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WCBS-FM 101.1

Early promos

FM Guide: November, 1967

These are a series of early promotions for WCBS-FM's Young Sound format

The "Young Sound" Gets A Voice

Billboard: Dec 9, 1967

An article describing the evolving CBS-FM.

Let Me Entertain You

circa 1968

CBS-FM wasn't always a oldies station. They tried various permutations of free-form and progressive rock before finding the format that would last them for years. Here's another example of one of their earliest promotions, which you'll have to admit is a bit freaky, but who exactly were they trying to appeal to?

WCBS-FM Is Into It

circa 1969

Another psychedelic ad approach. It would be interesting to know whether this was produced by an ad agency.

End of "The Young Sound"

FM Guide: December 1969

One of many format change announcements. Everyone was still trying to find their way in this new world of FM.

The Lewis & Clark Expedition

FM Guide: April 1970

I had forgotten about this one. If you wanted listeners to believe that CBS-FM was not part of a large corporation, this ad worked quite well. On the other hand, it looked sorta like something your friends doodled in high school. Did they really work an eight hour on-air shift together or was it two four-hour shifts?

1970 CBS-FM Jocks

FM Guide: May, 1970

A nice article featuring the CBS-FM jocks. CBS-FM of that era was a fairly light station compared with WNEW-FM and WABC-FM/WPLJ. You can see this in their musical choices, which is exactly what I remember CBS-FM playing at this time. It was geared for listeners who weren't into AM radio anymore, but weren't into the heavier sounds of the progressive stations either. CBS-FM liked horn bands, so they played a lot of Gary Puckett, Chicago and Blood, Sweat & Tears.

The WCBS-FM Rock Jocks: Bobby Wayne

circa 1970

A photo of Bob "the Wizard" Wayne from contributor Kimbal Brandner.

AIRCHECK: Rocky G, Bill Brown, Steve Clark (Restored & Scoped) (26:29)

Contributed by Rob Frankel

Summer, 1970

It's hard to believe that this aircheck is from 40 years ago. It features DJs Rocky G, Bill Brown and Steve Clark from the semi-progressive days of CBS-FM. It didn't sound free-form, but it did sound low key. And the playlist was a strange mix of just about every genre of rock music.

Rob Frankel relates that Rocky G (Groce) was a former WWRL jock who was doing fill-in work at CBS-FM on that particular night.

Featured in this aircheck are many vintage Coca-Cola commercials sung by the big artists of the day. In fact, there aren't too many spots aside from Coke. It's not a big wonder that the format didn't last all that long, but if it did, we never would have wound up with an oldies station.

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More Music

Contributed by Myles Putman

circa August 1970

This is a rare promotion contributed by Myles Putman. Of course, it was easy for WCBS-FM to play "more music" because in 1970, they still probably didn't have very many spots.

AIRCHECK: Gus Gossert (Restored & Scoped) (32:51)

Contributed by Rob Frankel

October, 1970

Thanks to Rob Frankel, we have this fine aircheck of Gus Gossert doing the CBS-FM pre-oldies thing, which was a combination of pop, light rock and some R&B. The first segment features a very low-key interview with Jose Feliciano.

While, as usual, we had to scope the music, this aircheck also features some interesting jingles, news and spots. Judging by the news, we think this aircheck is from either October 6th or 7th.

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AIRCHECK: Bobby Wayne (Restored & Scoped)(13:10)

Contributed by Rob Frankel

July 12, 1971

This is an aircheck from radio pro and historian, Rob Frankel. Rob restored the aircheck using his production magic, but we had to scope it again so as not to violate copyright law and to make it easier to listen to.

This stereo aircheck from the CBS-FM progessive days, complete with formatics and jingles, features DJ Bobby "Wizard" Wayne. Note the diversity of the music which combined music that you might hear on AM along with select album tracks, not completely unlike what you might hear on CBS-FM today, but with more non-single album tracks: Bob Dylan, The Carpenters, Al Kooper, the Grateful Dead, Carol King, James Taylor, the Rolling Stones, Donovan, Carly Simon, the Beatles, Joe Cocker, the Doors, etc.

