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.Here's an article about Cox.
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.”
In two parts, here is an unscoped aircheck from September, 1983:
Part 1
Part 2
