Here’s another station from the Steel City which hasn’t got much exposure. “3WS” is apparently still around, although we’re not sure what format its running these days.
The tape at hand was sent in by Robyn Watts. It highlights 3WS as an Oldies station in October of 1980. It sounds like the morning show, Herb Crow is very personable. Interestingly enough, the 3WS jingles are one of the JAM WABC cuts and while the jingles sound GOOD, its a little wierd hearing “MusicRadio 3WS” in an Oldies format. Just sayin’.
Hi Steve….
This incarnation of 3WS was actually the very sloppy oldies based AC format that Mike Harvey installed after flipping in August of 1980 from WPEZ’s Top 40 format. The station was not oldies at that point and the broad based AC was a disaster.
After Harvey left and Diane Sutter turned the programming reigns over to Gary Marince, the station took off as a legitimate Oldies powerhouse.
I’m afraid that this is an example of a really bad format and, I feel badly for my friend Herb Crowe (now Max Morgan at KIIM in Tuscson) because you can tell that he was having an awful time swallowing this really bad format.
When this aircheck was recorded, 3WS had just switched from WPEZ a little more than a mothe earlier. 3WS was not an Oldies station yet. They were more of a gold based a/c at this time. It was a couple of years before they made the switched to Oldies.
I really enjoyed the 3WS of about 20 years ago. A little bit of trivia. 94.5 changed its call letters from WPEZ shortly before this aircheck was made, and the AM side of 3WS was country for about 10 months beginning in August of ’78. There was at least one current song on this aircheck, namely, Eddie Rabbitt’s “Drivin’ my Life Away”. Also, I’d like to give a shout-out to Jeff Roteman. I call him on the phone from time to time, and we talk about when KQV was a music station, which was so long ago you’d need the Wayback Machine to get there. Also, liked the Musicradio jingles.
This aircheck sounds fantastic. I’ve been afraid to hear the 3WS version of JAM’s “Musicradio” jingles for a while now, but after I listened to them briefly this afternoon, I thought, “They sounded great!”
This is the logo from 3WS in 1980 //user.pa.net/~ejjeff/3ws3WSgoldlogo.jpg
3WS is still playing oldies, but they’re doing a lot of stuff from the 80s. I don’t listen to them anymore, as I’ve no way of getting them, but as I said before I liked them a whole lot about 20 years ago.
I listened to 3WS whenever they would play songs from the 60s and 70s. I don’t listen to it on a regular basis anymore, but I may listen to it occasionally.
Mr. Sisco’s remarks seem a little strong (and he is right, it WAS a really bad format), maybe it’s because he was the WPEZ PD who was deposed in the switch to 3WS (an awful name, for that matter — calls were WWSW-FM). A shame, in any case — WPEZ sounded really good when they pulled the plug on him.
Here is a clarification on the Jam Jingles. They bought a 16 cut composite of Pro/Mod, Class Action and Positron in September 1980
A little history note. At 1:04, I heard that the Royals beat the Yankees 7-2 in the 1st game of the 1980 ALCS; 35 years later, they’d beat the Mets by that score to clinch the World Series. Also liked the jingle at 0:45.
Other tunes played weren’t THAT old at the time either, like Fogelberg’s “Heart Hotels” .. only a couple years.
Thanks for the mention of Gary Marince. I’d forgotten that name.
From the early to late 90s, I listened to them whenever I could. Being the purist that I am, I listened to the AM side, which is now WBGG and is Fox Sports 970. I guess they play a lot of stuff from the 80s, and not too much Motown anymore. Wonder if they’ll ever play anything by Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera, as a great deal of their material is now oldies, or if you please, “classic hits”.