WABC (AM)

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WABC AM (770 kHz New York City) "NewsTalkRadio 77" is the flagship station of the ABC Radio Network. The station's transmitter is located in nearby Lodi, New Jersey.

Since the 1980s WABC has had a talk radio format, and is not only the dominant talk radio station in the New York area, but the most listened to talk radio station in America. During much of the 1960s and 1970s, WABC was a music station with a Top 40 format, and likewise was the dominant music station in the New York area.

WABC is or has been the flagship station for nationally-known radio talkers Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and John Batchelor.

WJZ (1921 to 1953)

Early years

WJZ signed on in October 1, 1921 by Westinghouse in Newark, New Jersey. (The call letters themselves stood for their original home state, New Jer(Z)sey.) It was originally housed in a shack on the roof of the Westinghouse meter factory on Orange and Plane Streets in Newark - only accessible by ladder. It then expanded into the one available space downstairs.

WJZ started off on 360 meters (833 AM) and as one of the first stations to broadcast in the New York City area, was reluctant to share the frequency with other stations. WJZ later recommended that other frequencies be made available for broadcasting, and by 1923, WJZ had moved over to 660 AM. In that same year, WJZ shifted ownership from Westinghouse to RCA and changed its city of license from Newark to New York. New studios were in the 6th floor of the Aeolian Building.

WJZ's first major program occurred on October 5, 1921 when it broadcast the 1921 World Series, but there was no play-by-play direct from the field. Announcer Tommy Cowan in Newark simply relayed the description phoned from the ballpark by a newspaper reporter. On March 15, 1922, WJZ broadcast a studio performance of Mozart's Impresario, probably radio's first full-length opera. In October 1922, WJZ aired its second World Series, this time feeding it to WGY in Schenectady, New York.

Program logs from May 15 to December 31, 1923 reveal that WJZ aired 3426 programs, including 723 talks, 67 church services, 205 bedtime stories and 21 sports events. Most of the broadcasts were musical and ranged from Carnegie Hall and Aeolian Hall recitals to harmonica and banjo solos.

At the end of 1925, WJZ fired up its new 50,000 watt transmitter from Bound Brook, New Jersey. However, it overhelmed everything else on the air and engineers visited homes in central New Jersey to deal with the complaints. WJZ didn't operate regularly at 50,000 watts until 1935.

NBC Blue flagship years

In July 1926, WEAF also became an RCA station and on November 15, 1926, both WJZ and WEAF were under the umbrella of the newly formed National Broadcasting Company.

On New Year's Day 1927, the NBC Blue Network debuted, with WJZ as the originating station. In October 1927, WJZ moved into NBC studios still under construction at 711 5th Ave. A month later, WEAF joined WJZ - and both were together under one roof. On March 24 1932, WABC became the first radio station to broadcast a program from aboard a moving train; the station aired a variety show produced aboard a Baltimore and Ohio Railroad passenger train travelling through Maryland.Rivanna Chapter National Railway Historical Society, [This Month in Railroad History: March]. Retrieved March 24 2006. In November 1933, WJZ, WEAF and all of the NBC and RCA corporate headquarters moved to 30 Rockefeller Plaza.

Over the years, WJZ and the Blue Network presented many of America's most popular programs, such as Lowell Thomas and the News, "Amos N' Andy", "Little Orphan Annie", "America's Town Meeting Of The Air" and "Death Valley Days." Each midday "The National Farm And Home Hour" brought news and entertainment to rural listeners. Ted Malone read poetry and Milton Cross conveyed children "Coast To Coast On A Bus," as well as bringing opera lovers the Saturday matinees from the Met.

Occasionally, a show would premiere on NBC Blue, which had a weaker lineup of stations nationwide, and be shifted to the Red Network if it grew in popularity - "Fibber McGee & Molly" is one example.

The Birth of ABC

On June 15, 1945, "The Blue Network" was officially rechristined the American Broadcasting Company, when negotiations were completed with George B. Storer, who had owned the defunct American Broadcasting System and still owned the name.

