Given to us by Ray Bozzanca over the Summer of ‘08, here’s a scoped down composite of some of the best of this most awesome countdown presented here by Walt “Baby” Love and Lee Douglas, presumably over a weekend back in the year when Nixon resigned (now why would we remember THAT right now?)
In typical early 99x fashion, this station is lightning fast, the jocks in and out of breaks with one and two line quips then right back into music. They had to, WABC still was king and this was a major challenge to the throne, although in 1974 and on FM, they didn’t really stand a chance… but had this been on AM, can you only imagine how different the radio landscape might have turned out? This brings up an interesting discussion. What if RKO General had an AM station in NYC in the 70s and that 99X sound had come along on the AM dial to challenge WABC? There’s fodder for discussion…
This aircheck was scoped by the contributor, and with the exception of one or two edits for song length, its been left intact. Runs about 17 minutes.
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Of course RKO did have an AM station in NY in the ’70s: heritage talker WOR.
What I should have said was if NYC had a TOP 40 RKO station on AM. I’ve always wondered why they kept WOR a talk station. Perhaps they figured it wasn’t worth the effort and expense to go after WABC with its huge numbers. Certainly doing the format on FM was far cheaper, wouldn’t one think?
Up until the last few years, WOR-AM had always been a top-rated cash cow.
As I remember it, 99x was a more “grown up” version of top 40. WABC was for little kids. In the ’70’s you started listening to teeny bopper, bubble gum WABC then you moved up to 99x, which had the hits, plus some AOR staples like Zep’s Stairway to Heaven. This paved the way for you to move on to the still more grown up, full-on AOR stations such as WNEW, WPLJ, WLIR and such.
Tim, 99X actually beat WABC in teens in 1974, but couldn’t overtake them overall because of WABC’s young adult strength (if memory serves me correctly, WBLS briefly beat WABC 12+ a year or two later, with Disco 92 WKTU finally decisively winning in summer 1978). I believe 99X was the first FM station to be #1 in teens in New York.
Another DJ voice heard on this aircheck is Cary Pall, also could have been off one year when I submitted the aircheck.Looks like 1975 due to hearing the song “love Will Keep Us Together”