Pete Salant
Famous Air Talent, Legendary Programmer, Our Contributor and co-Creator of 9! and 99!
Howard Hoffman
Howard Hoffman, Legendary funny man, WABC Jock, Producer, Talk Show host and co-Creator of 9! and 99!
Russ And Anita
Russ DiBello and Anita Bonita – two wonderful and famous creative voices and co-Creators of 9! and 99!
Randy West
Randy West – Game shows, Voiceover Talent and co-Creator of 9! and it’s sequel, 99!

How do you present a legendary performance the right way? Why, by re-mastering it!

Contributor and site friend Pete Salant provided a copy of this, ‘restored’ version of what’s probably the best known and loved parody of radio formats.  When young, baby deejays get into the business, they likely will never understand what it was to work with mics (with no processing), cue burned 45s, cart machines that misfired

or owners who were out of their minds (at least to us air talent)!
As they like to say these days… the battle is (was) real!

Aircheck #1,584
Total Time: 5:41

Pete Salant writes:

So…since I last saw you in 2014, a one-off of the original stereo master reel of “NINE!” was bestowed on me by our teammate and creative genius Howard Hoffman. As our prior best submaster suffered from gobs of tape hiss and a stereo stage which suffered from ‘lateral slide,’ I created a new public master copy by carefully and subtly reducing some of the noise, and stabilizing the mono workparts such as my narration and Howard’s “9-Double-Oh Radio” DJ. Levels, which varied greatly on purpose, were left alone.

Recording and production of “NINE!” began at around midnight, sometime in July (?) 1974, in the now defunct WALL-FM stereo production studio in Middletown, NY. Lots of pizza was consumed, and absolutely no mind-altering substances were used. After that night.

By Steve West

Steve West is a 41 year veteran of broadcasting. His air work as a Jock and News Anchor includes six radio markets and over two-dozen radio stations. Steve is the founder of Airchexx.com and Hitoldies.net - All the BIG Hits!

3 thoughts on “The Original “9! – The Ultimate Radio Format!””
  1. This will never, ever get old! By the way, does anyone know where the news sounder used came from? I really love it and I’d like to have a copy of it…Been looking for it for the better part of a year!

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Scroll Upcss.php
Share via
Copy link