In November 1948, WJZ and the ABC network finally got a home of their own when studios were moved to a renovated building at 7 West 66th Street. On March 1, 1953, WJZ changed its call letters to WABC, after the FCC approved ABC's merger with United Paramount Theatres, Paramount Pictures' movie theatre chain, which was divested under government order.

The WABC calls were once used previously on CBS Radio's New York City outlet, before adopting their current WCBS identity in 1946. Westinghouse, however, didn't let the WJZ call go forgotten. After acquiring WAAM TV-13 in Baltimore, Maryland in 1957, Westinghouse applied to change the calls to WJZ-TV - which that station holds to this day.

WABC's first era (1953 to 1960)

Although WABC continued to air ABC programming during this time, WABC began using deejays playing recorded music. This would continue until 1960, as the Musicradio 77 era began.

The Musicradio 77 era (1960 to 1982)

Early years

Sam Holman was the first WABC program director. Under Holman, WABC achieved #1 ratings in late 1962, after WINS and WMCA experimented with "softer" music. During 1963, both WINS and WMCA went back to pop Top 40 and WABC slipped a bit. During the summer of 1963, WMCA lead the pack, with WABC at #2 and WINS slipping to third place.

Dominant years

Through the years, WABC was known by various slogans, "Channel 77 WABC", then "77 WABC", and later "Musicradio WABC".

Early 1960s disc jockeys included Herb Oscar Anderson, Charlie Greer, Scott Muni, and Bob Lewis, but the best known WABC DJs are the ones that followed them in the mid-1960s and beyond: Harry Harrison, Ron Lundy, Jim Nettleton, Jim Perry, Dan Ingram, Radio Hall of Fame member "Cousin Brucie" Bruce Morrow, Chuck Leonard, Bob Cruz, Frank Kingston Smith, Roby Yonge, George Michael and Johnny Donovan. Also heard on WABC was sportscaster Howard Cosell.

Especially in the afternoons and evenings, WABC was the sound teenagers could be heard listening to on transistor radios all over the New York metropolitan area. Due to their strong signal, the station could be heard over 100 miles away, as far as the Catskill Mountains, Pocono Mountains, and the outlying areas of Philadelphia. Bruce Morrow later spoke about how he felt an almost psychic bond to his young listeners.

In the 1970s WABC was either #1 or #2 consistently, trading places with WOR. Once in a while, a station attracting an older audience like WOR or WPAT would move into the top spot, but few of their listeners were aged 18 to 39 years old. Chief competitor WMCA stopped playing top 40 music in 1970; WWDJ lasted from 1971 to 1974; and 99X came and went from 1973 to 1978. Other FM competitors like oldies WCBS-FM, progressive-urban WBLS, and album-oriented rock stations like WPLJ and WNEW-FM all did okay in the ratings, but none came close to WABC's success. AM rival WNBC also could not come close to WABC's audience, even though they tried sounding younger, older, and in between. Still WABC was king.

Footnote: WABC's ratings strength came with its cumultive audience - almost 6 million during 1970. Most listeners didn't stay with WABC long for the station had the shortest time spent listening in the history of music radio. The average listener spent about 10 minutes listening to WABC. It was a price paid for a short playlist and a ton of commercials between songs (the large amount of commercials being due to WABC's large audience).

Fed-up with the short playlist, Cousin Brucie left in 1974 for rival WNBC. Sklar left in 1976, to become VP of programming for ABC Radio. In 1976 assistant PD Glenn Morgan became program director.

The station's influence could be found in odd places: Philip Glass' 1976 opera, Einstein on the Beach, has as part of the background a recitation of WABC's DJ schedule in the 1960s.

Disco And The Decline Of Musicradio 77

In July of 1978, WKTU abruptly dropped its adult contemporary format in favor of a disco-based top 40 format known as "Disco 92". By December of that year, WABC was unseated as WKTU now became the #1 station in New York City. WABC went down in the ratings four books in a row. The first "disco" ratings book saw WABC tumble from 4.1 million listeners to 3 million - 25% of its audience.

