Hurricane Andrew

A great piece on Hurricane Andrew. We passed looters on the way out of Miami and I can still remember having to travel to a remote post office just to get mail. And ice? A rare commodity.

Hurricane Ike

Here's the video I put together of Hurricane Ike. As the storm moved west, I downloaded video from various cable and local television sites to document to progress of the storm. Enjoy.

WHYI-FM 1978

One of the personalities that really brought Y100 to life was Robert W. Walker. The guy oozed energy. He truly was one of the best. He's has been doing voiceovers or many years, now; I've heard his voice on countless car commercials. Here's his website. (He also has a TV/film production company, which can be found here.)

Walker was on top of his game in 1978, as you can hear in this unscoped aircheck from March, 1978.

WHYI-FM Miami 1978

This is both a scoped and unscoped aircheck of Kid Curry from 1978. He was my favorite jock at Y100. He had energy, related well to the targeted demographic, and was well, just plain fun. I've searched the web to find out what he's doing these days, and surprisingly, there's not much I found other than he went on to be the Program Director at WPOW-FM.

Before we get to the airchecks, here's a little background after Curry left Y100.

From Allbusiness.com:

Date: Friday, March 11, 2005

Kid Curry is approaching his 15th year at WPOW (Power 96), having risen to PD in 1996 after arriving in 1990 as a DJ. What's even more impressive is that since 1990, WPOW has changed its tune several times. "We've gone from freestyle to dance to hip-hop," Curry says. "We change to what our target is into."

He calls working with new talent one of the highlights of his career. "I get to program a legendary radio station with the best GM in the business [Greg Reed] and the most talented group of fresh radio people I've ever worked with," he says. "As of today, I only have one person on my on-air staff that has ever worked at a radio station. For all but him, it's their first radio job, so there are none of the ghosts of past PDs. They've only learned one style?ours."

Curry isn't concerned about satellite radio. "There's a billion radios out there in America," he says. "It's going to take some time for satellite to catch those kind of numbers. There's 4 million satellite subscribers, but there's about 275 million of us. And remember, content is king!"?

I've always wondered where Curry went, and this is the best I can do, from FMBQ:

August 15, 2006

Tom Calococci emerges as OM of Rhythmic/CHR WPOW (Power 96)/Miami. Calococci, most recently PD at KKBT/Los Angeles, fills the nearly year-long void left vacant when Kid Curry exited for health issues.

When you listen to these airchecks, you'll hear some background noise/music when Kid Curry is talking. Here's why: when you recorded something on a cassette tape that already had something on it, you sometimes heard the original recording in the background. That happened on this aircheck.

00_Kid Curry WHYI 1978_unknown.mp3 - 4shared.com

WINZ-FM Miami 1984

Update from mk9775:

By the way, the aircheck is actually from 9/18/1984, not '83, since Cox was actually fired from Y-100 in October 1983, and was hired by I-95's Keith Isley soon after.

Yeah, I'm back. Another summer vacation to transfer all my cassettes to a digital format. I hope I can finish by August.

Don Cox, aka "Cox on the Radio" made his name at Y-100 in Miami, then moved to WINZ-FM, which was known as I-95 at the time. The two stations were great competitors. Cox died in 2003.

A little background:

I-95 was hot from late 1981 until about 1983. It caught Y-100 off guard, but the mighty WHYI successfully fought off a station that took advantage of the demise of 96X.
I-95 went back to Zeta after WSHE exploded in the ratings with a Hot Rock format.
I-95 could have stayed in the CHR fight, but it was really a flash-in-the-pan station with a mountain to climb against “America’s Megastation” in a market about to rapidly change with the arrival of Cuban immigrants and a whole generation of high-school age offspring from those who fled Cuba in the early 1960s.
The result? Hot 105 shot to No. 1, and then Power 96 took over.
Y-100 stumbled in the mid 1980s because it suddenly had an identity crisis, and by 1988 eventually failed in its valiant effort to be the “everything” station Z100 was in New York.
But a white rock n roll jock (Sonny Fox) anchoring mornings on a Top 40 station balancing Erotic Exotic records with Heart and Van Halen – even with Miami Vice the hottest thing on TV – just couldn’t compete with Power’s dance music and “She’s Only Rock n Roll.”

Here's an article about Cox.

In two parts, here is an unscoped aircheck from September, 1983:

Part 1
Part 2

WCIX-TV Miami 1992 Hurricane Andrew

WMXJ-FM Miami 1992

After Sonny Fox left Y100 Miami for Dallas in 1989, he returned to Miami and Majic 102.7 in 1990. Currently, Sonny is the program director for the XM comedy channels.

