WBBF Rochester | June 14, 1967
At just over 2 minutes this is definitely a QuickCheck - but seriously folks, with the massive amount of reverb we sure wish this was longer! Includes a couple of song intros, lotsa commercials and the start of a newscast (legal ID included!).
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This IS the late Jessica Savtich, who became an NBC News reporter/anchor, and whose rapid rise and tragic fall has been chronicled in two books. This aircheck is quoted in one of them– “Almost Golden” by Gwenda Blair.
Remember Rochester’s little Top 40 giant BBF well
This is the station I grew up with, Where I heard the hits first…
I remember Jessica Savitch even more for the
TV commercials she used to do for Hadlock’s house of paints….
I wish somebody had more of these types flashbacks…Ferdinand J, Lanny Frattare(who moved on and still is the voice of the Pittsburgh Pirates) Larry White, Jerry Carr, Ron DeFrance,
Jack Palvino or Tim Griffen….
Anyway, this was a great slice
What brought the good times of Rochester radio back to life, was a short stop a couple of years back on a Buffalo station WKBW 1520. They had taken a 50s/60s format, and brought it to life again, until Entercom bought out the station and changed the format to a left wing format (wrong move!) Since that time I had descovered WBBF was tried on the FM, but not as it was in the 60s.
I remember as a kid going back & forth between WBBF & WAXC. I remember Ferdinand Js show which was live on BBF, while WAXY had Wolfman Jack via syndication.
I remember Larry White, but don’t know where he landed. Jerry Carr was still around as I entered into broadcasting in the 80s. I last heard him on either WEZO or WRMM. Ron Defrance I remember hearing on BBF, and then seeing him on what was WOKR, now WHAM-TV13. Jack Palvino I remember most. I remember waking up with Palvino in the morning as WBBF was giving it a last ditch effort to gain its shares back in the market. I recall the last show with Jack Palvino & Dick Tobias on The AM dial, and then The start of both on the FM dial as WVOR-100 made it’s mark in Rochester.
I still believe that if a station was to re-create a format alike WBBF, the way it was back in the 60s, it would sell better than some of the classic oldies stations we have on the air now.
Dave, Entercom owned WWKB before the switch TO the KB Klassic format. I must agree with you however, that they could have found something better than the left wing trash they put on 1520 when Real Oldies didn’t work out.
Its tough, my friend… the AM dial is now virtually a barren wasteland of junk signals, with maybe one or two good news and information type stations in a market. I’m not sure Entercom really had much else they could have done with KB, except PROMOTE the damn format and maybe just updated the music. Even that would have been difficult, as they never would have beaten WHTT. So, that’s reality, format choices are quite limited on AM…. but I agree with the sentiment - it was too bad Entercom had to dump the Oldies format. It was nice while it lasted.
Dave,
Thank you., it’s nice to be remembered. Those were great days to be in radio. It was always exciting with the latest music from the Motown groups, The Beatles, The Stones, etc.
I ended my 19 years in Rochester with Jack Palvino and others at WVOR in sales. Later the company transferred me to Buffalo where I spent seven great years as the VP/General Manager of what became Buffalo’s number one FM station, WBUF.
I left the day to day radio business in April ‘91 and now do commercial voiceovers for clients across the country from my home recording studio.
All the best,
Larry White
Hi me again. Nice to see Larry White Checked in!
I would love itif someone actually put together a
WBBF tribute sight like KB, CKLW, WABC,KHJ and even WOLF in Syracuse I think the “BBF of the 90’s” morning man Alex Feaster made an effort to do so but it never got off the ground. Is there any hope??? Anyway, radio has changed largely because of automation…”Robot-radio”…songs don’t skip anymore but along with eliminating the “risk” of things going wrong technically,comes erasure of the human element has also almost exterminated good spontenaity…
I have moved from Rochester to Atlanta GA and now there is a national format called The True Oldies channel..it is a throwback in personality AND the actual music it plays…many songs there were Top 40 staples but neveror barely cracked the Top 15..I am impressed with the variety-