WLAN AM 1390

[jimmyt1962]

When did WLAN 1390 AM, drop out of playing contemporary hit music. I remember by the early 1980's, like most the 60's/70's top forty AM giants, they evolved into an adult contemporary music station. I could be wrong about this but around early 1983 the switched to automated standards format. I remember in 1989 they were an automated 50's/60's oldies station. In 1989 I remembered them playing the Motown song "Baby I'm For Real" by the Originals.
It seems there is not much history about this Top 40 Giant.

 

[bossjock 56]

I believe it was early 1980 when WLAN 1390 moved their contemporary hit format to FM. WLAN FM 97 had been running an automated AC format. The stations swapped formats putting the AC on 1390. For a time they actually had a live staff on both stations in the early 80's.

 

[SteelRocker]

I agree, there's not much WLAN-AM history posted on here. As a young lad of 12 years old, we moved to PA from the midwest in 1972 and WLAN was THE station to listen to in Lancaster. I remember they bragged that they were the first radio station to play "Rock The Boat" by the Hughes Corporation.

 

[John-Summers]

WLAN-AM went Top 40 in 1959 (or thereabouts). The AM and FM traded formats in late 1979 or early 1980, with the AM going AC and the FM Top 40. If you are willing to forgive a very brief period when the FM was AC in the 90s, a station with the call letters WLAN has been rockin' for all that time, between AM and FM. 54 years. That's quite a record.

 

[RockofHBG]

If you are willing to forgive a very brief period when the FM was AC in the 90s,

I believe you were referring to 1993-94 when the station was "The New Sound Of FM97". When Scott Shannon was brought into consult, the station and format was a mess. If you look at ratings, what passed for "hit"music in that era, and remember how many stations were bailing out of the format just about every week, you understand why they became Hot AC at that time. Plus, the PD of the station right before the flip, who will remain nameless on my post, was allegedly on the take from the labels and was playing a ton of stiffs. I think we can forgive and forget that era.

 

[bossjock 56]

Whether or not the PD at the time was on the take or not, WLAN had a history over the years of playing stiffs back in the 60's and 70's. I heard that Lancaster had become a test market for the Philadelphia region....similar to Hartford and New Haven being test markets for Boston and New York. Cleveland was another of these markets. Stations had 60 song playlists and were on alot of songs first. WLAN's listeners came to expect it. They also played records by local and regional artists. They never played The Spencer Davis Group's "Gimme Some Lovin"...they played it by The Jordan Brothers out of Frackville Pa. You can find it on You Tube.

 

[Boardengineer12]

Wow, WLAN FM.....brings back good memories; My father worked there in the mid-1940's (I think around 1946) as an FM Transmitter Operator. He told me once that he reported to work early one morning; turned on the filaments in the transmitter, once they warmed up, he turned on the plate only to have it dump on him immediately. He happened to look out the window and noticed that the tower was not in view.

Apparently the tower collapsed during the night. They never erected the tower again and moved the tower to a new location. As far as I know, the tower was still lying in a field where it fell.

 

[GuyFry]

According to one Pryor Neuber, whom I last spoke 55 years ago when he was a board op at WLAN; that land SW of Rocky Springs was to be the tower site for the still-unbuilt WLAN-TV,
channel 21. I saw the crumpled, fallen radio tower in that field. I would not be surprised to see it still there if that land belongs to the Altdoerfer estate. I doubt that Clear Channel bought it, along with the station years ago. By the way, WLAN-FM's Walt Schmid told me in1982 they were considering buying WLYH-TV15. Car dealer Steve Lepore told me that, too that same year.

 

[OldNumber7]

I came from out of the market to FM97 in March of 83 and stayed about 18 months. What was interesting was how deep the FM audience penetration in the market was at that time -- well ahead of the national average. It was all any local AM could do to have any kind of audience. The AM was AC during the day and, yes, URBAN at night. That didn't last long. I recall the switch to standards and Sam Altdoerffer bringing in a Sony tabletop FM stereo receiver to hear the Kahn stereo signal. It was terrific, not that it mattered any. He had probably the only receiver of its kind in town.

 

[andthehits]

I recall visiting WLAN on N. Queen Street in the 1960's. They were top 40 then. The FM was a mix of "beautiful music" and some classical music at special times. The classical music was live from what was the production studio...otherwise, the "beautiful music" was played from albums stacked on a record changer type turntable in the newsroom with a cart machine wired in to play legal ID's on the hour and half hour. That was back when FM was referred to as "funny medium." We have come a long way!

 

[RockofHBG]

I came from out of the market to FM97 in March of 83 and stayed about 18 months.

I would imagine you started working for Mel Edwards and stayed for a part of the Dave Marino era.Wow....what a contrast. Mel had FM97 AC during the day and virtually album rock at night. When Dave came in, he cleaned up the playlist, took the station straight top 40 and added jingles. Any comment?

 

[OldNumber7]

I came from out of the market to FM97 in March of 83 and stayed about 18 months.

I would imagine you started working for Mel Edwards and stayed for a part of the Dave Marino era.Wow....what a contrast. Mel had FM97 AC during the day and virtually album rock at night. When Dave came in, he cleaned up the playlist, took the station straight top 40 and added jingles. Any comment?

I was hired by Mel in March of '83 to do overnights and moved up to middays and Music Director that fall. Dave came sometime after I left in September of 84, but I'll take some of the credit for starting the rebalancing of the music toward straight-ahead CHR. Fall of 83 was when the ripples of Z100's success in NYC tore through the industry. That's when 92 in Starview launched an all hit format under Banana Joe and Michael Szarzinski that forced both Q106 and us to dump the soft stuff and most of the gold and play more current hits with less dayparting. The nightime album rock on 97 ended when Gary Maxwell was moved in 84 from nights to afternoons. That summer we started playing more MTV pop at night (I'll never forget when our 45 of Herbie Hancock's "Rockit" got stuck in the groove -- the new night jock let it play for about 4 minutes before he realized it!).

