PM Drive on 99-5 WRNO “The Rock” | October 1987
(Comments by Steve West)
Remember back in the days when WRNO transmit (sometimes) a simulcast of its FM rock station on Shortwave? I still remember the frequency. 15.420 Megahertz. Sometimes Hard Rock, sometimes Top 40 (I heard Casey Casem on it one time), sometimes religion especially towards the end of it’s life, and for about a year, the home of Rush limbaugh.
Anyway, this is not about the shortwave station, although it’s from the FM - SW simulcast era. It’s about the early Classic (active?) Rock era at 99.5 FM in the Cresent City. Today, WRNO IS Classic Rock and is owned by Clear Channel Communications. The Oldies days are long gone, and so is the Shortwave station.
This is short, about 4 and a half minutes, which technically makes it an official Airchexx.com QUICKCHECK… but it should remind everyone of the radio heritage that was in New Orleans for so many years!! And, check out the (way out of place but sounding good anyway) 70s era Top 40 jingles this station used infrequently. I always wondered if that was for the benefit of the Shortwave listeners or what???!!!
(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
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The talent is “Weird” Wayne Watkins, who later went to Biloxi, MS to program rocker WCPR-FM. Savor the Corvette promo from the station owner’s brother Mike Costello. (Must be the only way he made it on the air with THAT voice!) Mikey went on to program (if you want to call it that) WTIX-FM.
WRNO is now news/talk as “The New 995.com”.
Hey, Dan…I LOVED YOU ON FUNLOVIN’ WTIX 690!
WRNO was one of 2 of my favorite haunts on New Orleans Radio (along with WTIX-AM [The Mighty 690]) during my high-school years in the late 1980s. I mean, with such gems as The Out-Of-Control Morning Show, The Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall Of Fame and The ’60s At 6:00, how can you beat that?!
On Monday, November 13, 2006 at 4:00 AM (CST), the original Rock Of New Orleans became another card in the “aint dere no more” file; having signed off with The Doors’ “The End,” WRNO-FM gave way for all-Talk radio format as the “The New 99.5FM.com”…going the exact same way of radio flesh as WTIX-AM 690 did in 1998!
It’s not like the end wasn’t expected, anyway. For me, the end came when in 1990 it instituted that abysmal “Z-Rock”! Fortunately, that dog of a concept was soon abandoned, but the damage had been done; WRNO had “jumped the shark.” It had been limping along ever since until it was finally put out of its misery.
It moved to a new position on the dial, 104.1 (the former placing for KHOM-FM) and is now known as simply “The Rock of New Orleans,” but I don’t think anything will ever be a proper subtitute for WRNO-FM, the once-mighty home for classic rock.
WRNO, you continue to be bitterly missed to this very day. To absent friends… <:-(
In Memoriam
WRNO-FM 99.5
The Rock Of New Orleans
October 17, 1967 - November 13, 2006