After this initial ratings tumble, WABC panicked and began airing extended disco plays back-to-back. Some of these disco songs ran upwards of 6,7 and 8 minutes. What regular listeners heard was a change in sound. The familiar format had disappeared - hit music, jingles, commercials. This is where the damage was done. If listeners were getting tired of disco, or didn't like disco, WABC wasn't the place. If listeners wanted disco, why not hear it in big booming stereo on WKTU-FM?

WABC lost its identity. Such was the disco debacle that in late Spring of 1979, Billboard magazine reported that executive Sklar demoted program director Glenn Morgan to "moving [music] carts" instead of making programming decisions.

In September of 1979, Al Brady Law took over the station. Also, according to accounts by DJ George Michael, Rick Sklar was removed from his WABC decision-making roles and was moved "upstairs."

Al Brady cut back the currents slightly but still played the top song over a dozen times a day. Brady added more 70's rock, a few album rock cuts, and a few big 60's hits. He also changed the presentation of the station. His goal was to get the station's abysmal time-spent-listening up. For this, he needed a new direction. As a result, he let Harry Harrison, Chuck Leonard, and George Michael go that November. Dan Ingram moved to mornings, Bob Cruz moved to afternoons, and Sturgis Griffin came on overnights while Howard Hoffman did evenings. Hoffman was the first of the 80's style contemporary hit radio (CHR) DJ's. He was heavy on brief phone bits from listeners, had a good sense of humor, and sounded "hip." He sounded similar to the future Z100 DJ's a few years later. But his ratings weren't the best and he didn't last long. The station also started to become more information oriented, adding morning traffic reports by Shadow Traffic's Jack Packard (aka Bernie Wagenblast) on December 3, 1979.

Brady did get the time-spent-listening improved, but WABC was still losing audience and Al Brady was under extreme pressure. He left the station in the Summer of 1980. At that point WABC added New York Yankees baseball games that all-news WINS was unable to air due to the 1980 Democratic and Republican conventions. It was the beginning of the end for music on WABC.

In the summer of 1980, Jay Clark took over WABC. By the fall the station played top 40 music that was more Adult Contemporary (AC) in sound. As a result, WABC began to lean that way but still played rock and R&B crossovers in moderation. However, the station also began to move away from album cuts and toward more '60s and '70s oldies. They also dropped the "Musicradio WABC" name and became "77 WABC, New York's Radio Station".

By early 1981, WABC's cumulative audience was down to 2.5 million. Rival AM WNBC was beating it at 2.9 million. Clearly, Jay Clark's ship was sinking. Like Al Brady, the only thing he could do was try to improve the time-spent-listening. Howard Hoffman and Bob Cruz left. Dan Ingram went back to afternoons. Ross Britain & Brian Wilson from Atlanta moved into mornings. That spring, WABC became the full-time flagship radio outlet for New York Yankees baseball games, a distinction the station carried through the end of the 2001 season; this would be the longest continuous relationship the Bronx Bombers have had with any flagship station.

Jay Clark reasoned that Yankee baseball would bring new listeners to the station and they would recycle back to the music format. Not even the Yankees could save music on WABC.

At the time the Yankees became a regular WABC feature, the station also began running a sports-talk show from Art Rust Jr. from 7-9 p.m. weeknights. Even though ratings at this point were mediocre, they were still going down.

In the fall of 1981, WABC dropped all the heavy rock cuts and the handful of non-crossover urban hits. They began playing more oldies, as well as songs from the adult contemporary chart. They added an advice show with Doctor Judy in the fall of 1981 as well. By this point, rumors were rampant that the station would be going to an all-talk format.

In February of 1982, WABC officially confirmed it would be going to an all-talk format that May. The airstaff began saying goodbye with a comment here and there from February into May. Finally, on April 30, they announced the date for the switch to an all-talk format would be on May 10 at noon. From May 7 to May 9, the station airstaff said goodbye one last time.

May 10, 1982, the day WABC stopped playing music, is sometimes called "The Day The Music Died". WABC ended its 21 and a half year run as a music station with a 9 a.m.-noon farewell show hosted by longtime WABC DJs Dan Ingram and Ron Lundy. The final song played on WABC before the official format change was "Imagine," by John Lennon.

