What about WHAS?

[bruiser]

No, I'm not advocating putting up a tribute site for WHAS, as they have their own site. What I'm wondering is why the Binghams never switched format to rock back in the day. They stuck with the older style programming and got their butts kicked by WAKY and WKLO. Was it because they wanted to be faithful to their staff, such as Randy and the others? Didn't like the rock? I've often thought that with their clear channel 50KW, that if they had changed to a rock format, and played some of the local acts, a lot of them would have had hit records. Look at WLS, they got
behind and promoted the Chicago acts like The Buckinhams and The Shadows of Knight.

The Binghams certainly had the money, and the station, to obtain the on air talent that would have been necessary to bulldoze their way to number one.

Thoughts?

[Travis]

Good question. Can't really speak for WHAS or the Binghams, but it sure makes you wonder why they didn't go for it. Could it be that they were above playing *uGh* *gaSp* rock-n-roll records? They were certainly associated with 3-piece suits, ties and classical music at the time.

When WAMZ first came into being, the station ran one of those automated Drake-Chenault packages which never made reference to the music as "country music." It was referred to as "America's music." WINN had a field day with that line and the Bingham's uppity attitude toward country music. Enter Coyote Calhoun, and the rest is history. WAMZ's beginnings may be a clue which could answer your question about WHAS.

[RJC]

bruiser said:

No, I'm not advocating putting up a tribute site for WHAS, as they have their own site. What I'm wondering is why the Binghams never switched format to rock back in the day. They stuck with the older style programming and got their butts kicked by WAKY and WKLO. Was it because they wanted to be faithful to their staff, such as Randy and the others? Didn't like the rock? I've often thought that with their clear channel 50KW, that if they had changed to a rock format, and played some of the local acts, a lot of them would have had hit records. Look at WLS, they got
behind and promoted the Chicago acts like The Buckinhams and The Shadows of Knight.

The Binghams certainly had the money, and the station, to obtain the on air talent that would have been necessary to bulldoze their way to number one.

Thoughts?

Good question, but to be honest, WHAS has always been a step behind other 50'000 watt blow torches around the nation, imo. As recent as 1997, WHAS was still playing music on AM radio, when it was no longer done anywhere by any station of any importance. My guess is it was arrogance by the Binghams, that prevented WHAS from becoming a top 40/r+r station.

[Mike Griffin]

Not being a Bingham I cannot answer for them. I did work for them for three years starting in 1979. You need to look at what their interests were and I think you will have your answer. The Newspaper was always the big thing. Then if you look at the TV and AM they always went all out to cover the news. I really do believe that they were interested in community service while they were making their money.

As to WAMZ...it was origionally classical, then 24 hour automated news...the news thing was in '77-78...the news didn't go but they gave it a shot. They put in the automated country so they could figure things out. I joined them in 79 as an engineer. Some of my early duties at the station was feeding the automation while loading up the film and slides for TV. It wasn't a bad format, it was Drake-Chenalt produced and the music came in on 10" reels and alternated between four computer controlled players. I don't remember the year, 80, 81??? but one day Coyote showed up. Someone had decided to try it live in the afternoons. Coyote had two turntables and a little Sparta four input mixer. He hit a button to trigger the automation to play his commercials. It worked, soon we built a live studio. They put Ralph Dix in as Coyote's newsman to laugh at his jokes and the rest is history. Coyote's great but I always liked Ralph's laugh at the awful joke that Coyote had comming out of the news. It made the joke. Ralph deserves some credit too.

Back to the point I believe the Binghams always viewed WHAS as a little brother to the newspapers and it's first goal was not to make money. Not that they didn't want it to, it just wasn't the first goal. Perhaps there are some skeletns in their closets but the Binghams really did believe in serving the community (did I get brainwashed good while I worked there or not?).

Maybe Barry Jr. will happen across this site during a Google search and tell us were all wrong.


Maybe

[1240WINN]

I remember those automated WAMZ days well.

To me, it sounded like Bob Kingsley (American Country Countdown) was the announcer on the automation tapes. And the only jingle they used was the call letters being sung. (Was that from Drake Chenault, too?)

I thought Coyote came back around 1978. He did afternoons, and Karl Shannon did a mid-morning shift. The automation was used the rest of the time.

And then, about 1981, I think, Dickie Braun came to WAMZ from WINN, which had switched over to playing "The Music of Your Life",to do morning drive. Just as Coyote had Ralph Dix, Dick Braun had Scott Douglas. (It's interesting to see how the precedent set by Bill Bailey and Reed Yadon has become a standard.)

