better with some 25-plus listeners than the softer pop stations aimed at adults.”
<NYT_UPDATE_BOTTOM></NYT_UPDATE_BOTTOM>
</NYT_TEXT>
 

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Q104 Ain't rock.
(technically it is, but it's classic rock)
I don't care anymore about Kansas from 25 years ago, how many more times can one listen to "Devil Went Down to Georgia", I have the entire Springsteen catalog, whatever Q plays, either I own, don't want to listen to anymore, or can You Tube it.
WHCY is way down in Jersey, I'm in Fairfield Ct.

The only option for me now for RadioHead, Black October, Killers, Fall Out Boy, Metallica, Cold Play, etc. etc. etc. is the great indie station out of Westchester, 107.1 The Peak.

How many stations in NYC do you need to listen to that overrated Daughty, or Brittney?
 

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Q104 Ain't rock.
(technically it is, but it's classic rock)
I don't care anymore about Kansas from 25 years ago, how many more times can one listen to "Devil Went Down to Georgia", I have the entire Springsteen catalog, whatever Q plays, either I own, don't want to listen to anymore, or can You Tube it.
WHCY is way down in Jersey, I'm in Fairfield Ct.

The only option for me now for RadioHead, Black October, Killers, Fall Out Boy, Metallica, Cold Play, etc. etc. etc. is the great indie station out of Westchester, 107.1 The Peak.

How many stations in NYC do you need to listen to that overrated Daughty, or Brittney?



I agree about 104.3 ..... But I like that old shit .......Bill .....its time for xm radio ......its not just for sports .....
 
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Back in the mid to late 60's I grew up listening to WNEW and WPLJ. Lou Reed wrote the song about some girl switching on a new york radio station and her life being changed by rock and roll. I felt like those stations were my life blood. Pretty sad the state of FM music today.
 
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As much as I will miss K-Rock, I Also Like More of the Classic Rock

Yes I Know, I Agree with Douglas....Guess because we are about the same Age. ( Two Old Fuks )

If I want to hear some Cold play or Newer Bands, I could always find it somewhere....
 

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This is why I can't live without satellite radio now.

I would probably just listen to sports talk in the car if I didn't have Sirius.
 

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Back in the mid to late 60's I grew up listening to WNEW and WPLJ. Lou Reed wrote the song about some girl switching on a new york radio station and her life being changed by rock and roll. I felt like those stations were my life blood. Pretty sad the state of FM music today.

Vin Scelsa was my radio hero. (the last of the free form on air personalities) WNEW FM
Vin still does a show on WFUV (Fordham U) on Saturdays.
Remember Pete Fornatelle?
Vin turned me on to Rickie Lee Jones, Steve Forbert, so many artists that never would have been aired.

I think WPLJ was referred to WABC FM back in the 70's
 
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Vin Scelsa was my radio hero. (the last of the free form on air personalities) WNEW FM
Vin still does a show on WFUV (Fordham U) on Saturdays.
Remember Pete Fornatelle?
Vin turned me on to Rickie Lee Jones, Steve Forbert, so many artists that never would have been aired.

I think WPLJ was referred to WABC FM back in the 70's

hmm, thought it was 99X ?? Jay Thomas ( now an Actor ) was the Morning guy.
 

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Vin Scelsa was my radio hero. (the last of the free form on air personalities) WNEW FM
Vin still does a show on WFUV (Fordham U) on Saturdays.
Remember Pete Fornatelle?
Vin turned me on to Rickie Lee Jones, Steve Forbert, so many artists that never would have been aired.

I think WPLJ was referred to WABC FM back in the 70's



WOW .....great name ......How About the Night Bird .....Alison Steele ......
Went to sleep at nights with her ......
 

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Early years
The station went on the air in 1948 under the call sign WJZ-FM. In 1953, the station's call letters were changed to WABC-FM.

During the mid and late 1960s, WABC-FM programmed Broadway Show Tunes on an automated basis and carried New York Mets Baseball games. They also simulcast AM sister station WABC during various dayparts, like morning drive time.

