WMCA

WMCA, 570 AM, is a radio station in New York City, most known for its "Good Guys" Top 40 era in the 1960s. It is currently owned by Salem Communications and plays a Christian radio format. Its transmitter is located in Kearny, New Jersey.

Early years

WMCA first went on the air on February 6, 1925, broadcasting from the McAlpin Hotel, from which its call letters derive. In 1928 it moved to the 570 kHz frequency.

Through its early decades WMCA had a varied programming history, playing music, hosting dramas, and broadcasting New York Giants baseball games. In 1943 it was acquired by the Straus family.

In 1945, host Barry Gray began dropping music and adding talk with celebrities and later call-in listeners; he is thus sometimes considered "The Father of Talk Radio", and his show lasted on WMCA for decades.

WMCA began playing rock music in the late 1950s with a Top 40 format. Among its disc jockeys then was future legend Scott Muni as well as Murray "the K" Kaufman.

Good Guys era

In 1960 WMCA began promoting itself by stressing its on-air personalities, who were collectively known as the WMCA "Good Guys". This was the era of the high-profile Top 40 DJ with an exhuberant personality aimed at a certain audience segment. And with the advent of The Good Guys format, WMCA became much more "on top" of new music that was happening in the Big Apple. The Good Guys really started to become known for "playing the hits." In the early 60's, the top 40 format was still young, and the field was crowded in NYC. Two major 50,000-watt stations, WMGM and WINS, had battled each other, playing pop music, for years. Then in 1960, there was WABC, which also started featuring top 40 music. Ultimately it was WMCA's earnest competiton with rival WABC that basically brought about the defection of WMGM (1962) and then WINS (1965) to non-top 40 formats. There was so much attention on the high-profile WMCA-WABC battle, that both of the other stations were summarily forced to find a new niche.

Lineup and features

The classic Good Guys era lineup included:

Morning man Joe O'Brien, an industry veteran whose humor appealed to multiple generations (6am-10am)
Late morning stalwart Harry Harrison, whose show was explicitly aimed at housewives (there were different cultural assumptions back then) (10am-1pm)
Early afternoon host Jack Spector, "Look out street, here I come!" (1pm-4pm)
In afternoon drive time, smooth-talking Texan Dandy Dan Daniel and his daily countdown (4pm-7pm)
Evening star to teenagers, Gary Stevens and his "Wooleyburger" bear (7pm-11pm)
Barry Gray's ongoing talk show (11pm-1am)
Overnights, Dean Anthony, "Dino on your radio" with his "Actors and Actresses" game (1am-6am)
Weekends and fill-in, Ed Baer and Frank Stickle

(On Friday nights, Stevens ended at 10:30 and WMCA's locally-produced, half-hour news show The World Tonite aired; this was a local re-cap of the week's news, and should not be confused with Garner Ted Armstrong's The World Tomorrow religious program, which was not heard on WMCA until after the Good Guys era ended.)

Daniel's countdown changed once a week, and was of the station's top 25 records. It also included a "Sure Shot" and "Long Shot" of records not yet on the chart.

Local promotions and on-air games such as "Name It and Claim It" were common; most prized were the yellow "Good Guys" sweatshirts, which could be won if a listener's name was read over the air and they called PLaza 2-9944 within a certain time period.

Another distinctive feature of the station was its "Call For Action" help line, which callers would utilize if they had any of various problems they needed assistance in resolving, usually related to consumer or public-works issues.

The station had the distinction of playing the first Beatles record on New York radio, in late December 1963, when the late Jack Spector aired "I Want To Hold Your Hand". WMCA was keen on playing new product, and breaking new hits, and consequently, was the radio station that introduced Beatlemania, and the "British Invasion" music movement to the largest city in the United States. Not only did WMCA play new music first, but the Good Guys played more music in general, more hits per hour. And while WABC was busy broadcasting N.Y. Mets baseball in the summer of 1963, WMCA was the station you'd hear coming out of transistors at the pool and the beach; starting in 1963, The Good Guys were really on their game.

Besides the "Good Guy" personalities, and the commitment to play new music, WMCA also excelled in on-air production. Each hour WMCA presented its music, jingles, promos, contests, stagers, and even commercials in a tight, upbeat style that, to the ear of anyone that switched between WMCA and WABC, would make WABC seem as if it was going at a somewhat slower pace. Some experts attribute this stodgy WABC sound to its staff of longtime (and older) studio engineers, who ran the board there. The rumor is that WMCA employed younger, more hip board-ops, who had a better understanding of the top 40 formatics. Whatever the reason, the sparkling sound presented on-air by WMCA also contributed to its ratings success against WABC.

Competition with WABC

In the 1960s, WMCA's great competition was with rival WABC. It wasn't supposed to happen, but between 1963 and 1966, WMCA was the undisputed ratings champ in New York City. Even though WMCA had a signal in about one-third the ratings area, it still showed up #1. Between 1967 and 1968, WMCA still had a good run in the total survey area, and always beat WABC in the city itself.