The NewsTalkRadio 77 era (1982 to present)

Early years

Still, the station stuck with the new format. They added more issues-oriented talk shows, with an increasing amount of conservative talk show hosts (a couple of liberals also hosted shows). The ratings grew and by the late 1980s, they were a very successful talk station. The program director behind this was John Mainelli, and then Phil Boyce.

From 1984 to 1996 WABC broadcast the popular and influential Bob Grant, a controversial talk radio pioneer. After years of what some considered inflammatory remarks, he was fired in 1996 for a tasteless comment regarding the death of United States Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown.

WABC Today

In the 2000s, the major WABC hosts have been the "crossfire"-style duo of Curtis Sliwa and Ron Kuby in morning drive time, three-generation-WOR-former host John Gambling in late morning, Rush Limbaugh noon to 3 p.m., and Sean Hannity in afternoon drive time, and Mark Levin in the evening. Paul Harvey's newscasts are also featured.

Mark Simone hosts two Saturday shows--a morning talk show (6-10 a.m.), and the Saturday Night Oldies show (6-10 p.m.). He is also such a frequent fill-in host on weekdays, that the station bills Mark Simone as "supersub."

WABC has also sometimes featured out-of-town hosts carried in syndication. Laura Schlessinger and Michael Savage were once carried by WABC. Currently Laura Ingraham is syndicated from Washington, D.C.

Flagship-wise, Limbaugh's show was produced at the WABC studios from 1988 until the early 2000s, when he started doing the program from Premiere Radio Networks and his home studio in Florida. Hannity and Batchelor remain based at WABC, from which their shows are beamed to affiliates of the ABC Radio Network.

In December 2001, broadcast rights to the New York Yankees were lost after 20 years to WCBS. New Jersey Devils hockey broadcasts, which had been on WABC for 16 years, also switched to CBS' cluster, joining WFAN for the 2005-2006 season. The loss of evening sports programming forced WABC to attempt to solidify its evening talkers, which previously had featured an eclectic bunch including gratingly-voiced Lynn Samuels and the Springeresque Richard Bey. WABC does still carry New York Jets football along with sister-station WEPN.

The 2005 lineup from 10 a.m. to midnight is Gambling, Limbaugh, Hannity, Mark Levin, Ingraham and John Batchelor. However, the Limbaugh to Ingraham stretch consists of four hosts with very similar viewpoints. Director Boyce has stated that these programming decisions are ratings-driven, while critics of WABC state that the station's programming reflects a conscious conservative political advocacy. The station's slogan is "News, Opinion, Passion".

Although the station has good ratings, it underperforms in terms of total revenue. In 2005, WABC billed $24 million, not even close to industry giant KFI of Los Angeles at $60 million.

On February 6, 2006, the Walt Disney Co. announced that it will be selling most of its radio properties including WABC to Citadel Broadcasting Corp. for 2.7 billion $ (USD). [}] (archive link, was dead; [history])

Musicradio 77 lives on

Even though Talkradio WABC has proven to be a success, the station has not forgotten its roots. An annual WABC Rewound program consists of old broadcasts from the Musicradio era, usually as originally aired. This tribute has been heard every Memorial Day since 1998. Many of the old WABC airchecks can be heard at the [Musicradio77] tribute site, run professionally by Tarrytown, New York dentist Al Sniffen. The site also offers jingles, photos, and bios of former WABC deejays.

In December 2005, WABC debuted the Saturday Night Oldies music show, also devoted to the MusicRadio era, airing from 6 to 10 p.m. and hosted by Mark Simone. The program reportedly has listeners (via radio and a live Internet stream) in most if not all fifty states, and several foreign countries. The show includes vintage jingles and airchecks from the "Musicradio" era as well as interviews with some of the station's legendary personalities and the performers whose music was played on WABC.

References

.8 billion USD (2004) | Employees: 129,000 | Stock Symbol: NYSE: [DIS] | Website: [disney.go.com]