In June 1968, 24 year old Allen Shaw was hired from WCFL radio in Chicago, by ABC Radio Stations President, Hal Neal, to program all 7 of the ABC Owned FM Radio Stations in a new album rock format. There was very little budget for ABC's FM stations at that time, so Shaw was told that the new rock format would have to be totally automated. Shaw designed the "LOVE" format, with John "Brother John" Rydgren as the only DJ on the air 24 hours a day. 25 hours of long-form tapes were recorded at WABC-FM for playback on the ABC FM stations. WABC-FM played rock bands like Cream, Led Zeppelin, Jefferson Airplane, and Chicago. Village Voice columnist, Howard Smith, was hired to do recorded interviews with the counter-culture icons of that period: John Lennon, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Andy Warhol, Abbie Hoffman, Bill Graham, Peter Fonda, and many others. In 1970 Shaw hired Bob Lewis, known as "Bob-A-Lu" on WABC-AM, to do a live evening show on WABC-FM. In the late fall of 1968, he played some cuts from a pre-release tape of the Beatles White Album.[1] Later, Shaw hired Dave Herman from WMMR in Philadelphia, Tony Pigg from KSAN-FM in San Francisco and Jimmy Fink, a native New Yorker to do additional live show on the station. In September 1970, Allen Shaw was named Vice President of the 7 ABC Owned FM Radio Stations as ABC decided to separate the AM and FM stations in terms of management. WABC-FM broadcast a live radio concert by Elton John on November 17, 1970, which was issued as the 11-17-70 album the following year by Uni Records, and it also broadcast live the closing concerts of the Fillmore East theatre on June 27, 1971.


[edit] AOR years
In late 1970, Allen Shaw decided to install a 100% live "free form" rock format and hired John Zacherle, Vin Scelsa, and Michael Cuscuna (from WMMR and WXPN in Philadelphia) to do live shows on the station. On February 14, 1971, the station changed its call sign to WPLJ after Allen Shaw noticed the call letters as the name of a song on the Mothers of Invention record, "Burnt Weeny Sandwich" (1970). The song, "WPLJ", was originally performed by the Four Deuces in 1955 and stood for "White Port and Lemon Juice". The station became a politically radical and musically eclectic voice of the counter-culture. It received positive critical reviews from the "underground" press, but did not generate a large enough audience to become financially viable.

In September 1971, Allen Shaw and ABC Programming Executive Bob Henaberry designed and pioneered the very first AOR (album oriented rock) format, playing only the best cuts from the best selling rock albums with a minimum of disc jockey talk. The slogan of the station was "Rock 'N Stereo". The station would play the music of artists such as Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Aerosmith, Jimi Hendrix, Cream, The Doobie Brothers, Steely Dan, Elton John, Deep Purple, Rod Stewart, and The Allman Brothers. The station would also play pop songs from artists such as James Taylor, Stevie Wonder and Carly Simon. The station was different from Top 40 stations (such as co-owned WABC) in that they played more album tracks. The audience ratings shot up dramatically, and WPLJ became New York's most listened-to FM rock station for most of the decade of 1970s.

In 1973, Allen Shaw brought Willard Lochridge, the General Manager of sister station WRIF in Detroit, to New York to manage WPLJ. Lochridge then brought Larry Berger, Program Director of WRIF, to WPLJ.

Larry Berger took over as Program Director of WPLJ in 1974, and the station adopted the slogan "New York's Best Rock". Some of the personalities on the station during this period included Jim Kerr, Pat St. John, Jimmy Fink, Carol Miller, Tony Pigg, John Zacherle, and Dave Charity. Berger himself hosted a Sunday night call-in show to discuss the station with listeners, but would refuse to discuss the playlist, which was the primary thing most listeners cared about. During these call-in segments, Berger was also accused by many callers of "pitching up" the music so that they could fit in more commercials while still being able to claim that they played a large number of songs per hour. Berger of course repeatedly denied these accusations. In the 20 September 1999 episode of Crap from the Past, host Ron "Boogiemonster" Gerber (unrelated) suggested that this practice was actually used to train listeners' ears to find the same music played on other stations to sound strange, thus returning them to WPLJ.

