Jeff Smulyan had an idea. What if you could recreate barroom discussion of sports on a 24 hour radio station. Lucky for Jeff, he happened to be the President of Emmis Broadcasting, which happened to have an AM outlet in New York that would be a perfect testing ground for the format. WHN had become a legend in the previous 15 years it had with the Country format, with many New York DJ’s that will go into any New York Radio Hall of Fame: Del Demontreaux, Lee Arnold, Dan Daniel, and Dan Taylor to name a few. Equipped with rights to the defending World Champion New York Mets, WFAN signed-on and without making much of a dent in the ratings it did make a name for itself locally and nationally.
Loading ...
Almost as sad as the end of the SECOND station this format killed, WNBC.
How interesting that Suzyn Waldman was the very first voice on WFAN — not what I would have expected — and she continues to make history as an announcer with the Yankees.
I heard the above aircheck. Dan Taylor’s voice became very husky toward the end.