MEMORIES ARE OFT REKINDLED quite routinely. Such as reading Corey Kilgannon’s “WCBS Radio, the Soundtrack of Countless Cab Rides, Goes Quiet,” in The New York Times, August 13, 2024.
Hmm… For awhile there, 1972–1985, R&T was owned by CBS. I recall giving thrill rides through R&T’s slalom to CBS “suits” visiting whenever NYC weather got less than clement either way.
And the more I read the article, the more memories arose, some quite unexpectedly. Here in Parts 1 and 2 today and tomorrow are associated tidbits.
The iconic eye came to CBS Television in 1951. By the 1970s, the conglomerate had acquired The New York Yankees, Fender Guitars, Steinway Piano, R&T, and a bunch of other firms. Hence our visiting “suits.”
Kilgannon reports, “WCBS said this week that its nearly 60-year run as an all-news station will end this month. The station will become WHSQ and host ESPN New York sports talk. It is an almost inevitable development as reliance on radio news continues to decline, with the rise of podcasts and smartphones delivering news, weather and traffic information.”
Another Harmonic Twinge. Yes, I sense this trend as well. As noted here at SimanaitisSays, my news fix each day consists of SiriusXM’s BBC World Service at 6:00 a.m. Pacific, followed by my smartphone’s Voice of America and The New York Times. Then, and for the rest of the day, I pick up local news on conventional radio’s KNX 1070/97.1, of which anon.
Stubbornly Analog New Yorkers. Kilgannon observes, “But WCBS, which began its all-news format in 1967, retained a loyal base of stubbornly analog New Yorkers. These listeners are mourning the loss of one of the city’s last straight news format stations. It provided the small informational necessities that enable urban living—traffic and weather every 10 minutes on the 8s—and chronicled the epochal events that shaped New York.”
WCBS’s “every 10 minutes on the 8s” picked up on its 880 AM call letters and its trafficopter’s NewsRadio88 logo.
Image from donswaim.com.
And on KNX. Here in Los Angeles, it’s “traffic on the the 5s,” e.g., 7:05, 7:15, 7:25, using our local proclivity for freeway names as well: the 5, the 105, the 405, and the 605. (We have other freeways too: the 10, 110, 210, and 710, each properly prefixed by “the.”
Image by jamirae/iStock.
WCBS History. Wikipedia offers an extensive history of WCBS: “The station’s history traces back to September 20, 1924. It was issued its first license to Alfred H. Grebe & Company. It used his initials for its original call sign, WAHG. It was a pioneering station in New York, and was one of the first commercial radio stations to broadcast from remote locations including horse races and yachting events.”
Wikipedia continues, “In 1926, Grebe changed the station’s call sign to WABC. This used the initials of the Grebe’s new business name, the Atlantic Broadcasting Company. He made a business arrangement with the Ashland Battery Company in Asheville, North Carolina, which had been assigned WABC in 1925 for its station.”
This was long before the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) came along in 1945. Wikipedia recounts, “On September 8, 1946, the call sign of a station in Springfield, Illinois, was changed from WCBS to WCVS. This allowed WABC in New York to change to WCBS on November 2, 1946, to identify more closely with its parent network, the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS).”
For the next 20 years, WCBS had a format of radio soap operas, talk shows (including Arthur Godfrey), and an all-night easy listening music show, Music ’til Dawn. Wikipedia notes, “By the late 1950s and early 1960s, WCBS evolved into a middle of the road (MOR) music and personality format, which included limited talk programming. Personalities included morning host Jack Sterling, Bill Randle and Lee Jordan. Like many MOR stations at the time, WCBS did mix in softer songs by rock-and-roll artists.”
Bill Randle, eh? Tomorrow in Part 2, we’ll pick up with Bill, memories of whom positively rap with a Jaguar’s exhaust note. ds
© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2024