Philadelphia
Hecht Enterprises Presents: The Philadelphia Composite.
Date of Recording: July, 1991 Station(s): WIOQ,WEGX, WYSP Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA Featured Air Personalities: Various Contributor: Robyn Watts Source: Hecht Enterprises, Tape #61 Airchexx Entry: 104 What the hell. Here’s another hit. Comments: The first of the Robyn Watts collection that we ever posted gets a facelift. From the very beginnings (we’re talking year number ONE for this website), here’s a three-station donation of Philadelphia classics! 1. 102.1 WIOQ – Affectionally known as Q-102, this goes by so fast we didn’t even catch the girl DJ’s name! Recognize that imaging voice? It sure SOUNDS like a young Scott Shannon… at least so young his voice doesn’t resemble Don Imus’s 95 year old ‘eh sonny… ‘ tone...
Bill O’Brien, 92.5 WIFI Philadelphia | November 24, 1981
Date of Recording: 11.24.1981 Station: 92.5 WIFI Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA (WIFI/WXTU) Format: CHR Original Owner: General Cinema Corporation Current Owner: CBS Radio Featured Air Personality: Bill O’Brien Contributor: Big Apple Airchecks Comments: Listen to this fairly short scope of Evening guy Bill O’Brien and decide for yourself, is this AC or Top 40? The music is Adult Contemporary, but some fits into the emerging CHR format. But, one persistent fact keeps going around my head, despite all I read about WIFI 92 going AC: The jock keeps talking between EVERY record! That’s totally against the rules of AC formatted stations. Ok, the perceived rules. Perhaps WIFI was in the process of moving towards Adult Contemporary. We could over think this to death, along with ...
Composite: WEGX Eagle 106 Philadelphia | February 1993
Date of Recording: 02.xx.1993 Station: 106.1 WEGX Philadelphia, Pennsylvania USA (WZGO/WTRK/WEGX/WJJZ/WISX) Featured Air Personality: Various Contributor: Robyn Watts Comments: First in a series of trade releases from FMQB (Friday Morning Quarterback) donated by Robyn Watts is this look back at Adult Hits formatted Eagle 106 in Philly. We start right out with Lander and the morning Nut Hut… a precursor to his next gig in Boston at WBMX. The ‘check then moves on to the rest of the broadcast day.
Barsky in the Morning, 98.1 WCAU-FM Philadelphia | July 10, 1984
Date of Recording: 07.10.1984 Station: 98.1 WCAU-FM Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Featured Air Personality: Paul Barsky Aircheck Entry: 1,433 “Something’s different this morning. Pretzels and Brew…” Comments: Raise your hand if you remember “Barsky in the Morning”? In Philly or Chicago? Yes, Paul Barsky was on the old WCAU-FM and was so successful that ABC Chicago noticed and offered him a job at WLS-FM.. although at that point, the station became straight ahead CHR as WYTZ “Z-95”. Barsky really was a consummate professional. Even dabbled in station ownership for a while. Other stations Barsky was heard on include WAXC Rochester, KRBE Houston and WYSP Philadelphia. Note the almost overpowering reverb 98 Now was running in 1984. It wouldn’t...
J.J. Jeffrey, “Famous 56” WFIL Philadelphia | May, 1970
Date of Recording: May, 1970 (Exact date unknown) Station: 560 WFIL Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Featured Air Talent: J.J. Jeffrey Aircheck Entry: 1,428 Comments: …It’s a MILLION DOLLAR WEEKEND, but when you’re with me, you get it with interest! WFIL shared similarities with New York City’s WMCA. They were right next to each other on the dial. They both started out as Top 40 stations (after the dawn of Rock & Roll), although WMCA was a few years ahead of WFIL. And interestingly enough, today both are religious stations. Okay. Some of this info I read on Wikipedia, so, I’ll give them credit for that (click HERE). Still, when one compares WFIL and its history with other stations of that era in the Northeast, there really aren’t that many recordings avai...
Old Gold 1971 Remastered, Part 1 of 4
Going WAY back to the beginning of this website – well, okay, WAY back to the days when the radio industry trade circulated audio specials on vynl, here’s a completely re-mastered copy of one of the very first exhibits we had on airchexx way back in 2002! Old Gold was actually a vynl print – well, one could find it on vynl and on cassette in later years. The original copy we had obtained was on a worn out cassette and very muffled, but back then we were happy to post anything. Now, taken right from the record itself, a copy of Old Gold 1971. I’m posting this in four parts for easier listening. Beware, the vynl skips about 3 minutes in, during the WWDJ aircheck.. but not badly. Contained in this segment, in this order: WFIL Philadelphia – Dan Donovan KTSA San A...
