© Unistar

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When I began at 66 WNBC in New York the station had an amazing unduplicated cume audience of approximately 3.5 million people a week. It seemed incomprehensible that that many people could be listening to one station. But what about being heard on over 100 stations (135 to be exact) coast to coast?

Back in the days when I was Program Director of Q94 in Bakersfield, I was aware of an AM station in the market, KGEO that played Oldies. The production value of the station as well as the quality of the on air staff was way too good for a market that size. It didn't take long to determine it was an affiliate of the Unistar Radio Network (Transtar had recently merged with United Stations to form Unistar).

Because I was familiar with how that station sounded on the local end I explored opportunities at Unistar once I was in LA. Although I initially applied for a position on the soon to be launched 'Hot Country' format, I was hired on the 'Oldies Channel' in part because of my experience with the format at 66 WNBC.

The 'Oldies Channel' was tightly formatted with modern day mechanics applied to the on air presentation. Custom liners were recorded for each affiliate to create the illusion that the DJs were actually in that particular station's market (hence references heard on this tape to 'KOCN, Oldies 105', an actual affiliate in Monterey, CA). At no time was it ever revealed that we were actually in Hollywood on Sunset Boulevard.

This created unique on air challenges (notice how the hour of day is never mentioned specifically in time checks, merely stated as" 'X minutes past / before the hour"). This was particularly so during the rioting in the aftermath of the Rodney King police brutality verdict in LA. As armored vehicles were literally patrolling the street below us, we could only refer to events unfolding before our eyes in vague, roundabout ways such as "You've probably seen on CNN (who were in the same building as Unistar coincidentally) how bad things are in LA!".

During my six years on the 'Oldies Channel' I also assembled many of the special weekend and holiday features and would do music logs from time to time. Mid way through that period, Unistar was acquired by Westwood One for whom I would go on to work down the hall on two other satellite formats, the '70's Channel' and 'Groovin' Oldies'.

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WEEL KIX-106 WPGC Q107 66 WNBC
B104 WMZQ Q94 KWIZ KEZY
KLAC STAR 98.7 '70's KOLA

 


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