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WIOQ was undoubtedly the outlet to turn to for the hits in Philly by the end of the 80s. Listening to this 12 minutes of CHR pleasure, Q102 leans Rhythmic, and features Chris Jagger.

Hold on to your hats for 30 minutes of scopes from WEGX, WIOQ and WYSP. From the monster-sized Robyn Watts collection comes this one side of a cassette called Philly CHR from Hecht Enterprises out of Kansas City, KS… an aircheck service which is apparently long gone since we can’t find any information about on the internet or elsewhere. In case you’re familiar with Hecht… this one is numbered #61.

We’ve been sitting on this for a few years now, and it seemed like a good time to pull this out and post it. Listen at the end for a couple of minutes of Howard Stern on WYSP, way back in the days before syndication or even Sirius/XM radio! But pay attention, if you blink, the segment will go by…

The late, legendary Hy Lit is featured in this Saturday night oldies show hosted by him. Notables: WSNI is an AC formatted station that does Oldies during weekends. Listen carefully to the (brief) glimpses of music and you’ll know instantly that Lit brought in RECORDS for this event… some scratches come through.!

Probably best known for his time at WIBG, Hy Lit passed away in 2007 after 3 decades in radio.

Back in ’85, I was commuting back and forth every weekend from Norfolk, VA to my hometown in Massachusetts. It was my weekend escape from the Navy, when my ship was actually in port and not underway somewhere.

From about Dover, Delaware up to about midway up the NJTP (about 50 miles from NYC), I had my choice of TWO Philadelphia AOR stations.. 93-3 WMMR and this one, 94 YSP. WMMR was much harder, as I remember, playing more hair band stuff and more Zeppelin, etc. The alternative was to go here to 94 YSP.

I guess in 1985 I was a serious rocker, AM top 40 was completely dead, and for some reason (maybe it was Michael Jackson), I was loathe to listen to CHR for a while. So, this is a good representation of your webmaster’s crazy listening habits for a time from 1984-1987.

The jock doesn’t mention his name but, hey, I had to write some kind of summary!

Dead segues, occasional imaging… that’s what Album Rock USED to be like!

First in a series of trade releases from FMQB (Friday Morning Quarterback) donated by Robyn Watts is this look back at Adult Hits formatted Eagle 106 in Philly. We start right out with Lander and the morning Nut Hut… a precursor to his next gig in Boston at WBMX. The ‘check then moves on to the rest of the broadcast day.

A new add to the Big Ron O’Brien Archives is this great 22 minute, mid-90s scope of Big Ron at Star 104.5! Here’s a hugely uptempo, almost adult-chr O’brien doing the format he belongs in. Ron’s fantastic with callers, perfect in drive-time… this is a wonderful glimpse into the middle of the 90s and radio just before Telcom 96 sounded the death knell of it.

- Courtesy of Matt over at Big Apple Airchecks.

Thanks to a Philly resident who recorded this and posted it on our sister forum, Radioinsight.com’s Aircheck Traders Board, we have this HD quality aircheck of All News 1060 KYW’s reporting of the passing of Philly legend Hy Lit. A staple from the great 99 WIBG, Lit went into the hospital for knee surgery, and never came out.

In our second recording paying tribute to this legendary performer, Greaseman is heard on 94 WYSP… more outrageous than ever and demonstrating an ability to write a script with more creativity than any current morning show, here’s a real professional at work!

Welcome to all our friends at the WMET Greaseman Board! Don’t forget to leave your comments below!

When people think of WIOQ in Philadelphia, the first thing that comes to mind is a beat. But go back to the 70′s and 80′s and Q102 was right there with WMMR as THE rock station in Philadelphia. However, competition from the WMMR powerhouse and a new import from New York, Howard Stern on 94.1 WYSP left Q102 as the odd station out. In this commercial, WIOQ promotes its new adult oriented rock format.

This format, too would be short lived. In late 1987, WIOQ would flip to Oldies as “Solid Gold 102″ a few hours after 98.1 WCAU-FM became “Oldies 98″ WOGL. The Oldies battle would last for a year-and-a-half before WIOQ was relaunched as a Rhythmic CHR (which would later evolve into a Mainstream direction where it remains to this day).

After 40 years of service as Philadelphia’s Classical Music station, frequent ownership changes in the mid-1990′s and developing business trends led to the demise of 95.7 WFLN. Greater Media Broadcasting donated the WFLN music library to Temple University’s 90.1 WRTI. With Q102 leaning Rhythmic, the Modern AC format of Max was thought to fill a niche between Alternative Y100 and WIOQ. However, it took almost 6 months for Max to put together an airstaff and ratings were never able to get much higher than a 2.3 share. In May of 1999, as ratings were beginning to turn the corner after the addition of the Barsky Show in mornings, Greater Media pulled the plug on Max in order to beat AMFM to the punch with Rhythmic Oldies.

Oops! Here’s another morning maniac almost lost to time. Almost! This is Bob McLaine, known for many years in both Philly and Memphis, as ol’ Bob was a TV personality and the morning guy at WOTO “Oldies 95.7″ before it was blown up by Clear Channel back a few years ago.

And… hey Bob! I met Bob when he did a short stint at WGKX before moving out of the Memphis market a few years ago. Yep. Crazy Bob! Crazy but damn good!

This is a great aircheck. First, listen to ‘Wibbage” – not calling themselves that anymore, now at this point in time, its the NEW WIBG. New? We don’t hear anything new about it, this is classic WIBG with reverb and some pretty hot music for the day, and Crazy Bob is the morning man. Just listen to the number of drops McLaine throws in over just about everything!

