Hartford Radio: Howard Stern Bids WCCC-FM Farewell

WCCC 106.9 FM spent its final hours as a rock station playing tunes and reminiscing with departed on-air talent, like Howard Stern.

"The people of Hartford were so gracious to me when I lived there, not only in terms of radio but I made a lot of personal friends," said Stern in a 17-minute telephone call to the station during the farewell broadcast. "I am very grateful for the experience I had in Hartford."

He added, "I love WCCC and I am sorry to see it stop being a rock station."

"WCCC was, in my estimation, THE rock station in Hartford," he told program director Mike Karolyi. "When I got a job doing mornings on WCCC, it was such a big moment for me. I remember walking into WCCC and thinking 'Oh my God, I have hit the big time.'"



Stern came to prominence as a morning host on WCCC in 1979 earning $250 a week.

“For a station like WCCC-FM to go away, you’re losing that old style radio where the guy here is live he’s local,” said Mike Karolyi, on-air personality and program director for the station.

On-air personalities like Karolyi, who has been with the station for 28 years, are thanked fans for their loyalty to the station.

WCCC began as an AM station in 1947, adding FM in 1959. It was originally owned by entrepreneur, businessman and Hartford jewelry giant Bill Savitt and his brother.

This cool page has lots of historic WCCC audio from over three decades.... http://t.co/JaoUfNRegW
— Rock_106.9 (@The_Rock_WCCC) August 2, 2014

Past on-air personalities and supporters including Sebastian, Mike Picozzi, Jonny Promo, Craig Matthews, Amy the Tree Hugger and Steven Wayne as well as longtime on-air contributors including concert promoter Jim Koplik, joined current on-air personalities in the upbeat, and often irreverent, trip down memory lane during the final program. The five hours included interviews, stories about former owner Cy Dresner, lots of reminiscing including a round of "The Ouija Game" and a mix of the hard rock the station was best known for including "Poison Sex'' by Tool and Kid Rock's "Bawitdaba."

Marlin Broadcasting, which has owned WCCC since 1998, has sold the station for $9.5M to California-based Educational Media Foundation, whose radio stations feature contemporary Christian music.

The sale contract was in fact filed on Friday with the FCC, setting the sale price for WCCC and WCCC-FM at $9.5 million. According to NERW, EMF will also sell the 1039 Asylum Avenue studio building, with a guaranteed payout to Marlin of at least $250,000 for the property, and it will pay $86,000 a month (plus $12,000 in music licensing fees) to Marlin for carriage of K-Love programming until the sale closes.

According to The Hartford Courant, at 5:05 p.m. however, when the rock format had finished, the station switched over advertising "positive and encouraging K-Love" music and playing Matthew West's "Do Something'' as the first selection. K-Love is one of Educational Media Foundation's radio networks.