February 26 Radio History

➦In 1919...Mason Adams born (Died - April 26, 2005 at age 86). He was a character actor and voice-over artist.

Adams was heard on many radio programs during Radio's Golden Age. A notable recurring role was that of Pepper Young in Pepper Young's Family, which aired from 1947 to 1959. He also portrayed the deadly Nazi Atom Man in a classic 1945 serial on the radio version of The Adventures of Superman.

Mason Adams

Adams is perhaps most famous for his role as Managing Editor Charlie Hume in the television series Lou Grant, which aired from 1977 to 1982.

During the 1960s, he was ubiquitous as a voiceover actor in television commercials for foods and household products, most notably for Chiffon margarine and Crest toothpaste ("Helps stop cavities before they start"). He also did the vocal part of the television commercials for Smucker's preserves ("With a name like Smucker's, it has to be good!"), a role he resumed in his later years. Beginning in the 1980s, Adams provided the voiceover for Cadbury Creme eggs, which were advertised on television with Adams' catchy slogan, "Nobunny knows Easter better than him [the Cadbury Bunny]."

In addition, Adams was the narrator for Kix commercials in the 1990s as well as a few Dentyne commercials and a few Swanson commercials. He was also the announcer for a 1992 WCBS-TV news promo, as well as a 1986 Lysol commercial. In the early 1990s, he narrated The Discovery Channel series on milestones of aviation called "Frontiers of Flight". In one of the early episodes of Sesame Street, he voiced a cartoon featuring a "jazzy" triangle and a "square" square. He voiced those two, as well as being the narrator, with jazz music in the background.

➦In 1932...Singer Johnny Cash Born (Died September 12, 2003 at age 71).  He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold more than 90 million records worldwide.  Although primarily remembered as a country music icon, his genre-spanning songs and sound embraced rock and roll, rockabilly, blues, folk, and gospel. This crossover appeal won Cash the rare honor of being inducted into the Country Music, Rock and Roll, and Gospel Music Halls of Fame.

➦In 1951...WMCA-FM changed call letters to WHOM-FM in NYC

According to NYC City FM History, the station, purchased by WHOM 1480 AM, initially featured a foreign-language format of 13 languages, including some not widely spoken ones such as Swiss-German, Carpatho-Ruthenian, Ukrainian, Russian, Turkish and Chinese.

In August 1961, WHOM-FM began a syndicated classical music format under the "Heritage" name. This continued until June 15, 1962 when WHOM-FM began simulcasting the mostly Spanish programming from WHOM-AM.

Charles Baltin, VP of WHOM, noted the many Spanish-speaking listeners moving to New York and said the "WHOM-FM signal will extend farther than the WHOM-AM signal, providing listeners with a radio service they could not otherwise obtain." The simulcast continued until 1970, when the FCC refused an extension of its permit to simulcast the AM.

The station then started broadcasting the "Romantic Sounds Of Stereo," a Latin-type beautiful music program service with Spanish and English announcers, but continued to simulcast the AM station from 5a-9a and all day Sunday.

By 1975, the station had evolved into a Pop/Rock leaning AC format, with calls of WKTU.

On July 24, 1978, WKTU abruptly switched to an "All Disco" format as "Disco 92", which eventually evolved into more of a Rhythmic CHR by the Fall of 1979.

In the summer of 1984, WKTU became a mainstream CHR.

Then, in July of 1985, after airing the Live Aid concert, the station switched to a mainstream AOR format, featuring new and classic rock as WXRK "K-Rock".

In September 1985, Howard Stern (who had been fired from WNBC earlier that year) joined the station, initially for afternoons and in early 1986 switched to mornings.

In 1987, WXRK had instituted a classic rock format and on January 5, 1996, evolved into an alternative/active rock format.

On April 4, 2005, WXRK debuted a mainstream rock format, encompassing music from the 60's to today.

Howard Stern

On December 16, 2005, Howard Stern broadcast his last show on the station, before his anticipated move to Sirius Satellite Radio on January 9, 2006.

On January 3, 2006, 92.3 became an "all-talk" station (with the exception of weekends when it features a rock format) using the "Free FM" slogan and featuring David Lee Roth in mornings.
Calls were officially changed to WFNY on January 1.

In April 2006, David Lee Roth was replaced with Opie & Anthony.

On May 24, 2007 at 5pm, "K-Rock" returned to 92.3.

Calls were changed back to WXRK on May 31, 2007.

On March 11, 2009, 92.3 switched to a CHR format as "92.3 Now FM", with the "K-Rock" format moving to 92.3's HD2 channel.

92.3 changed calls to WNOW on November 8, 2012.

On May 22, 2014 at 2pm, 92.3 re-branded themselves as "92.3 AMP."

Calls changed to WBMP on June 23, 2014.  On February 2, 2017, CBS Radio announced it would merge with Entercom. The merger was approved on November 9, 2017, and was completed on November 17.  On that day, at 10 a.m., after playing "Too Good at Goodbyes" by Sam Smith and "Encore" by Brooklyn native Jay-Z, WBMP flipped back to alternative as Alt 92.3, launching with "My Hero" by The Foo Fighters. The switch marked the return of the format to the market for the first time since 2012. The station call letters are now WNYL-FM.