Back to 83 for a moment: When Maxwell was still doing nights we had an afternoon guy named Eric who had no love for any music with a guitar in it. One night he finished his show at 7 pm with the mellow Diana Ross/Julio Iglesias hit into Gary's opener: Rush's Tom Sawyer!
Another story: Mel rejected Joe Jackson's Steppin' Out for Afternoon Drive that spring because "it rocked too hard."
You're right, though. The AC during the day, AOR at night, CHR in overnight thing was what we were doing for the first half of 83. Mel saw our competition as WARM103, WTPA and WQXA in that order. Of course MTV and the industry's relaunch of real CHR changed all that.
That all was thirty years ago! Incredibile; I remember it like it was last year. Anyone know what happened to Mel?

 

[Ticker]

Anyone know what happened to Mel?



[/quote]

I worked with Gary and Eric Lee, in the early 80's; as I was hired by Mel. I had heard that he had passed, I think sometime oin the 90's. I couldn't find any other information. Sorry . BTW. I got to see some really great concerts back then; and meet some groups, like Asia; and believe it or not, Tiny Tim.

 

[RockofHBG]

Yes, I believe Mel died. Remember "Mel's Movie Machine"? That was promotion where on weekends FM97 gave away one movie ticket at a time !! Who was Mel to the audience anyway? By the way, Mel hired me for overnights in July of 1980. I took the job, but then backed out 3 days before I was to start. I was working overnights at another FM, but was being paid only hourly for 25 -30 hours per week (sounds like today's radio). Maxwell tipped me to the job, it was offered and I accepted. The station where I was working at the time, and where I was happy except for the pay, came through with full-time salary and benefits. Torn, I thought long and hard about my decision, then decided to stay put. I never regretted my decision. Mel was not happy with me. At the time, I remember the LAN folks told me about their plans to move the tower and how great the signal was going to be. At the time, it barely got out of Lancaster. I remember thinking that sounded like a lot of BS, but boy was I wrong! They were on the new tower by fall 1980 and what a great signal it turned out be.

 

[bossjock 56]

Before the tower was moved in 1980, WLAN FM 97 had it's antenna mounted on one of the AM towers. The ERP was 50 kw but the height above average terrain was only about 75 feet as I recall. After the move to the new site near Columbia, they were 50 kw at 500 feet and the signal improved in a dramatic fashion. Regarding the strange formatics of the early 80's, I recall driving through Long's Park in Lancaster on a beautiful spring Sunday. While cruising the park, I noticed Q-106 on a lot of radios. They had already made to switch to pure CHR....and they were crankin' out the hits. I switched over to 97 and they were playing Bobby Darin's "Mack the Knife". On another note, who was the guy who left WLAN because he refused to play the songs "Highway to Hell" and "Cocaine". Not sure if he left or was moved to daytime, but this individual felt those songs conflicted with his Christian beliefs. I seem to remember that there might have been two guys there at that time who didn't want to play the songs.

 

[OldNumber7]

Before the tower was moved in 1980, WLAN FM 97 had it's antenna mounted on one of the AM towers. The ERP was 50 kw but the height above average terrain was only about 75 feet as I recall. After the move to the new site near Columbia, they were 50 kw at 500 feet and the signal improved in a dramatic fashion. Regarding the strange formatics of the early 80's, I recall driving through Long's Park in Lancaster on a beautiful spring Sunday. While cruising the park, I noticed Q-106 on a lot of radios. They had already made to switch to pure CHR....and they were crankin' out the hits. I switched over to 97 and they were playing Bobby Darin's "Mack the Knife". On another note, who was the guy who left WLAN because he refused to play the songs "Highway to Hell" and "Cocaine". Not sure if he left or was moved to daytime, but this individual felt those songs conflicted with his Christian beliefs. I seem to remember that there might have been two guys there at that time who didn't want to play the songs.

Eric was definitely a Christian and definitely had issues with some secular music, but while I was there he was never directed to work nights and therefore wasn't required to play those specific tunes. I don't know if that might have happened later, or not. And I'm unaware if anybody else was in this situation.
Face it, Lancaster is a conservative town. I got a couple calls complaining about Supertramp's Goodbye Stranger (because of the out of context phrase "the devil is my savior").

 

[bossjock 56]

I remember hearing Eric filling in on occasion on a Sunday morning christian program. I seem to recall a guy named Chris Silver, who may have been the one who didn't want to play those songs. I think he ended up at WJTL at some point.

 

[SteelRocker]

I remember hearing Eric filling in on occasion on a Sunday morning christian program. I seem to recall a guy named Chris Silver, who may have been the one who didn't want to play those songs. I think he ended up at WJTL at some point.

I was just going to say it was "Chris Silver", so you pretty much confirmed that.

 

[TomL]

WLAN 1390 was one of my go to stations to listen to music in the 70s. As for the FM side, I enjoyed that to. I still like Easy Listening Instrumentals. It's a shame no one plays it any more. If one FM giant would play Beautiful Music again, it would be a smash, since no one else is doing it.

By the way, when FM was Beautiful Music, wasn't their slogan, "For The Two Of Us"?

 

[bossjock 56]

Ther's no doubt in my mind that there WAS listenership for this format back then. Problem is...most of these stations did not generate much revenue. To operate a high power FM stick you have to make money and get those agency buys. Agencies haven't touched this type of format in decades. There are a handful of these stations out there that stream on the web. can't think of any off hand.....but if you go to the Soft AC/EZ listening/Adult Standards section of these boards you might get some ideas.