Another Sunday night show begun in 1975 was then-Father Bill Ayres' long-running On This Rock, which mixed spirituality and social consciousness together with the music of Harry Chapin, Bob Seger, and others. Bill Ayres was a Roman Catholic Priest with the Archdiocese of New York City. The show also aired on its sister station WABC on Sunday mornings within the last years of its Top 40 music format. Bill Ayres eventually left the priesthood in the 1980s but continues to host a call in Sunday night show today on the station.


The WPLJ logo from the late 1970's.By 1977, WPLJ tended to emphasize hard rock artists such as Led Zeppelin (there was a nightly "Get the Led Out" segment), Black Sabbath, Rush, Kansas, Boston, and Queen, who happened to get less airplay than on competing station WNEW-FM. At that point, the station stopped playing pop songs, and their audience ratings were very good.

During its album-oriented phase, it was most noted for its "montages"; snippets of classic-rock songs were spliced together around a particular subject, such as gasoline (during the gas shortages of the 1970s).

In 1982, WPLJ got competition with WAPP, which happened to have identical AOR format (WAPP was commercial-free in the summer of 1982). WAPP beat WPLJ in the ratings that fall, and WPLJ reacted by adding more New Wave such as A Flock of Seagulls, Dexys Midnight Runners, The Go-Go's, Elvis Costello, Men at Work and Soft Cell, mixed in with the usual AOR fare. Their ratings would end up being better than those of WAPP, after WAPP started adding commercials. In early 1983, the station added "Billie Jean" by Michael Jackson, playing it several times a day (note that many AOR stations including WNEW FM added that song and it did chart on the rock tracks chart). In March, WPLJ added "Beat it" by Michael Jackson, which received very positive reaction. While he was not a typical AOR artist that cut was played by many AOR stations due to Eddie Van Halen's role in the song. The station also dropped most 1960's songs by May and was cutting back on AOR artists while playing more modern rockers.

During this time WPLJ's logo was very similar to its sister station KLOS in Los Angeles.
 

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hmm, thought it was 99X ?? Jay Thomas ( now an Actor ) was the Morning guy.

Jay Thomas was on 99 (his sidekick was Charley Steiner)
Yes, that Charley Steiner.
I think you have your stations mixed up.
I am a radio junky and have done some radio in NYC and Boston.
(Opie and Anthony in NYC and I did sports for awhile on Shreds show on WBCN in Boston.)
 

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Vin Scelsa was my radio hero. (the last of the free form on air personalities) WNEW FM
Vin still does a show on WFUV (Fordham U) on Saturdays.
Remember Pete Fornatelle?
Vin turned me on to Rickie Lee Jones, Steve Forbert, so many artists that never would have been aired.

I think WPLJ was referred to WABC FM back in the 70's
than listen to wfuv... 90.7 it's the only ny station worth anything....vin was my man growing up too...and then to get to play on idiots delite was a pinnacle in my career...we shot the shit of many shows past..i had him laughin out loud at some of the shows he couldn't remember....a few of the old deejays from aor fm rock radio in nyc are stationed there now like elsas, fornatelle, scelsa.....
 
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Jay Thomas was on 99 (his sidekick was Charley Steiner)
Yes, that Charley Steiner.
I think you have your stations mixed up.
I am a radio junky and have done some radio in NYC and Boston.
(Opie and Anthony in NYC and I did sports for awhile on Shreds show on WBCN in Boston.)


Yeah, once you posted that Info..I knew that I was wrong and had them mixed up.
They called him Crazy Jay Thomas, I just remember some of the Gags he did.
Then when I saw him on Cheers, I was like WTF ??
 
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I remember listening to the night bird. You guys remember this guy named Roscoe? I used to occassionly hear him doing commercials - great voice IMO.
 

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I remember listening to the night bird. You guys remember this guy named Roscoe? I used to occassionly hear him doing commercials - great voice IMO.



Forgot about Roscoe .........lets not forget Scot Muney .......
 

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