One other surprise for me was the promotion for the DJs appearing later that night: Ed Williams and Rosko (Bill Mercer). I didn't even remember Rosko ever working for CBS-FM and Ed Williams had previously appeared on WLIB. That's quite a diverse and interesting group of nighttime jocks. Note: Rob Frankel has since advised me that the Rosko show was a syndicated show produced from Rosko's then home in France.

Link to aircheck

Bob Cole tries to turn-around CBS-FM Group

Broadcasting - Aug. 23, 1971

An article detailing how Bob Cole has been promoted to VP of CBS' FM radio group and is mandated to make the stations profitable.

The WCBS-FM Rock Jocks

circa late 1971-early 1972

A great photo of the CBS-FM jocks from contributor Kimbal Brandner.

AIRCHECK: John Zacherley on Halloween [stereo-scoped] (Pt.1 27:44, Pt.2 19:39, Pt.3 19:38, Pt.4 7:35 Pt.5 14:52)

Contributed by Ken Tullipano

Oct 31, 1987

Once again, Ken Tullipano strikes gold!

This is a great aircheck of John Zacherley returning to CBS-FM when it was still a true oldies station to play a bunch of crazy tracks for Halloween and it sounds great. Check out the spot for the lengendary Downstairs Records in part 1 and a spot for all the old CBS-FM jocks in part 2.

More parts to come throughout Halloween...

(And scroll down to find where Zach does it again 20 years later and still sounds as great.)

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AIRCHECK: Norm N. Night Says "Goodbye"

Feb 20th, 1988

Contributed by Myles Putman

Here's a short aircheck from the end of Norm N. Night's last show on WCBS-FM.

Listen

AIRCHECK: Radio Greats Weekend: Murray the K

1991

Back when CBS-FM was more than just a "play the hit oldies" station, they had special weekends dedicated to the radio greats of the past. One of the great things about these broadcasts is that they included jocks who had never appeared on CBS-FM and sometimes even included air personalities who competed with them.

This is an excerpt from the 1991 broadcast featuring some rarely heard airchecks of Murray from his WINS days as well as interviews with his son Peter and several performers, including Ronnie Spector, who talks about the attention to detail that Murray put into his live shows. Murray always had a reputation of being hard to work with, but maybe he was really the Steve Jobs of radio: he knew exactly what he wanted and his genius made him a bit arrogant.

There's also a bit where Murray does a pulp fiction comic book intro to Ernie K Doe's "Mother In Law". Murray repeated this bit many times, even on free-form WOR-FM, but it demonstrates how much trouble he would go to just to make his show a little different.

The segment does have one error: near the end, it's said that Murray moved to WOR-FM in 1965. His first WOR-FM show was on October 8, 1966. For more about Murray, check out the WINS, WOR-FM and General Radio History pages. We also have WNEW-FM's tribute to Murray on the WNEW-FM page (scroll down to February of 1982).

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AIRCHECK: John Zacherley on Halloween [scoped]

Oct 31, 2007

This is a great scoped aircheck of John Zacherley sitting in on Halloween at CBS-FM in 2007. Zach was 89 when this was recorded and it's amazing how strong and vibrant he sounds. You can tell that he doesn't know a lot of the music and he relies upon his old shtick, but he's still very impressive. Note also how he doesn't accept the role of a guest who's supposed to be quiet most of the time - he really takes over the show.

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WCBS-FM 101.1 Schedules

WCBS-FM Schedule

1967-1981

These schedules are sourced from newspapers, FM Guide (which was usually a few months behind changes), Radio Guide, Richard Neer's book on FM radio, personal recollections of myself and DJs and various postings on the web, especially those of Vince Santarelli. Corrections welcomed. In some cases, the same dates are posted twice due to conflicting information from different sources. This one shows the schedule from 1967 to 1981 as CBS-FM evolved from various flavors of AOR to Oldies.

WCBS-FM Schedule

1981-2005