Through the 1960s, WMCA would beat WABC on most Beatle records, scoring firsts, causing WABC headaches. In part desperation, WABC countered by going against their music policy, promising promoter Sid Bernstein to play a new group he was handling first. WABC never added records out of the box, but they did for Sid Bernstein by playing The Young Rascals' "I Ain't Going To Eat Out My Heart Anymore" first. In return, Bernstein would provide the station with exclusive Beatle interviews the next time they were in town. Since WABC knew they had the Beatles - what could they come up with as a promotion? WABC came up with they thought was a brilliant promotion - "The Order of the All-Americans" - tied with their DJ's. They would present these "medals" to each of the Beatles the next time they were in town. Everything was set. The whole idea was to get each Beatle to comment on the "medal" - and say the call letters W-A-B-C, so they could use them in station ID's, promotions, etc. - but the whole thing backfired. WABC got their interviews, but the Beatles were on to them. They wouldn't say the call letters when asked to comment.

Indeed WMCA played new records faster than its rival WABC. Its weekly countdown was 25 records long instead of WABC's 20, and it included the "Sure Shot" and "Long Shot" speculations. Its countdown was also "faster" than WABC's, in the sense that records climbed to the top quicker, while WABC's rankings tended to follow. A comparison of both stations showed WABC to be two, sometimes three weeks behind WMCA.

Between 1964 and 1968, Billboard Magazine rated WMCA as (New York's) most influential station for new records. Although every market had one station with record-buying influence, WMCA was in the top market, making it responsible for producing much of the 1960's hits still heard on oldies radio. Not every record added to the WMCA playlist became a hit, but as soon as sales stirred, latecomer WABC would be forced to add the same record.

Although radio historians tend to treat WMCA as the 1960s radio stepchild, radio ratings throughout most of the decade say WMCA beat WABC easily in the New York City area. WABC's audience build-out came outside of the WMCA 5,000 watt listening area. In fact Pulse ratings, which also took a city-area ratings poll, said the WMCA was still beating WABC as late as February 1969. One of these reports stands out. When Pulse took its annual Feb-March (city-area) ratings in 1967, if found WABC with a 6 share, against WMCA's 15 share.

WMCA's eventual slippage wasn't due to WABC - both stations could compete fine even though WMCA had less power. Because WMCA had such big New York City numbers, any city-based competitor would and did become a ratings issue. This began to happen as early as 1967 with the ascendence of soul WWRL and rock WOR-FM and finally in 1968, WNEW-FM. All three took an average 6 rating points away from WMCA.

Chaos and transition

In 1968, a chaotic period began in which Gary Stevens disappeared to Switzerland and Harry Harrison moved to WABC. WMCA then started experimenting with some talk programming as part of "Power Radio", with hosts ranging from cranky Bob Grant to countercultural Alex Bennett. It also began playing album cuts in addition to singles, with the slogan "The hits and the heavies". Disc jockeys left, came back, and left again in short order; new jocks appeared with vague names (Lee Gray was originally "Lee Your Leader") and bizarre stunts (Frankie Crocker played two very short songs over and over again for an hour); the "Good Guys" were partly reassembled then dropped again; even reliable Dean Anthony, who was concurrently working at a country music station, sometimes got all the slogans mixed up on air.

Talk era

The station finally adopted a full-time talk radio format labelled "Dial-Log Radio" in 1970 and the "Good Guys" era was over for good. Gray and Grant continued on in the new format, and Jack Spector returned to host a sports talk show. "Long John" Nebel was a fixture on overnights.

Later in the 1970s John Sterling hosted one of the first confrontational sports talks shows, as well as doing play-by-play for the New York Islanders and New Jersey Nets games that WMCA carried. It was there that his knowledgable but bombastic and over-the-top broadcasting style would first be heard. WMCA also carried New York Yankees games for much of the 1970s, with the classic Yankees broadcasting crew of Frank Messer, Phil Rizzuto, and Bill White.

The Strauss family sold the station in 1986 or 1987; it was the last family-owned radio station in New York. New owner Federal Broadcasting kept the talk format, then sold the station in 1988 to Salem Communications, who initially adopted a financial news format.

Religious era

Since September 16, 1989, WMCA has been doing a Christian radio format, typical for Salem Communications. Initially it had the slogan "New York's Christian Radio", and currently has the moniker "New York's Inspiring Talk".

WMCA runs extra religious programming on WWDJ 970 AM in the New Jersey/New York area, also owned by Salem Communications. This second station is publicly billed as WMCA II or WMCA 970.

WMCA also runs NEWSTALK WMCA.COM, an Internet feed which re-broadcasts nationally syndicated talk shows with a social conservatism viewpoint, including those from Mike Gallagher, Bill Bennett, Michael Medved, and Laura Schlessinger (whose Dr. Laura show also runs over the air on the 970 outlet).

In recent years WMCA has attempted to establish a connection back to its "Good Guys" era. Their website has a tribute to the 1960s jocks while their current air personalities — "a whole new team of 'Good Guys' filling the airwaves with the Good News" — make appearances and give out an updated version of the Good Guys sweatshirt [http://www.nycradio.com/subpage.asp?StationId=WMCA-AM&PageNo=31. On air the station is billed as "The Home of the Good Guys" and 1960s-style Good Guys jingles are sometimes used to identify personalities on air.

Despite what the callsign suggests, the Music Corporation of America, best known as a powerhouse record label and former owner of Universal Studios, never owned this station-the calls came from its former studio location at McAlpin Hotel.

Location

Due to the high traffic location of WMCA, many travelers of the New Jersey Turnpike and riders of New Jersey Transit may not be familiar with the radio station itself, but certainly are familiar with the neon "WMCA" sign and towers in the middle of a marsh between major highways.Site visit to WMCA Kearny facility

External links

Radio stations in New York City | Salem radio stations