WHN
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WHN was a radio station in New York City located at 1050 kHz. It played country music from 1972 to 1987. This was the format WHN was best known for.
Before that they played Adult Standards from 1962-'73. Prior to that they played Rock & Roll as WMGM (AM) radio from the mid '50's to 1962. They had a diversified format as WHN since the early days of radio until their change in calls to WMGM in the '50's.
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[edit] History
1050 has a long history. They began as WHN radio. They had a diversified format like most radio stations did back then. As TV became the medium for drama and comedy and kids shows, WHN began playing Pop records.
WHN began as a small station in Ridgewood, New York in the 1920's. The ownership and location changed over time and by 1940 it was owned by MGM. It carried some programing from the Mutual Broadcasting Syytem in the late 1930's and early 1940's. These were programs originated by Mutual stations but not carried by WOR 710 KC New York, the key station in the Mutual hook-up. The most famous of these was a program originated by WOL in Washington, D.C. called the "Top of the News" featuring newspaper columnist Fulton Lewis Jr. which began in 1936. After six months on the air its ratings were so high that WOR took over broadcasting it for the next 27 years before it reverted to WHN again after WOR was no longer a Mutual station.
In the 1930's and 1940's WHN carried a variety of music, drama, talks, and other features. As an MGM affiliate it carried, transcribed, MGM radio dramas and comedies featuring MGM stars and produced transcribed in their Hollywood studio. This lasted until around 1951. An example was "The Adventures of Maize" starring Ann Southern.
The call letters were changed about 1949 to WMGM and station identification was done from transcribed discs recorded by MGM stars. An example: " This is Robert Taylor. You are tuned to the call letters of the Stars, WMGM, 1050 on your dial, New York."
After Loew's divested itself of the station, it reverted to the old call letters of WHN in the early sixties.
[edit] 1950s
Sometime in the 1950s, the station became WMGM radio. They played rock and roll records and were more up-tempo than the competition. They played Elvis Presley, Fats Domino, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Frankie Lymon, the Crystals, the Tokens, Ray Charles, Ricky Nelson, and Bill Haley.
[edit] 1960s
By 1962, 1010 WINS, 770 WABC, and 570 WMCA were also playing predominantly rock and roll music. At that point 1050 WMGM was sold to Storer Broadcasting, which owned mostly TV stations and did not own any rock & roll radio stations. Storer immediately dropped Top 40 for Pop Standards. The station was renamed WHN again.
Through the '60s, WHN, unlike WNEW and WOR, played no rock music whatsoever. They played artists like Nat King Cole, Al Hirt, Perry Como, Frank Sinatra, Henry Mancini, Bing Crosby, Peggy Lee, Patti Page, Johnny Mathis, Percy Faith, and Ray Conniff. Ratings were decent.
[edit] 1970s
In the '70s they did add some soft rock to the mix. By then they had personalities like Lee Arnold, Jack Spector, Del Demontreaux, Dan Daniel, and others. The ratings were still low so in 1973 WHN became a country music station. New York City had never been a big country music town and only had a Country music station in the late '60's on 970 WJRZ (which became Top 40 WWDJ in 1971 and Religious in 1974).
As a country music station they played artists like Johnny Cash, Willy Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Tanya Tucker, Lynn Anderson, Kenny Rogers, Mel Tillis, Charley Pride, Mickey Gilly, Ronnie Milsap, and many more. Also they mixed in non-country artists that had country friendly songs such as The Eagles, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Anne Murray, the Commodores, Olivia Newton John, Elton John, Linda Ronstadt, and others.
Usually they rated in the top 10 as New York's only country station. On-air personalities like Mike Fitzgerald, Dan Taylor, and many others moved in. In the late '70s Mutual Radio would buy WHN from Storer. In 1980 they got some copmpetition when 106.7 WRVR was sold to Viacom and dropped jazz for country and became WKHK. As a result, ratings went down for WHN, but they stuck it out. They added Mets Baseball and other pro sports teams to their lineup in evenings.
[edit] 1980s
In 1984, WKHK 106.7 became Lite FM 106.7 WLTW playing a soft AC format which has evolved to a mainstream AC format today. WHN 1050 remained country with decent ratings. In 1985 Doubleday Broadcasting would buy 1050 WHN. In 1986 Emmis Communications bought WHN in a corporate deal. Emmis added sports talk in the evenings, but kept the country format the rest of the day until 1987.
In late April 1987, Emmis announced that on July 1, 1987 WHN would drop country for sports talk and professional sports play-by-play. They would drop the WHN calls and become WFAN. In May, NBC announced that AC WYNY 97.1 would go country on July 1, the same day as WHN ended the format.
The airstaff said their goodbyes at the end of June. Dan Taylor signed off at 3 PM with "For The Good Times" by Ray Price on July 1, 1987. At 3 PM WFAN made its debut on 1050.
Ratings were low initially but slowly climbing. In 1988 NBC was leaving radio, so they sold their stations to Emmis; Emmis then had control of 97.1 and 103.5 FM and 660 and 1050 AM. Emmis opted to sell 103.5 to Westwood One and the WYNY intellectual country unit as well so Country 97 WYNY became Country 103.5 WYNY. Emmis kept 97.1 and moved their Dance/R & B format WQHT there.
Emmis moved WFAN from 1050 to 660 on October 7, 1988, replacing 66 WNBC. Infinity would later buy 660 WFAN in 1992. WFAN is still occupying 660 today with good ratings.
As for 1050, Spanish Broadcasting System would buy them. However, Spanish Broadcasting already owned AM 620 in Newark, New Jersey. The FCC granted them a waiver to run 1050 without commercials until it could be sold. In October 1988 when WFAN moved from 1050 to 660, 620 WSKQ flipped from Spanish Adult Contemporary to Spanish Oldies while 1050 became KQ 1050 WUKQ playing Spanish Adult Contemporary music commercial-free to satisfy the FCC requirement.
Shortly thereafter, Jewish Forward would swap 97.9 WEVD for 1050 WUKQ. Under the deal, the Spanish AC format on 620 would move to FM, and the station would become FM-98 WSKQ-FM. This happened early in 1989. Eventually FM-98 would evolve into tropical-leaning KQ-97.9, then Mega 97.9 with a complete concentration on tropical Spanish music.
WEVD's format though would move to 1050 in early 1989. 1050 WEVD had a brokered format with Jewish programming, Ethnic programs, talk shows, and a big band show with Danny Stiles. Ratings were very very low but the station made a profit selling blocks of airtime.
[edit] 1990s
By the mid '90s WEVD had a talk format on weekdays but ethnic programming nights and weekends.
[edit] 2000s
In 2001, WEVD entered into a local marketing agreement with ABC/Disney and began running ESPN Radio 24/7. The station was renamned WEPN and eventually sold to ABC/Disney outright, which continues to run the station as 1050 ESPN Radio.
[edit] See also
- WEPN - current station on AM 1050
[edit] External links
- AIRWAVES RADIO Journal V9 #89 - "Re: 1050 NYC (was: Relate These Phrases For Me)" explains the complex callsign changes related to WHN.