Shortly after that, Coyote hired a kid that he dubbed "Bobby Jack Murphy" to do evenings.

And that was how I remember WAMZ switching from automation to live DJs.

And I think Mike Griffin is on target about the Binghams. They felt that the newspaper, TV Station, and Radio Stations were a public service. After they sold out, the quality of all of these entities declined sharply.

Of course, one could say that about the media in general these days.

[David Stockhoff]

RJC said:

Good question, but to be honest, WHAS has always been a step behind other 50'000 watt blow torches around the nation, imo. As recent as 1997, WHAS was still playing music on AM radio, when it was no longer done anywhere by any station of any importance. My guess is it was arrogance by the Binghams, that prevented WHAS from becoming a top 40/r+r station.

Well, I think that I was lucky to find WHAS (in the 1990's) slightly "behind the curve." I always found their "Classic Hit's Weekends" wonderful. And, Joe Donovan will always be my favorite DJ!

I guess I was born a dweeb LOL and WRKA or WHAS was (and still is) what I listen to most.

Born 30 years too late,
David Stockhoff :0)
(Seven-Ninty and out. . .)

[Max]

I, too, found 84's Classic Hits Weekend refreshing, as music formats more or less made a mass exodus from the AM airwaves, leaving us with nothing but talk radio. Wayne Perky was definitely the man at WHAS and will never be replaced. As talented a personality as he was, talk and news for a whole week gets pretty dry, especially alot of those morning females. Last count wasn't he back doing a later shift or occasional fill-in?? Growing up that was the only station my mom listened to and it's still that way pretty much to this day. There for awhile she divided time with 1530 out of Cincinnati, but when they switched formats from the OLD oldies format she grew up with, that pretty much ended that. But to do a tribute site to a 'living' station that is still at the top of the ratings would be silly.

But I'd certainly like to see them go back to a music weekend. It would certainly give the Louisville's airwaves a WAKY feel!

[bruiser]

I thought Perkey was on WRKA.

[Max]

Oh, that's right! I knew that he had come out of 'retirement' after many, many years at WHAS, I just wasn't sure where he had gone TO. Thanks for settin' me straight.

[David Stockhoff]

Yeah, Perkey is now doing afternoon drive on WRKA and still has it for sure.

Wayne Perkey is a legend, for sure!

David Stockhoff :0)
(Seven-Ninty and out. . .)

[RJC]

David said:

I guess I was born a dweeb LOL and WRKA or WHAS was (and still is) what I listen to most.

Born 30 years too late,
David Stockhoff :0)
(Seven-Ninty and out. . .)

No, you're no dweeb, I listen to WHAS for the talk, and barely listen to music on the radio these days, but when I do, I listen to WRKA. I really think WRKA could be the station to keep the spirit of WAKY and WKLO alive on the radio.

[bruiser]

It is my opinion that 103.5 is the best oldies station in this area. Check it out. Forget WRKA for a couple of hours and listen to 103.5.

[Max]

To say 103.5 is the best oldies station in the area is sad for me to hear. If your idea of oldies is the same thing over and over and over and over, I guess that's okay. I've not listened to WRKA much as their signal is weak in E'town. I think the best variety of oldies, sadly to say, is on the internet. As I've said in a previous post, 103.5 has only recently started to interweave some 70's into their playlist. Before, they focused on 64-69 with some 70-71 here and there. Quite often they would play 'Lowdown' from 75 and a few others, but for the most part it's seems like it's always Herman's Hermits, Lou Christie, the Supreme's (AAUUUUUGH!) or one of the other 30 songs or so their playlist is limited to. I love oldies and since they're basically the only station around for me, I listen to it pretty much all the time. I was told one time the reason some stations play the same songs so much is that they don't figure members of the public stay on one station all day.

[bruiser]

OK, what is the better over the air oldies station in the area? WRKA sure ain't gonna cut it. At least 103.5 visits the fifties from time to time. Of course it might depend on the era in which you started listening. You'll hear even more of the same oldies, day after day, on WRKA than on 103.5. And they all want to blame the "consultant" for their weak formats. It has always irritated me that some stations think rock and roll started with the British Invasion, and will not play anything that precedes 1964. I agree that you can find on the www the kind of music that you prefer. I also program my own station by burning to disc the kinds of music I want to hear. That way I minimize the times I depend on the radio for music.