94 WYSP Philadelphia | June 14, 1985
Back in ’85, I was commuting back and forth every weekend from Norfolk, VA to my hometown in Massachusetts. It was my weekend escape from the Navy, when my ship was actually in port and not underway somewhere. From about Dover, Delaware up to about midway up the NJTP (about 50 miles from NYC), I had my choice of TWO Philadelphia AOR stations.. 93-3 WMMR and this one, 94 YSP. WMMR was much harder, as I remember, playing more hair band stuff and more Zeppelin, etc. The alternative was to go here to 94 YSP. I guess in 1985 I was a serious rocker, AM top 40 was completely dead, and for some reason (maybe it was Michael Jackson), I was loathe to listen to CHR for a while. So, this is a good representation of your webmaster’s crazy listening habits for a time from 1984-1987. The jock...
Big Ron O’Brien, WYXR “Star 104.5” Philadelphia | 1995
A new add to the Big Ron O’Brien Archives is this great 22 minute, mid-90s scope of Big Ron at Star 104.5! Here’s a hugely uptempo, almost adult-chr O’brien doing the format he belongs in. Ron’s fantastic with callers, perfect in drive-time… this is a wonderful glimpse into the middle of the 90s and radio just before Telcom 96 sounded the death knell of it. – Courtesy of Matt over at Big Apple Airchecks.
Hy Lit, 104.5 WSNI Philadelphia | May 18, 1985
The late, legendary Hy Lit is featured in this Saturday night oldies show hosted by him. Notables: WSNI is an AC formatted station that does Oldies during weekends. Listen carefully to the (brief) glimpses of music and you’ll know instantly that Lit brought in RECORDS for this event… some scratches come through.! Probably best known for his time at WIBG, Hy Lit passed away in 2007 after 3 decades in radio.
Rich Hawkins, WCAU-FM ’98-Now’ Philadelphia | December, 1984
Somewhere in our vault of yet-to-be-posted airchecks, we have more recordings of WCAU-FM, and the ‘Hot Hits’ ™ format from other stations around the country, which consultant Mike Joseph propelled to huge ratings success in the 1980s. For now, however, let us be the beneficiaries of a great show put on my late morning jock Rich Hawkins. It’s December on this tape, and everything is gearing up for Christmas. Listen to the number of commercials – at least three breaks in this hour with both produced and live reads (live? oh, there’s a concept!). Listen to the amount of reverb WCAU-FM is using. This is 1984 and the station is red hot – truly Philadelphia’s only REAL Top 40 hit station of any consequence at this point in it’s existence. You...
Bill Wright, WIBG 990 Philadelphia | August 1, 1966
“Look out everybody, this is hot wax!!!” We begin by warning listeners: The audio quality on this recording is horrible. Despite my best efforts, the tape sounds muddy, grainy, has dropouts and a very strange echo, which I believe is caused by old oxide audio bleedthrough. What I mean by that is, sometimes when a tape has been sitting for a very long time (and we’re talking several decades here), the sounds on a tape actually bleed through to the next layer of tape – remember, cassette tape is wound on a capstan and the tape on the takeup reel may not have moved in 30 years. Now that that’s out of the way, here’s the description of a recording from a time when WIBG, “Wibbage”, was the undesputed king of Top 40 music. This begins coming out of...
KYW 1060 Philadelphia Remembers September 11 – The Tragedy and The Courage
Contributor Julius May donated this recording of a 30 minute special aired on the one year anniversary of the 9/11/01 terrorist attacks upon the World Trade Center in New York City. The recording speaks for itself in terms of emotions, which still ran high one year later. Produced locally by KYW, this actually aired on September 9, 2002, which happened to be a Monday, therefore they used that as a basis for the one year anniversary. Some parental guidance is suggested. Please, educate your children as to what happened. This is a good tool – no political pandering here, no sides taken, no speculation on conspiracies. Just the facts, timeline, and actual audio from 9/11. Facts don’t lie, and neither does history recorded live.
