WVNJ-FM 100.3 Newark NJ, Last Day | August 1, 1983
With all this talk of format changes, we here at airchexx.net thought it might be interesting to post what it sounded like the day BEFORE WHTZ Z100 came on the air way back in the ancient year of 1983!
WVNJ-FM in the period just before becoming Z100, was a mix of beautiful music and jazz. Ratings weren’t all that exciting, but there were a number of these BM-type stations still broadcasting at the beginning of the 1980s… these would go away by the middle of the decade.
See if you can pinpoint the exact moment of this aircheck. Z100 was born at exactly 6:08 AM on August 2, 1983, and to help with a point of reference, they began with Survivor’s “Eye Of The Tiger”, played by PD Scott Shannon. Again, this is from the day before.
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This aircheck brings back a lot of memories. Although I missed the actual final few moments of WVNJ FM at Midnight on August 1st, I was keeping up with what was going on at 100.3 FM.
I had heard that the station was supposed to change to z-100 on Monday but held off till Tuesday morning. They would transmit from the WVNJ site in West Orange till they flipped on the big flame thrower from the top of the Empire State Building on Thursday morning.
After WVNJFM switched, the AM station at 620 continued the beautiful music by day, jazz by night format till October 1st when the call letters changed to WSKQ and Spanish Broadcasting took over.
Today 620 is a mix of brokered Russian programs and Sporting News Radio at times.
z-100 and Scott Shannon would make history when the station would go from worst to first in 74 days in 1983.
how prophetic… the last song on an example of the last day of WVN-JOY! starts with the lyric of “on the first day of the rest of my life”… Even though I was a teenager enthralled with the likes of WLS, WHBQ, KXOK, etc. in the late 70’s, early 80’s, I always did enjoy the B-EZ format. My grandparents always listened to “k FM p” with the announcer’s emphasis on “FM” out of Cape Girardeau, MO. Ditto for “k EZ k” in St. Louis. The former became country powerhouse K103 in the late 80’s. The later gradually evolved into soft-AC and remains a top 5 ratings and revenue leader in the hometown of the 2006 World Series Champion St. Louis Cardinals.
Oh my lord! this aircheck is priceless! I honestly haven’t laughed so hard in weeks. I had forgotten that stations like this were still around in 1983. I especially love the vocal versions of “sunshine On My Shoulder”, “You Decorated My Life”, and “When I Need You.” these were all very mellow songs to begin with so I don’t know why they couldn’t have just played the real versions. I also love how they refer to themselves as “Stereo” as if people hadn’t already figured out by 1983 that Fm could broadcast in stereo. this sounds more like a throwback to 1973 than 1983 which is what makes this so funny to listen to. Thanks for not scoping this one. The music is too hilarious!
If I’d scoped this one, there wouldn’t have been much to listen to!
I get the impression from listening to this aircheck that it took place during afternoon drive on August 1, 1983 on WVNJ FM.
I agree with the comments about the music. Amazing! No wonder beautiful music began to disappear by the late ’80s.
It’s interesting to note that although beautiful music stations were disappearing in the ’80s, the last station that did the format in the New York market (WPAT FM), did not change until January 20, 1996. They had been sold to Spanish Broadcasting and although they went Spanish AC, they kept the call letters.
I too am glad you did not scope this aircheck. It may not be top 40 but in its own way it’s worth hearing.
Larry, WVNJ’s studios and xmtr were in Livingston, near the Circle, not West Orange. After standing vacant for many years, the five-stick array was torn down and the site redeveloped as condos. Spent more than a few hours of my misguided youth there.
As of this writing, I have been unable to listen to this clip; it seems that the file will not download properly. I would simply ask that this matter be addressed whenever possible. Thank you.
In reference to an above post about WPAT, around 1985-86, it was the number one rated station in New york, hence the number one station in the country. WHTZ however, which was number2, complained that WPATs ratings were tabulated for both AM and FM. Had arbitron counted the FM seperatly, WHTZ would have been number 1.
Actually WPAT did become a Spanish Station on January 20, 1996. But they had long abandoned “easy Listening music” by then. Actually they began to evolve out of “Beautiful Music” in 1991. They switched to a down-tempo AC format (slightly more current than WLTW was back then but softer than most AC stations at that time) on January 1, 1993. They cointinued to market themselves as an easy station for another year and 8 months. On October 1, 1994 they became “Today’s 93.1″ and were more of a regular adult contemporary station playing a large amount of uptempo music. So when they became Spanish, WPAT was actually an adult contemporary station
montovanni,andre kostelanetz,etc…and popular musical renditions of songs with the lush violins and smaltzy music of long forgotten radio hosts is my only memories of this wonderful station that felt more like a place to visit than just another song.