Jan. 12, 1979 Gusto cover story: Strolling around the radio dial
A stroll around the radio dial in the good old days 45 years ago.
Jan. 12, 1979
Radio
I’ve
started listening to the radio again.
Listening
the way I did when I was a kilocycle-happy teenager – scanning the dial for new
songs, new shows and new thrills. It all started when my old car broke down in
November.
The old
car and my listening habits fit like a felt liner inside a snowmobile boot.
That dilapidated buggy had plenty of things wrong with it, but one thing was
always right – the cassette player. A simple shove of the tape would provide
all the music I wanted to hear, all the time.
As a
record reviewer, it was easy to slip into such a high-handed attitude. The real
action in music was at home on the turntable in the form of new releases, which
could be taped for the car. All the radio was good for was old information. Who
needed to hear “Stairway to Heaven” for the umpteen billionth time when Cheap
Trick’s entire “Heaven Tonight” album was only a fingertip away?
The new
car, however, did not have a tape player. Instead, neatly installed in the
dashboard was a perfectly serviceable AM-FM radio with pushbuttons. Like the
man who puts his alarm clock so far away that he has to get up to stop it, I reasoned
that this would force me to check into the airwaves.
The fact
of the matter was that, during the cassette player years, my radio habits had
settled into the typical college-educated white middle-class professional rut. I
turned the dial to news and talk features. When it came to music, there was
only one tolerable alternative – jazz.
If the giveaway
guys had stopped in to see where my radios were set, they would have found them
all on the public non-commercial stations. WEBR (970) for general news and Al
Wallack’s “Jazz in the Night Time.” WBFO-FM (88.7) for folk music, avant-garde
jazz, Gary Storm’s bizarre early a.m. rock, and National Public Radio’s 5 p.m. “All
Things Considered.” And Canadian public station CBL Toronto (740) for complete
international news and the best interview program in the world – “As It Happens”
with Barbara Frum and Alan Maitland every weeknight at 6:30. A couple weeks
with Barbara Frum and you’ll never settle for Barbara Walters again.
According
to the twice-yearly Arbitron survey, there are slightly more than 1 million
radio listeners on the Niagara Frontier, with about 175,000 of them tuned in
during the average quarter-hour. The spring 1978 survey (the fall 1978 one is
due out next week) showed that the most listened-to AM station is WKBW (1520), while
WBNY-FM (96.1) has the biggest FM audience. The largest total audience is in
the morning, when people are getting off to work and school. The smallest total
audience is in the evening, when the prime-time TV shows are on.
As radio
formatting has become more and more of a science, stations have come to sound
quite different at different times of day. The 6 to 9 a.m. slot is usually
chock full of hard information and easy-to-take music. Middays are pitched to
the home audience. Afternoons cater to kids coming back from school or else
drivers stuck in rush hour traffic. Evenings bring an emphasis on sports for adults
and rock hits for the teens.
Buffalo’s
three most popular AM stations adhere strictly to that formula. This winter
finds them brimming with closings, cancellations, weather and traffic reports
in the morning and late afternoon. Elsewhere, aside from WEBR, such information
is either incomplete or non-existent.
WKBW
delivers it all with a wisecrack – morning man Danny Neaverth, for instance,
announcing with a grandiose buildup that the bad news is that everything’s
open. WGR (550) is chatty and neighborly. Like WKBW, it has “how cold is it”
jokes. “It’s so cold,” said one deejay, “that I asked the government for
matching funds to insulate my shorts.”
WBEN
(930) has the air of a busy action center, all crisp and coordinated, with
traffic reports from Erie County REACT and from a traffic helicopter as well
(shades of Jack Sharpe!). The chopper has its limitations, though. When it was
most needed on a particularly blustery jammed-up morning last week, it couldn’t
fly.
