[BC] In the AM radio wars of the '60s, they talked big and talked back

[Donna Halper]

>Frank wrote--
>
>Yes, the Buzzard was a legend in Cleveland and had a following beyond
>northeast Ohio.  I was more familiar with WCOL-FM since I lived 
>in  Columbus for
>several years.  The AOR format of COL-FM was initially  sandwiched around
>paid religion.  Two drastically different  audiences.  Guess it built cume.

What I recall when I arrived in Cleveland in late 1973 to be WMMS's 
music director, was people were still migrating over to FM from 
AM.  The big top 40 station on AM was WIXY, and it was slowly losing 
audience, as was WGAR which was sort of soft-rock or adult 
contemporary.  WNCI was still important when I got there, but the new 
crew at WMMS, led by John Gorman and Denny Sanders, were committed to 
doing whatever it took to win audience away from WNCI.  Back then, 
while some corporations did own stations, local outlets had more 
freedom to create their own independent image. WMMS became a very 
in-your-face, outrageous station with a great selection of music 
(both new and older) and they took on WNCI with excellent marketing 
and promotion, interesting features, interviews with big name stars, 
etc.  It was a great battle and WMMS ultimately won.