Description by contributor John Hendricks:

On this Valentine’s Day 1984 former WFIL “boss jock” Dan Donovan returned from Minneapolis as morning man during the new oldies format which tried to revive the energy of the once-popular “Famous 56″. Donovan lasted a short time before returning to Minnesota. Also on this aircheck the same day is afternoon jock Scott Taylor.

This is our first look at WFIL, and you’ll love the PAMS 60s-era jingles!

Description by contributor John Hendricks:

In 1983 PD Don Cannon took the AM daytimer to an “all Beatles & Motown” format as “Philly 15″, alternating songs between the two genres of oldies he said were found to be the most popular oldies in Philadelphia. The short-lived format was really only on weekday middays and afternoons; Cannon’s morning show was simulcast from adult contemporary sister WSNI-FM, as were weekends.

Description by contributor John Hendricks:

For a time legendary former 1950′s-60′s top 40 “Wibbage” personality Hy Lit hosted mornings on Sunny 104. Since he’s still associated with playing “oldies” at WOGL today, it’s interesting hearing Hyski playing “contemporary” ’80′s music.

Too bad this is so short– Hy Lit is a real ‘legendary’ personality, one we’d love to hear more of!

Description by contributor John Hendricks:

WRCP overnight personality “Good Guy” Shelly Davis starts the countdown of the top 40 country songs of 1969 just after midnight (and a “Mummers” rendition of “Auld Lang Syne”) from the “Rittenhouse Ranch” (their studios near fashionable Rittenhouse Square in center city). WRCP was Philadelphia’s first city-signal country station from 1967 to 1981.

This tape starts at a couple of minutes past midnight on New Year’s Day (so we’ve missed Auld Lang Syne). Notice the top 40 approach – were this pop music instead of Country, WRCP probably could have competed well against WFIL or WIBG, but this is Country music in the east back in 1970 – not exactly the most popular combination! Still, all the old Top 40 formatics are there including some decent jingles.

Its scoped, and it’s Country, but this is worth listening to for many reasons – it moves right along.

If you know the history of WRCP, we’d sure like you to post your comment below and tell the rest of our listeners… Thanks for sharing your knowledge!

Courtesy of Steve McVie, we have a ‘new’ Hot Hits WCAU-FM aircheck. It’s back to 1982 and a glimpse of the man who these days does his thing on XM Satellite Radio’s “60s on 6″ Channel.

We wish this was a better sounding recording… this tape sounds like it was recorded with a mic in front of a speaker. Still, while it starts out VERY fuzzy, it quickly cleans up enough for you to return to 1982 and remember what WCAU-FM sounded like. Philly Radio at its best!

Click HERE to Listen!

This was posted for July 4th weekend 2005, and was there no better way to celebrate than to go back in time to the City of Brotherly Love (where’d that name come from anyway?).

You’ll hear an assortment of radio stations (all scoped, of course), starting with what was certainly the first BIG FM station in Philly, WIFI 92 (now Country 92.5 WXTU). Listen for the ONE shotgun WIFI 92 jingle – same cut as at WXLO 99X New York, and some DJ called Beau Weaver! Surely not the same Beauregard Rodreguez Weaver from 93 KHJ?! Somebody knows (doesn’t sound like him). Next, a long scope of WFIL as an AC station, A GREAT composite of the “new” WIBG, including a bit of Crazy Bob McLaine (whom your webmaster worked with at WGKX Memphis in 2004), then listen for Loren Owens (currently at WROR Boston) on WPEN! This is a fantastic composite aircheck from a time when AM and FM were pretty much at par with each other with respect to programming and audience.

Check out the news reports on these stations… high gas prices, fuel shortages – kinda sounds familiar, eh?

Here we go again! Another great composite from Robyn Watts!

The first CHR Wars we featured in Robyn’s collection was of the Hartford/Springfield Market, pitting 96-TIC-FM against WKSS 95.7 Kiss-FM. And, just like last time, this composite can be heard in it’s entirety, or you can go to the appropriate spot in this composite to hear your favorite segment. The two challengers: WEGX “Eagle 106″ and WIOQ “Q-102″. Early 90′s CHR at it’s best in the city of Brotherly Love especially for our younger listeners!

This composite begins with WEGX. Click the links below to listen:

* Spyder Harrison on Eagle 106 at 00:00.1
* Boomer on Q-102 at 11:38.1
* Cadillac Jack on Eagle 106 at 20:50.5
* Joe Mama on Q-102 at 31:05.3

Now! Part 2 -

* The Nut Hut with John Lander on Eagle 106
* Chris Jagger & Dirty Diana on Q-102
* More Chris Jagger on Q-102

On Monday, March 21 2005 at 5:00pm, the Eclectic AC format debuted in Philadelphia as “95.7 Ben-FM”. The format began as a Long Island based webcaster Jack.fm before becoming a phenomenon in Canada. It features a broad playlist of hits from the 70′s through today, normally with irreverant imaging and emphasizing the fact that you never know what you’ll hear next.

In it’s different incarnations the format has taken on the names of Bob, Joe, Ted, Dave, Fred, Frank, Nine, and this week an all Country music variation of the format debuted in Indianapolis as Hank-FM.

Philadelphia’s version spotlighted here in a sampler of their imaging features actor John O’Hurley (better known as J. Peterman on Seinfeld) as one of the primary imaging voices. The Ben name comes from one of Philadelphia and America’s icons: Benjamin Franklin. Ironically though, this is the second “name” this station has had. A few formats ago, it was a Modern AC “Max 95.7″.

Click HERE to Listen!

Here’s another in a former series from Steve McVie. Hot Hits! CHR formatted WCAU-FM 98-Now. It’s Philly Top 40 at its best. Another Mike Josephs’ formatted station.

Click HERE to Listen!