WEBR’s
all-news operation has overshadowed the rest. WKBW concentrates most of its
news into the morning and afternoon rush hours. WGR beats WBEN’s news on the
hour by five minutes, but that’s the only way they beat it. WBEN’s hourly news
is generally more complete and they top it off with their first-rate 30-minute “Newsday”
program at noon.
Musically,
the ratings attest to the power of WKBW’s tight format. No longer is it Top 40.
The phrase these days is “adult contemporary.” The rotation consists of 37 songs, plus
oldies. WBEN in recent months has grown more upbeat and cosmopolitan, full of
odd trivia. “Did you know,” afternoon man Jack Mindy proposed the other day, “that
in the Philippines they’ve developed a car that runs on coconuts?” WGR,
meanwhile, tends to sound like the golden days of personality radio. Most vivid
of the personalities, of course, is the evening man, Shane, who plays the best selection
of oldies in town whenever Sabres hockey doesn’t pre-empt him.
Late
evenings find them all veering away from the formula. Night man Jack Snowdon
packs more disco into the WKBW mix. John Otto mans Buffalo’s longest-running
phone-in talk show from 11:30 p.m. to 2 a.m. on WGR with his studied “ummm.”
And WBEN joins the Mutual network at midnight for the Larry King Show, a nationwide
phone-in talk show originating from Washington, D.C. King, unfortunately, isn’t
half the interviewer Barbara Frum is and one wishes he’d spend less time on self-promotion
and more time on the guests.
The general
interest AM stations can’t satisfy a real rock ‘n roller, however. For a shot
of good old-fashioned Top 40, the dial has to go to WYSL (1400). While WKBW
evening man Ron Arlen is giving out phone dedications “to all the cute guys in
Hamburg” and counting down the Top 15 requests, WYSL’s Craig Matthews is talking
up bridal fairs and spinning the heavier hits.
FM rock
fans who have grown impatient with Buffalo’s two bastions of album-oriented
rock – WGRQ-FM (96.9) and WBUF-FM (92.9) – are rediscovering WYSL’S FM
counterpart, WPHD (103.3). WPHD is more predictably appealing whenever WGRQ or WBUF
provoke an urge to turn the dial, as WGRQ’s John Velchoff did the other day when
he played “Godzilla” and “Fat Bottomed Girls” back-to-back. Midnight album
features and special Sunday night syndicated shows offer breaks in the WBUF and
WGRQ routines. WGRQ, meanwhile, is hampered by the weakest commercial FM
signal in town.
FM is
low-budget, which is why FM news is pretty much rip-and-read, aside from some
enterprising specials. It’s not the place to turn for school and plant
closings. The most vivid contrast is between WBEN-AM and WBEN-FM (102.5), where
the world outside rarely intrudes on Rock 102’s bloodless parade of computerized,
pre-taped hits.
The
really restless rock fans seek out the Canadian FM stations, just as restless
beer drinkers turn to Canadian brews. Toronto’s CHUM-FM (104.5), once a leader
in progressive sounds, has regressed into a rather ordinary album-oriented
rocker, but it comes in well on the car radio. Toronto’s CLIQ-FM (107.1),
otherwise known as Q-107, follows much the same format at Q-97 (WGRQ) does in
Buffalo. The underground sensation these days is CFNY-FM (102.1) in Brampton,
Ont., which is just to the left of Rock 102 on the dial. Here is the one place
(aside from Gary Storm’s show on WBFO-FM) where they routinely play off-beat greats
like Blondie and Roxy Music and Nick Lowe.
There’s
more on FM than rock, to be sure. WBNY and WADV-FM (106.5) both play “beautiful
music,” though they have different ideas of what’s beautiful. On WBNY, the mood
floats on things like the Melachrino Strings, while WADV under Fred Klestine tends
more toward the Frank Sinatra-Barbra Streisand school. Toronto’s CHFI-FM (98.1)
offers a sparkling takeoff on the beautiful music syndrome at 11 p.m. on “Tapestry,”
where Charlotte O’Dell reads poetry and prose around a theme which is reflected
in the songs. Classical selections can be found all day and into the night on
WNED-FM (94.5) and, if you can get it, on Toronto’s CBC-FM (94.1). WBFO-FM
plays classical music mornings from 8:15 to 11 and most evenings. WHLD-FM
(98.5) also programs classical music regularly.
