Contributor Rick Hunter (WODS/WCBS-FM/WYNY)is featured in this QuickCheck which doubles, apparently, as one of his demos. We’re guessing here as to the exact year, but judging from the music – from memory, mind you, thinking 1999, based upon Brian McKnight’s version of “Back at One” (and don’t get me started, arguing that Mark Wills’ version was better…)
Rick has the *perfect* voice and presentation for a Soft AC station. And SOFT it was when this was recorded. 106.7 Lite-FM, as the station goes by in NYC, is consistently one of the top stations in the city. It has a heritage all its own, going back to the station’s launch in 1984, from what was a Country station, WKHK, which went up against AM POWERHOUSE 1050 WHN! And lost. Lite-FM gets little representation in this aircheck, however, as this is just about all Rick Hunter, scoped down in typical demo form, so tightly that there’s just a hint of ‘other’ elements from the station. Yet, you WILL enjoy this. So listen, you.
Not only was it still Soft AC, but it was practically the modern version of Soft AC (read: the all-soft rock version of Soft AC [as opposed to the then-soon-to-fade-if-not-already-fading AC-leaning MOR]). Plus, the 106.7 Lite FM jocks didn’t talk over the music and they announced the song titles in the set after it ended, just like its former Beautiful Music counterparts(-slash-competitors?).
And even as recent as 1999, this would’ve been called mainstream AC. (Although with the AC/MOR hybrid and/or even AC/Beautiful Music hybrid versions of soft AC fading, this incarnation of WLTW would’ve been alternately called (mainstream) adult contemporary and soft adult contemporary.)