Spotlight on WCBS-FM

This journal entry is not meant to be an exhaustive treatise on WCBS-FM.  Interested readers can look at the home page, tribute site and Wikipedia entry.

I did not listen to WCBS-FM in its early days. When I started in the early 1980s, I listened to Norm N. Nite's Top 20 Countdown and Jack Spector's Sock Hop. I started to listen  more often in 1984 after WYNY fired Dan Daniel and hired a couple of clowns called Harris and Harris to do the morning show. My fondest memories of the station include:

The Harry Harrison Birthday Book - on most years I sent in Lee's birthday to be read over the air  I taped Harry's announcing Lee's Bar Mitzvah in May 2001 and played it at the reception.  Lee did pick the music to be played with a little help from his Dad.  Only two Dylan songs and one Dylan cover were played.  Actually Lee's birth was announced by Bob Shannon with the dedication of It's A Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong.

Tuesday Night Trivia with Bob Shannon - He had this contest in the mid 1980s when his show aired in the evening.  The questions were tough, but there were no prizes.  Back then I had a rotary dial phone and usually lost out to some of the contest nuts.

Like thousands of other loyal listeners, I was aghast at the format change to the dreaded Jack on June 3, 2005.  There is no sense to talk about it further.  Lee used to boo when he saw buses with the ad for Jack-FM.  Fortunately, the new management at CBS radio came to their senses and restored a modified version of the oldies station.  It was re-branded as the greatest hits of the 60s, 70s, and 80s.

No radio station is perfect nor can please all of its listeners all of the time.  Like many others I prefere the 50s and early 60s to the 70s and 80s music that predominated their playlist now.  Regular readers of this journal must know that I listen to many radio stations.  Karen listens to WCBS-FM a lot more than I.