WTVJ-TV Miami 1988

WINZ-FM Miami 1983

A terrific competitor to Y100 in the 80s. Stay tuned for Cox on the Radio.

WOR-TV New York 1979

I haven't been able to find any videos for WOR, so I thought I'd at least show their logo. I grew up watching the NY Mets on channel 9. The announcers were Ralph Kiner, Lindsey Nelson, and Bob Murphy.

WAXY-FM Miami 1986

The Greg Budell Show on WAXY-FM. Budell is still on the airwaves on both AM and FM.

WFLA-TV WFLA-AM Tampa 2007

Just before his 30-year celebration and imminent retirement, a local Tampa anchor was arrested for DUI in the first two videos.

The third clip announces the suicide of a very popular WFLA-TV meteorologist.

WZTA-FM Miami 1987

This is me playing Walter Cronkite on the Neil Rogers Show. The second audio combines two separate phone calls.

Part 1
Part 2

WAXY-FM Miami 1988

I found the following clip here. One of the songs was our wedding song...I'll let you guess which one. This was the year I moved from Miami to Atlanta, and I can vaguely remember this personality.

Remember the days of having a real person doing the overnight shift? Here's the aircheck.

WHYI-FM Miami 1984

This is a scoped aircheck of the Sonny Fox morning show on WHYI-FM, also known as Y100. In the 70s and 80s, Y100 was a juggernaut. Here's the history of the station.

A little bit about how Sonny arrived at Y100:

In 1982 Bill Tanner and Jim Reihle left Y-100 for WASH-FM/Washington, DC. To replace him, Sonny Fox and Ron Hersey were recruited for mornings from crosstown WSHE-FM. Using a blend of parody songs, phony commercials, and impersonations of local and national celebrities and politicians Fox, Hersey, "Captain Y", and John "Footy" Cross led the morning show to its highest ratings ever.

In 1987, Hersey moved on to mornings at WNVZ-FM/Norfolk, WAPW-FM/Atlanta and KKFR-FM/Phoenix where he worked with Danny Bonaduce. Fox left the following year and moved to mornings at KHYI-FM/Dallas (Y95) with Bill Murphy and Joannie Siani.

Fox is now on the XM/Sirrus Comedy Channels, Hersey on WFTL-AM in Miami.

Channel 5 (ITN) London 1999

B&W to Color

I watched black and white television for 10 years. Networks slowly started to broadcast in color in the late 50s and it really picked up in the 60s. By 1970, it was hard to find any new programs broadcast in black and white.

When the broadcast television networks aired a program in color, the show was preceded by an announcement highlighting that fact. First up is a video showing the color presentation packages from ABC, CBS, and NBC. A great video showing all the NBC IDs throughout the years:

WPLG-TV Miami 1988

SKY News London 1999

Sky News (a sister network of FOX News) is a cable news channel providing 24-hour news coverage including the latest breaking news. Currently broadcasting from a news center in London, the channel provides domestic and international coverage to audiences in the UK as well as around the globe. Sky News started broadcasting on February 5, 1989 as part of the then four-channel Sky Television service. Sky News provides an hourly news radio service to multiple radio networks in the UK and provides news services to Channel 5. Although the station is targeted at the UK and Ireland, it is carried around the world on a number of services, particularly being favored by expatriates who want to keep up-to-date with the latest news from home.

WPLG-TV Miami 1988

WTVJ-TV Miami 1988

Look at the hair!

Channel 4 (ITN) London 1999

WABC-TV New York 1972

The weatherman in these commercials, Tex Antoine, always seemed creepy to me growing up. Here's how he lost his job:

On November 24, 1976, his weather spot came up just after a report of a violent rape of a five year old girl. Tex thereupon quipped: "With rape so predominant in the news lately, it is well to remember the words of Confucius: 'If rape is inevitable, lie back and enjoy it.'" Roger Grimsby led the 11 p.m. newscast that night with the official apology from WABC. Five days later Grimsby would introduce Antoine's replacement, Storm Field with "Lie back, relax and enjoy the weather with Storm Field."

WABC-TV New York 1977

Network News Themes

ABC: CBS: NBC:

Local TV News Themes

One of the most famous was the Eyewitness News theme, based on music from Cool Hand Luke.

Eyewitness News Theme

This theme was used by many stations who used the Action News Format. It's entitled "Move Closer To Your World." First, the short version, then the long version. I think the second example may be the only news theme that actually includes singers.

Short Version - Action News Theme

Long Version - Action News Theme

WTVT Tampa 2007

WFLA-TV Tampa on WTTA-TV 2007

WTSP-TV Tampa 2002

WTVJ-TV Miami 1995