[Max]

And that is a sad thing. I'm referring to when one has to go to the internet for variety. Don't get me wrong, I think 103.5 has great programming that is extremely tight. I guess I expect a little distance between 'Where Did Our Love Go' and 'Lightning Strikes', etc. For a long time I fought going to the internet in favor of sticking with my little AM/FM at work, but I guess about a month ago I decided I'd heard enough. I can't dispute the WRKA shortcomings because, as I said, I don't really get it here. I have taken CD's to work before, but I do like to hear some announcing and business essentials (news/weather/some spots) occasionally, so I actually prefer listening to the radio in general. I'm not, however, referring to so called 'morning shows' yuk-yukking it up. Ron Clay and Terry Meiners were the only ones who ever mastered that, in my opinion.

[bruiser]

I saw on another post that you are one of the young'uns on this board. ;D I'm one of the old farts. ;D That makes a difference on what we consider oldies. You think the seventies equals oldies, and WRKA does play seventies. To me, oldies mean fifties and sixties, and the seventies represent the beginning of the end of rock and roll. It was the coming of disco and synthesized music. Man, I hate computer generated music. I have read some studies that come to the conclusion that the kind of music a person will prefer, throughout their life, is the music they listened to between the ages of 10 and 20. Of course that doesn't mean a person won't like any other music than that, but only that's what is preferred.

[Max]

They keep telling me 42 is young, but I guess it's all relevant. Whatever that study was, I guess it has me pegged right on. I prefer music from the time I was 9 to 18 (1972-1981). I thought the 80's sucked...until the 90's. Now I include the 80's (most of it) amongst the soundtracks of my life, my young adult life, anyway. There was only a spattering of music I thought was decent in the 90's and as far as the new millenium...you can have it (I'm sure you'd pass, bruiser :-) )

[bruiser]

Is there any real music in the pop field today?

[Max]

Nope. And they have the nerve to 'update' hits from the past (which worked in the past), but when you consider what genre they're updating to, it sounds as bad as whatever's current.

[RJC]

bruiser said:

It is my opinion that 103.5 is the best oldies station in this area. Check it out. Forget WRKA for a couple of hours and listen to 103.5.

I agree with you, but 103.5 doesn't always come in the best, but they are the better of the two stations as far as music. I'm kinda surprised that Clear Channel hasn't started an oldies station in Louisville, surely it would have more listeners then a "Smooth Jazz" format.

[John Quincy]

It looks like Clear Channel is shutting down their oldies formatted stations one-by-one -- even if they're still doing well in the numbers. They blew up their oldies station in Charlotte, NC several months ago. About the same time they changed the name of the oldies station here in Charleston, SC from "Oldies 102.5" to "Y-102.5" Most of what they're playing is from the 70s, with titles from the late 60s in the minority. They're also playing titles from the 80s like "Every Breath You Take" and "I've Had The Time Of My Life."

[Max]

What exactly do you mean by 'blowing up'? Do you mean literally?

And to RJC, there are probably more listeners to WJZL than you might think. Me, for one. I love smooth jazz. Alot of it sounds like what they used to call 'slow jams', i.e., Earth Wind & Fire, George Benson, etc. It sure beats the tripe they call music today!

And if you listen to it long enough, you actually hear several top 40 hits from the '70's

[Chad Quick]

I for one loved Joe Donovan's show and never forgave WHAS for taking him off. He was the ONLY place I got to hear many of the hits that made it in Louisville but never hit nationally. I get so sick and tired of the same old 300 songs on oldies. 103.5 is better and was great when they let Micheal Marvin do his "Lost Oldies" show on Tuesday nights. Natuarlly that didn't last long but he did get to play some of the Louisville Artists I sent him on a cd from my collection. As for radio I only listen to WNAS 88.1FM the high school station from New Albany as they play over 10,000 songs and include alot of obscure oldies you won't hear anywhere else. Radio just plain sucks today as you hear the same songs where ever you go in the country as CC owns almost all the stations. Just my opinion and of course I was born to late too being only 34 years old.

Chad

[John Quincy]

Over the last few days I've been listening to unscoped tapes of WAKY recorded during their oldies format years, and I've been amazed at the number of titles they played that you NEVER hear on the oldies stations of today. Bob Moody must have had a library of well over a thousand titles.

Check out some of the recently posted airchecks from the '80s. I had to scope the songs out for music licensing and server space reasons (but left the commercials and newscasts intact) -- but you can get the general idea. He was playing songs I've never heard before -- and I've been in radio since the early '70s!

