Quote:
Originally Posted by cleeds
Radio sure isn't what it once was - at least in the US - but there was a time when it was so entertaining that many of us were willing to put big $$$$ into buying a really good tuner.
So what was your favorite radio station that may have spurred that purchase?
I can probably whittle it down to two: WNCN and WNEW-FM, both in New York. Although one was classical and the other a rock station, they had more in common (back in the '70s and '80s) than might have been immediately obvious. They both had wide and deep playlists. They both had very clean, clear signals with minimal processing. (Of course, as a rocker, WNEW had more processing than WNCN. But by rock standards, NEW's sound was relatively unspoiled. It even used Dolby FM for a while.) And they both had personalities that were obviously familiar with the music, and spoke to the audience with a friendly, one-on-one style that's almost gone from radio today.
I still have and enjoy my McIntosh MR-80, but sometimes I wonder if I'd be willing to part with that much coin for a tuner if the only choices were today's offerings.
Please tell us about your favorite station, even if it's from the past.
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YES! Let's hear it for WNCN. Back then for pop I was a WABC-FM/WPLJ fan.
I was surprised to hear another person mentioning WNCN 104.3FM. I was so angry when WNCN-FM 104.3 went off the air in the fall of 1974 because that left only WQXR (and WNYC a minor player) which played more romantic music and I preferred the classical and baroque of WNCN.To make matters worse, when WNCN went off the air, WQXR started playing shorter pieces and lots of jingle jangle commercials which I hated. I wrote Bob Sherman who was the program director at the time and station manager later a very firm letter telling of my extreme displeasure with their changes in commercials and flippant nature of Duncan Purney who I couldn't stand. Bob Sherman wrote back and said he agreed with me about Duncan Purney but he couldn't do anything about it because Duncan was there longer than he was. The rotten commercial persisted. I really enjoyed listening to Harry Fleetwood overnight. He had the perfect radio voice and played great music.