By 1987, WNBC was playing a fair amount of Oldies in its mix. Weekdays started with Imus in the Morning and Top 40 music, Middays, WNBC returned to a music approach featuring Noontime Oldies with Ray D’Ariano, after Soupy Sales and afternoons were the domain of Alan Colmes and PM drive mostly talk, news and traffic reports… although a few Oldies songs did sneak in for a while. Weekends, however… weekends were different. The WNBC “Time Machine” was in full swing at this point in time, and proving to be so popular that station management was even considering taking WNBC Oldies full-time!
I’ll just leave that story right there since we all know that parent company RCA decided to get out of the radio business in 1988. Ultimately, WFAN moved down the dial from 1050, where it sits today along with it’s simulcasted FM sister station at 101.9 FM. You can hear Imus in the Morning on that final day of WNBC via this link.
Here’s an ultra-short scope of the late Jim Collins on an undated 1987 edition of the WNBC Time Machine!
Sounds fiercly similar to Alan Colmes and wouldn’t be shocked if it is.
No, Jim Collins was a great jock in his own rite. Colmes was a talk host and had the first pm drive without music – in fact, someone once told me that when Alan Colmes was hired to replace Joey Reynolds, they wanted him to play music – even if it was only 2 or 3 records per hour, and he refused, except for in the beginning, out of the Top hour newscast.
By the time Joey was gone, there wasn’t much music in the afternoon show. I believe Alan started off playing a couple of songs, but they were used as transitions between bits or guests.
Jim Collins was a great jock and programmer, invaluable as my assistant, and one of my best friends. He left us much too soon.
By the time I started listening to Alan Colmes it was after Soupy had been let go and Ray Dariano was doing afternoons…At that time Alan was not playing any music at all….But I do remember a short stint that Jim Collins had done during the transition of Soupy’s show to Ray’s show….He sounded great as always….Jim Collins is missed by many !! Including me !!
Yes Alan Colmes originally played 4 songs an hour but in July of 87 Music was gone from Alan Colmes show. Ray Dariano played oldies strictly by then as well but without the time machine echo and jinglkes