[BC] Why FM took off in the 70 s

[Rich Wood]

------ At 02:47 PM 10/24/2005, Robert Meuser wrote: -------

>WCFL WLS WABC KLIF WFIL KHJ were all like that and that is just a 
>very small list. Many other stations were that way. KRLA may well be 
>an exception. As I recall they were under some kind of trustee 
>around that time. They lost their license over a fraudulent contest 
>but was kept on the air until some additional details were resloved. 
>As I recall the whole thing took decades.  Someone who was there 
>might want to clarify this a bit.

WCFL was like that until the Chicago Federation of Labor got tired of 
it. Under Lew Witz as General Manager they changed to Easy Listening. 
TM Programming was hired to program it. I was the programmer, doing 
it from Dallas, with a special blend of music. Larry Lujack still had 
time on his contract so he did Easy Listening for a while. On his 
last Rock show he did a bit about opening an envelope to tell his 
Rock audience which Chicago station he was going to endorse. Of 
course, he endorsed WCFL. Until the end of his contract he was 
probably the highest paid time and temperature jock in the industry. 
The "real" Mayor Daly presided over a format change that had been 
separated by a long period of ocean surf. Daly flipped a phony switch 
and WCFL became Easy Listening. We beat the Rock numbers in a single 
book. I have a tape of it, somewhere. The last song was, I think, a 
customized version of "The Day the Music Died" with WCFL calls 
included in the resing.

Rich


Rich Wood
Rich Wood Multimedia
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