September 12, 1999

Today marked the end of an era. Once again, in my life, one of the mainstays (and, may I say, musical influences) of my life came to an end.

Today, WNEW-FM changed it's format from music to the first all talk FM radio station in New York.

Not too long ago, WNBC (AM) and the entire NBC radio network came to an end. After years of comedies, dramas, news and music, the New York station gave up it's frequency to WFAN, the all sports talk station. Now, WFAN had already taken over the frequency of WHN. WHN had been one of the many rock'n'roll stations in New York during my formative years of the sixties. Then it became a country-western station, and then finally, WFAN. THE FAN (as it is called) then simply traded frequencies with NBC and it's own 1050 on the dial became a hispanic station. I felt bad that such an old icon such as the NBC Radio Network would meet such a demise. But, it didn't actually rock my existance.

Earlier in my life WNCN, a classical station, gave up the ghost to WQIV, the only (as far as I know) quadraphonic rock FM radio station. (Remember quadraphonic??? 4 speakers: one in each corner.) But it then rose out of the ashes like a phoenix to regain it's former granduer and life.

There was a comedian on TV, whose name I have forgotten, who did a sketch on "WNCN, the top 40 classical station", doing a bit on that new sensation, Mozart, and so on and so forth. Well, it turned out that the managment of WNCN got tired of the station being a stodgy old classical station with a listenership audience with a median age of 62. So the whiz kids at NCN decided to capture the young, upscale, nouveu riche yuppie audience by "playing classical music in a top-40 format". Fact followed fiction.

That caused lower ratings and less revenue and, ultimately, the demise of 104.3 WNCN-FM. The 104.3 frequencey is still currently classical... classic ROCK to be exact, after a format change from alternative rock (whatever that is).

WNEW-AM was also in my history. My Godmother would keep it on continuously, softly in the background with crooners of the 40s and 50s lullabying the now middle aged ladies, and big bands still belting out the high volume power of the horns. "WNEW... 1130 in New York....." went it's theme. (WNEW-FM used the same musical theme, but simply picked on a folk guitar.) Well, WNEW-AM became Bloomberg News Radio. The format and disk jockeys (those that were still alive, anyway) went to what used to be WQXR-AM, the classical radio station of the New York Times on frequency 1560 under the call letters WQEW, sort of both stations melded together. Jonathon Schwartz found a new home here too.WQXR met the same demise as WNBC. (WQXR is now the only full time FM classical station in New York.) WQEW is now Radio Disney. I don't know what station my Godmother listens to now.

So now WNEW-FM is gone, too. I was listening to NEW when I heard Sgt. Pepper for the first time. Rita and I heard Dave Herman tell us that John Lennon was dead. I listened to the late Allison Steel, The Night Bird, for years: she introduced me to The Pointer Sisters when they were still singing gospel/jazz, and Chuck Mangione. And to Jonathon Schwartz, before he bacame the Sinatra lackey on WNEW-AM. And Pete Foranatel, and the Neer Brothers, Dan (Danno) and Richard (don't call me Dick) Neer. And of course Scott Muni: SCOTSO, whom I had the fortune to meet in High School.

Now they are all gone. Oh, some are still on the air: Richard and Dan on WFAN (by coincidence). And Scotso is on Q104.3, where WNCN used to be. Dave Herman... dissapeared into the media fog. Jonathon Schwartz, off of another New York station and in the vapors, too.

I remember when a TV show had a contest for the world's best DJ. A woman named Carol Miller one the title. WNEW-FM just fired her.

I have had the pleasure of meeting Ralph Tortora, also fired by WNEW, on a few social occasions. Met him enough to call him an acquaintance, almost friend. He, too, got the axe.

So now I wish the empty suits at WNEW well. They have disseminated not only a radio station, but a ground breaking station (my best friend Al once said the nice thing about WNEW was that the DJs didn't yell at you... the TALKED to you); a station with no play list and the biggest rock and roll record library in the world. They killed the Place where rock lived. The New York underground station. But like WNCN before it, WNEW changed it's attitude... from hippie/yuppie to middle class beer drinking blue collar worker. They changed it's format and audience.

I happened to listen to it late Friday night, after Carol Miller's last show, and whoever was on was talking to a 17 year old girl about her 3-some and how guilty she felt because she cheated on her boyfriend. (She had had 6 other men prior!) And, as my cousin Joe pointed out, Opie and Anthony, who are on during the PM drive time, are just Howard Stern without Robin Quivers. So what will WNEW become now: ALL ADOLESCENT SEX ALL THE TIME?

I hope that WNEW doesn't follow the second demise of WNCN. Failing into a form that is totally unrecognizable from it's life inception. But, rather, that it can rise as WNCN did after it's first death, to be welcomed and be better than it was.

To the decision makers at WNEW: You are wrong, you may fail. You should have learned from history, instead of going for the bottom line.