Brant Miller on WYTZ ‘Hot 94-7′ | 199x - exact date unknown
Found on a mis-labelled cassette containing some other miscellaneous goodies was this unscoped aircheck of 94.7 in Chicago. Scoped down it runs a bit over 3 minutes, thus turned into an official Airchexx.com QuickCheck.
A few notes about this one. First, for those who follow the history Chicago radio, this was the station which once was WLS-FM, simulcasting the AM 89 programming mornings but which was it’s own CHR formatted incarnation of WLS in the 80s. After 1986, when WLS-AM was on it’s way out as a major AM music station, the FM side flipped call letters to WYTZ (and why, we may never know, since with the legendary WLS calls they could have kept the tradition alive, so to speak) and remained CHR for some time under a couple of different slogans - ‘Z95″, Z94-7 and in the 90s, ‘Hot 94-7′.
Brant Miller sounds upbeat here, but in your webmaster’s humble opinion, he sounds more like an AC jock. Still, it was a good mix of music.
ABC eventually returned the WLS-FM calls to 94.7 (and for history buffs, it would be the THIRD time they graced the FM band in Chicago; it was WLS-FM in the 60s for a time), but not as a CHR station, but rather as an FM talker to compliment AM 89’s evolving Talk format. Sometimes simulcasted, others not, that format was short lived, and the inevitable, magical format wheel would spin several more times, including (I believe) Smooth Jazz, AC and whatever… hard to keep up with when formats come and go this often.
Anyway, listen to a slice of time which I believe to be around 1992 - but I can’t nail it down since there’s no documentation with the source cassette. One of our listeners probably knows, and we’d sure appreciate your comments on this aircheck!
(No Ratings Yet)
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Hi Steve,
Just wanted to point out that the station was known as Z-95 from January, 1986 (when it changed it’s name from WLS-FM) until late January, 1991, when it was “blown up” by Jacor consultant Randy Michaels (of Power Pig/WFLZ fame). Randy has insituted a Rhythmic format that was very similer to the one that he had done at FLZ, including plenty of on-air attacks aimed at B-96. The station kept it’s Z-95 handle for about 2 weeks after , then the name was changed (briefly) to Hell 94-7, which caused quite a stir in Chicago, as well as the rest of the radio industry. After several days of “Hell”, the name was changed again to Hot 94-7, but still kept the Rhythmic-based CHR format.
Hot 94-7 wasn’t sucessful as a Rhythmic CHR. Dave Shakes (B-96’s PD at that time), had studied Randy Michaels’ “playbook” and was able to counter-program against him. Hot 94-7 wound up moving back to mainstream CHR within 3 months after it’s launch and although it was starting to make some gains toward the end of it’s 8 month lifespan, it was unable to put a dent in B-96’s massive ratings. In October, the station stunted again as Hell 94-7 and it became WLS-FM with a younger version of it’s News/Talk format.
Robyn
Steve,
Based on the music and dates on one of the advertisements, I would estimate the date to be sometime in October, 1991.
Kind of interesting to hear a station that calls itself “Total Jams” and then plays Bryan Adams and R.E.M. Still, it sounds good.