Anyway, it was nice to hear one of the first all-oldies stations in the country before the consultants sterilized the format -- which appears to be going the same route that the Beautiful Music format did around 1990.

[RJC]

Clear Channel has absolutly killed radio, I remember taking trips when I was young, and the best part was listening to the different stations. Now they all sound the same. If you have one WQMF or WTFX(That's 100.5 The Fox, for those of you, not in Louisville), you have 200 more that sound exactly the same.

I took a trip with my brother last summer to east ky, and on the way, I heard 1 station with a different format(80's hair metal) in the Lexington area. Other then that Lexington radio, sounded like Louisville radio.

[Max]

Without starting a totally new thread, but still on the subject of WHAS, isn't it strange that in radio and television there seems to be some sort of crossroads at some point, where we will sometimes pass each other in our various journeys. I have worked with two jocks in Elizabethtown who eventually wound up at 84. In 1981/1982 I worked with Bob Kraft and E.J. Clark, who wound up with either 84 or Clear Channel. Bob worked at WIEL and E.J. was at WKMO where he was also PD at the time. I never worked with Bob, but we were in the same building. E.J. hired me in late 1981 to fill-in for one of his part-timers, Wayne Mitchell (Mitch Ash) who had been in a serious auto accident, which was ironic, as that was my reason for leaving WQXE the second time, an automobile accident. Mitch and I graduated together and I guess he felt like he had to get one-up on me. But anyway, E.J. asked me to give him some sort of an aircheck. Since it was Christmas, I cut out an advertisement for the Stone Hearth Restaurant, took one of my mom's Christmas LP's, grabbed a tape recorder, and basically rewrote the add with Billy Vaughn's 'White Christmas' as my bed. Speaking of Christmas, Bob and E.J. would do a program called "Santa and Sparky", where E.J. was Santa and Bob was Sparky, one of Santa's elves. I found this out by walking by the WIEL studio as they were on the air (as stations DID do back then! It wasn't taped or voice tracked). They did this a number of years and obviously enjoyed it immensely. To this day, I'm not sure if this was just a show where they read letters from children or if they actually took some calls...during the time these broadcasts were done I was always listening to WAKY, WKLO, WQHI, or WQMF, depending on the stage in my life. Bob is now at WAMZ and I heard E.J. from the infield on WHAS this past Derby Day.

I also had gone to church with Michelle McLane, who got to WHAS via WQXE. She did news at both stations and although she had an excellent voice with great talent for reading she is no longer in radio.

One has only to live in the Louisville area a few years before he either hears jocks hopping stations or sees TV stations swapping anchors or reporters. Mass media truly is a melting pot!

[David Stockhoff]

Here is something else Clear Channel has done. . .

Is it just me, or has Clear Channel in the past few years slowly moved away from the supporting the Crusade For Children! They still broadcast the Saturday Night show but in the past few years, they have stopped continuous broadcast of all the weekend's festivities.

At least, Belo and the television guys still broadcast the whole weekend!

Is it just me ? ? ?

David :0)

[David Stockhoff]

Sorry for the double post but, after hitting post, this popped in my head.

To hell with the Louisville Times, the Courier-Journal, WHAS Television and Radio. . . the Bingham's greatest success was the annual Crusade for Children! The 52nd WHAS Crusade for Children is coming up fast!

www.whascrusade.org/

There isn't a child born in Louisville, since 1954, that hasn't been blessed by the Crusade, in some way!

David Stockhoff :0)
(a Crusade Baby!)

[RJC]

Max said:

I heard E.J. from the infield on WHAS this past Derby Day.

He had a horse racing show on WTMT, then he moved to Extra Sports 790, he may still have a show on 790.

[RJC]

David said:

Here is something else Clear Channel has done. . .

Is it just me, or has Clear Channel in the past few years slowly moved away from the supporting the Crusade For Children! They still broadcast the Saturday Night show but in the past few years, they have stopped continuous broadcast of all the weekend's festivities.

At least, Belo and the television guys still broadcast the whole weekend!

Is it just me ? ? ?

David :0)

I hope Clear Channel never dumps the Crusade for Childern, that's THE only charity that I will donate to. It would be a travisty, if they dumped out of it, but CC isn't a Louisville company, and could care less about this community.

With the above said, the only time I ever heard WHAS not broadcast the Crusade was when they run their church shows.