We can’t pin down the date of this – but perhaps someone can. Mark Simone is the personality for this, the last and best era at the great Eleven Three Oh WNEW. I’m guessing it’s sometime in the 80s.
Andy Williams is Simone’s call-in guest.
What a well-done radio station this was! WNEW was anything but boring, despite playing music that nobody under 40 would have been caught dead listening to (oh, but some of us did). It was obviously the personalities that brought it all together for WNEW, a station that was so well loved, that when Bloomberg purchased the station and flipped 1130 to Business News, the former WQXR (AM) flipped from Classical to the former WNEW’s Standards format. WQEW “The Home of American Popular Standards” had a massive following for many years after the demise of WNEW. And, that’s the legacy that the great radio station featured here left.
Mark Simone, of course, is still around. A weekend talk show host on WABC. He’s one of the great personalities of New York radio and my guess is Simone will be remembered by future generations much the same way as people fondly remember Top 40 jocks like Scott Muni, Roscoe and even Ron Lundy. Time will tell, but one thing is certain. Recordings of WNEW are hard to find. We hope you’ll enjoy this small slice of the great WNEW, Eleven-Three-Oh in New York!
Courtesy of Big Apple Airchecks
A couple of things:
Long-time personality Jonathan Schwartz, who is an expert on Frank Sinatra, is at the end of this aircheck years after playing progressive rock on WOR-FM.
Steve, do you know the year of this aircheck? It is close to Christmas as Andy Williams mentioned.
The trivia question: What president had the same middle name as the last name of another president. Since the answer was Ronald Wilson Reagan, the year must be prior to 1992 since William Jefferson Clinton also qualified.
One of the great, old-time MOR stations in the nation. Great aircheck.
Tony
Tony, my guess is 1982 or 3. Sometime before I went into the Navy as I recall WNEW’s format caught my interest around that time, and I could only get them at night up in Western Mass. But this sounds very close to the format I remember from that time. I’ve no idea since the tape only said WNEW and had no date at all.
Here is an interesting website devoted to the memory of the old WNEW-AM.
//wnew1130.com/
Tony
Simone mentions an all-Elvis station operating in Cincinnati.
A station in Milford in the Cincinnati greater area aired an all-Elvis from August 1988 until the 12th anniversary of Prestley’s death in August 1989.
So perhaps that narrows it down.
Tony
Steve,
Is that you in the photo … top right?
Tony
I think this aircheck was recorded around the end of WNEW-AM. In other words, sometime in the late ’80s or early ’90s.
Jonathan Schwartz never worked at WOR-FM. He played progressive rock on WNEW-FM after the Drake format took over on 98.7 and Scott Muni and Rosko moved to WNEW-FM.
Another correction is that a group did not purchase WQXR-AM and change the call letters to WQEW. The New York Times Company changed the format, etc. in December, 1992.
The American Popular Standards concept would last until the end of 1998 when Radio Disney took over so they could be heard on a 50,000 watt signal in the number one radio market. This was an LMA between the Times and ABC Disney which would continue for eight years. After that, Disney bought the license and we’re stuck with their programming on 1560.
So many of us will never forget WNEW-AM. They wrote the book on how the great American Songbook should be presented both musically and with the right personalities.
An interesting book on WNEW-FM is “fm: The Rise and Fall of Rock Radio” by Richard Neer who was a PD, an MD and a jock in during his long tenure at WNEW-FM.
Since Simone mentions the all-Elvis format on a Cincinnati-area station. I still believe the aircheck is between August 1, 1988 and August 16, 1989 when the all-Elvis format aired on WCVG in Milford, Ohio. August 16, 1989 was the 12th anniversary of Elvis’ death and was the last time the all-Elvis format aired on the station.
The call WCVG now belongs to a Covington, KY station.
Tony
We’re all in agreement then, Schwartz never worked at WOR-FM. I do recall hearing airchecks of him on WNEW-FM and Larry & Tony’s comments stand. Tony, somehow the first line of your comment got cut off, my apologies about that. I had some sort of posting error – site back end actually froze (and that hasn’t happened in a LONG time!) when I was doing approvals.
Steve,
I just stated Larry was correct.
Schwartz worked for a number of years at WNEW-FM not WOR-FM.
Tony
I agree around 88 or 89. Couple of key points, the Jingles do not reference Metromedia so its clearly after 1986. There is also a reference to the Quincy McCoy Sunday show, “Everything Ella”, I think that show ended in 1990. Great to here Bob Fitzsimmons voice on the tail end of the check.
Simonian is the biggest underacheiver in radio.He’s been reduced to a WABC hack.He won’t do a weekday or national show because of the attention it brings.His guards his private life very tightly.He’s ashamed of his Armenian background ; he’s another Republican who preaches family values when personally he has neither,alongside rumors that he’s gay ; and that old bugaboo,his hair.These revelations would cause it to fall out a second time!
Mark Simone is awesome! I could care less about his or anyone else’s sexuality! Means nothing to me! He just switched from from WABC to WOR, doing weekdays 10 to noon! I will miss his great Saturday night music show on WABC!