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September 11,
2001 Aircheck Page
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WXLO
98.7 "98X", "99X"
ON AIR: April 1973-August, 1981
FORMAT: Top 40; evolved to an AOR leaning top 40 before
becoming a progressive disco station
TRANSMITTER SITE: Empire State Building
NOTABLE PERSONALITIES: Sue O'Neil, Bobby Messina, Al
Bandiero, Terry Nelson, Walt "Baby" Love, Jay Thomas, Ed O'Brien,
Glen B. Morgan, Dick Sloan, Bobby Rich
A BIT ABOUT 99X: WXLO was one of the early stars of music on FM
radio.
The frequency began with the calls WBAM and in 1966 became a
sister of WOR-AM 710, a longtime talk radio station. Parts of the
programming were simulcast, including the morning show of Barry Farber and John
Gambling. Scott Muni also got his start on WOR-FM.
In 1973, the calls were switched to WXLO. The station
phased in music and became a top 40 station by the mid 1970s and began using
the nickname "99X" in 1974. For a short time, WXLO was known as
"98X".
As disco began steamrolling in popularity, WXLO jumped right
in, becoming a premier outlet for disco in the New York area. FM radio
took off, peeling more and more listeners away from AM music stations WNBC 660
and WABC 770. WXLO moved away from disco and towards top 40 as the
genre's popularity subsided.
In the summer of 1981, 99X changed its calls to WRKS
("Kiss FM"). Kiss-FM has played a variety of formats catering
the the black audience of New York, including different fragments of an urban
contemporary format. Most recently, it has become an R&B/soul gold
format.
EACH ITEM UNDERLINED IS A SOUNDFILE. CLICK IT!!!!.
Here's some ID from its days as WOR-FM
(courtesy of Jingles Guy)
Here are several WXLO IDs. The first
three were a primer to flashback oldies.
"It's
1965"..listen to the station being identified as 98X
"And now the top hits, WXLO New York"
.
WXLO 1
Here's a quick ID from WRKS, the calls that
followed WXLO in 1981.
WRKS-FM (from 1995)
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Below is an "air checks", actual recordings of the way WXLO
sounded. The following is not a complete and true "aircheck",
but rather a representative sample of WXLO in 1979. The file is courtesy
of radioboys.com
Please note you will
need RealPlayer to listen to the file. You can download it for free by
clicking here
****************************************************************************
(*REAL AUDIO*) 99X March (?) 1979 (*REAL AUDIO*)
Sue O'Neal , Dick Sloan, and Bobby
Rich are featured in this sampler. Songs include "Peace Of
Mind" by Boston, a Juicy Fruit gum commercial, "Shadow Dancing"
by Andy Gibvbv, "Let 'em In" by Wings, "How Much I
Feel" by Ambrosia, "Kiss You All Over" by Exile, "I Just
Want To Stop" by Gina Vanelli, a Wrigley Spearmint gum commercial,
"Don't Look Back" by Boston, and Chuck Mangione's "Feels So
Good". There's also a nice sprinkling of weather and time checks, as
well as several public service announcements. This check is an excellent
sample of 99X's days as a rock-leaning top 40
****************************************************************************
All sound files (except WRKS and the
above aircheck) on this page are courtesy of Barry, a.k.a Jinglesguy, used with
his permission.
Visit Barry's Spot on the Web.
(his homepage) as well as his Jingles page . You can send e mail to the Jinglesguy by clicking here
His page is really worth checking out, especially if you're a big fan of
Casey Kasem.
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