Comments on: Composite: 95 1/2 WMET Chicago | March 1977

By: Bob Roberts

Bob Roberts — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 23:57:49 +0000

Dave Alpert was one half of the WDHF/WMET news staff and I was the other half for most of the time that I did news at the station, February 1977-April 1978, after being hired as a weekend DJ in the fall of ‘76. Gary Price was our program director — not someone from Juarez, to be sure — and with the exception of Whammo, most on-air voices were kept on a pretty tight leash. We were dead serious about taking on WLS, although Metromedia ran us on the cheap; WCFL had left the Top 40 fray in March of ‘76. (When I ran contests on weekends a lot of the time all I had to give away was a station T-shirt.) I’m not afraid to admit it; my pay as a weekend DJ was $6 an hour, and I made $205 a week in the newsroom.
The call letter change occurred 12/1/76, and on-air DJ F.J. Bailey blew the calls on his first set after the official change (a big production, by the way)! Nothing else changed. FM Top 40 competition arrived while I worked at ‘DHF from WEFM, which had been classical before that and was the oldest licensed FM station in the country — Zenith getting the license in 1940. It was a heck of a place to break into major market radio, though. Other WDHF/WMET voices included Greg Brown, who is on WLS-FM today and Bill Taylor, who became Bill Fortune and has been on a number of Chicago stations since. Gary Price became program director of oldies WJMK for a number of years, doing fill-in work there just as he did at WDHF/WMET, and remains a Chicago-based freelance voiceover talent. Jim Summers became a programmer also, owned Pilot Communications in the early-mid ’90s, sold the chain, got wistful for radio, and is back in the game.

By: Dave Alpert

Dave Alpert — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 19:12:24 +0000

Actually they’d already been owned by Metromedia since around 1973. Tried a full-service AC format first, then flipped to CHR. Shortly after changing calls to WMET, they did another format change, to AOR/Classic Rock, going up against WLUP and WXRT. Chicago’s answer to LA’s KMET. The lightning bolt logo depicted is actually from the that era.

By: DJ Overnight Express

DJ Overnight Express — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:22:35 +0000

The call letters were WDHF. The station was sold to Metromedia and thus the call letter change. Wow I caught a little snipped of Larry Robinson “The Diamond Man” in this aircheck, Haven’t heard him in ages!

By: BobbyPeru

BobbyPeru — Tue, 13 May 2008 07:28:55 +0000

Awesome aircheck. I remember Captain Whammo. Listen close to this aircheck and you’ll hear a mistake. Jim Channel say “DHF”- well they must have just made the call letter change and old habits die hard. I feel like I’m 17 years old and listening to my radio. Thanks for submitting and posting. YOU ROCK!

By: Steve West

Steve West — Tue, 13 May 2008 00:33:50 +0000

All fixed. I forgot to put the link in the playbutton. Thanks for pointing it out.

By: Wayne Thorne

Wayne Thorne — Mon, 12 May 2008 23:52:14 +0000

Steve, this link is not working! The player comes up but does nothing.
Wayne