FM
offers country music fans their only local recourse at night via WWOL-FM (104.1).
The station recently has been computerized and pre-taped, however, and it’s as
bloodless in its own way as Rock 102. The live country stations on AM – WWOL (1120)
and WXRL (1300) – go off the air at sundown, which means 5 p.m. this month.
WWOL plays the country hits. Two days in a row I caught the Oak Ridge Boys singing
“Come On In.” WXRL’s music is more down-home. Between tunes there are such
marvels as tips for snowmobilers and Ramblin’ Lou himself suggesting the best
way to discover Canada is by bus.
The biggest
surprise on the dial is WNIA (1230). Once the home of deejays eternally named
Mike Melody and Jerry Jack, it’s now headquarters for soul radio veterans Ricky
Banks and Al Parker. Parker goes after listeners to Black WUFO (1080), which
ends its disco at sundown, by playing soul favorites with a romantic touch from
9 p.m. to sign-off at 12:30 a.m. Banks, meanwhile, is stuck with a peculiar
midday format that obliges him to spin things like “Louie Louie” by the Kingsmen
and Ace Frehley’s “New York Groove” back-to-back.
Until
recently, WUFO’s early sign-off left the Black nighttime audience with only
WBLK-FM (93.7), which is always a revelation to the casual white listener.
Where else would one hear commercials for a wild game banquet cooked by
transplanted Southern chefs? How else would one learn of the revived home of
the blues – the new Governor’s Inn on Paderewski Drive? And then there’s the
music, which had taken a sado-masochistic turn. Consider Bonnie Pointer’s “Free
Me From My Freedom,” with its chorus of “tie me to a tree, handcuff me.” If
that isn’t enough, there’s always Tasha Thomas’ “Shoot Me.”
Nighttime
dial spinning can bring in stations from spectacular distances, especially
during eruptions of the Northern Lights in February and August. January isn’t
the best time for it, but on a recent evening it was possible to locate WSM (650)
in Nashville and CKRN (710) in Rouyn, Quebec, along with all-news WCBS (880) in
New York City and New York’s all-classical WQXR (1560), which is just to the
right of WKBW. Fans of “CBS Radio Mystery Theater” (canceled a couple years ago
on WBEN) will be glad to know that it comes in loud and clear at 10:07 p.m. nightly
on Rochester’s 50,000-watt WHAM (1180).
Toronto,
of course, comes in strong with CHUM (1050) playing teen Top 40 with 30
percent Canadian content, and CJBC (860), which is the station that’s all in
French. Craziest rock deejay, however, was not in Toronto, but on Hamilton’s
CKOC (1150). He burst onto the air saying he’d just had a plate of plutonium
for dinner and was ready to ex-PLODE!
* * * * *
IN THE PHOTO: Gusto cover illustration by Laura
Rankin. Wish I had a copy of it in color.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTE: Letter to the Gusto editor, Jan. 26, 1979.
To Dale Anderson:
Enjoyed your article on
radio (Gusto, Jan. 12) and would like to add a comment. You did not mention the
most profound jazz program on radio, nor its station – CJRT-FM (91.1 Toronto).
Ted O’Reilly’s jazz program is on from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. Monday through Friday
and from 6 a.m. to noon Saturday, then 7 to 10 p.m. Saturday. For a true jazz
fan, he is absolutely tops – from the earliest to the most modern jazz. The date,
the band members and interesting comments describe each number. One acquires an
appreciation just listening. And he proceeds uninterrupted, since CJRT is an
educational station.
Richard E. Stouffer,
Fredonia
Dale Anderson replies:
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