➦In 1955… Billboard reported that, for the first time, the 45rpm single recording was outselling the 78rpm format. The 45 rpm was named for the number of revolutions the record made during a minute.  Physical singles declined in the United States during the '90s, and many record companies stopped releasing them altogether to concentrate more on album sales.

Since the establishment of the Billboard Hot 100, singles were not eligible to enter the chart unless they were available to purchase as a physical single. By the late 1990s, several popular mainstream hits never charted on the Hot 100. No Doubt's 1996 hit "Don't Speak" spent 16 weeks at number one on the Hot 100 Airplay chart, but it never charted on the Billboard Hot 100. On 5 December 1998, Billboard changed the rule to allow airplay-only songs onto the chart.

Aaliyah's "Try Again" (2000) was the first single ever to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100 based solely on radio airplay.

➦In 1973...WHN 1050 AM NYC changed to country music. After researching the market, Storer Broadcasting converted WHN to a country format in 1973. Mutual bought WHN in the late 1980s. WYNY- FM  flipped to country from 1980 to 1984, hurting WHN’s ratings.

Doubleday Broadcasting bought WHN in 1985, and Emmis Communications bought it the following year. Emmis added sports talk in the evenings, keeping the country format during the day.

In 1987, Emmis announced WHN would become all-sports WFAN.  When Emmis purchased NBC’s New York radio stations in 1988, the company moved WFAN from 1050 AM to 660 AM, formerly occupied WNBC.

Spanish Broadcasting System purchased the 1050 AM license and became WUKQ, a Spanish Adult Contemporary station.  Spanish Broadcasting System wanted to swap 1050 AM with cash for the Jewish Daily Forward’s FM station, WEVD 97.9 FM.  The deal was approved in 1989.

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 WEVD’s call letters and programming moved to the 1050 AM frequency.  The station mainly carried a brokered format of ethnic programs, talk shows and foreign-language programming.  By the mid-1990s, WEVD moved to a left-leaning news-talk format.

An agreement with ABC/Disney brought ESPN’s “The Dan Patrick Show” to WEVD in 2001.  On September 2, 2001, WEVD became “1050 ESPN Radio.”

The call letters were changed to WEPN in 2003, competing directly with WFAN’s all-sports format.  In 2012, WEPN’s programming moved to 98.7 FM.  ESPN Deportes later moved the 1050 AM frequency.


➦In 1976...Jay Reynolds does last show at 77 WABC NYC almost 6-years to the date when he started.


➦In 1983...Michael Jackson's scored another Number One Album with 'Thriller'. It stayed atop the album charts in the U-S for 37-weeks.

In just over a year, Thriller became the world's best-selling album, having sold an estimated 66 million copies. It is the second-best-selling album in the United States, behind the Eagles' album Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975).

➦In 2006...Radio personality and actor Jack Lazare, a Hartford, CT resident for two decades, died. He was 83.

Jack Lazare

In the 1950s heyday of Big Bands, Lazare was host of the popular "Milkman's Matinee" on WNEW in New York. His studio guests included Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong and Benny Goodman.

Lazare's radio career later took him to Boston, hosting "Music 'til Dawn" on WEEI, and "Sounds in the Night" and a talk show on WHDH.

Born in New York City, Lazare studied communications at the University of California at Berkeley. After serving in the Navy as a pilot, he went on to become executive producer of programming for the Voice of America, supervising 17 Southeast Asia language desks.

As an actor, Lazare was in the film "See How She Runs," starring Joanne Woodward, and "The Defection of Simas Kudirka," starring Alan Arkin.

The New England representative for the Screen Actors Guild of America, Lazare moved to Essex in 1985 and purchased a Meriden-based radio station, WMMW. He also worked in Farmington as program director for WRCH-WNEZ.

➦In 2015…After more than a year of public debate, the Federal Communications Commission passed "net neutrality" rules. Net neutrality, the principle that Internet service providers (ISPs) treat all data on the Internet the same, and not discriminate, has been an issue of contention between network users and access providers since the 1990s.

A core issue to net neutrality is how ISPs should be classified under the Communications Act of 1934, if they should be Title I "information services" or Title II "common carrier services". The classification affects the Federal Communication Commission's (FCC) authority over ISPs: the FCC would have significant ability to regulate ISPs if classified as Title II common carriers, but would have little control over them if classified as Title I. Because the Communications Act has not been amended by the United States Congress to account for ISPs, the FCC has the authority to designate how ISPs should be treated in addition to what regulations they can set on ISPs. The makeup of the 5-member FCC has changed with each new administration, leading to the state of net neutrality flipping back and forth over the last two decades.

In 2005, the FCC adopted network neutrality principles "to preserve and promote the vibrant and open character of the Internet as the telecommunications marketplace enters the broadband age."

Between 2005 and 2012, five attempts to pass bills in Congress containing net neutrality provisions failed. Opponents claimed that these bills would have benefited industry lobbyists instead of consumers. In response to legal challenges from ISPs challenging the FCC's ability to set net neutrality principles, the FCC in 2015 issued the Open Internet Order which reclassified ISPs as Title II services and giving them authority to enforce net neutrality. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld the FCC's new rules in a legal challenge raised by advocate groups representing ISPs.

Upon becoming FCC chairman in April 2017 as part of the Trump Administration, Ajit Pai proposed to repeal the neutrality policies, returning to the previous classification of ISPs as Title I services.