WNCN (New York City)

The WNCN saga is one of the great stories in broadcasting. Grab a cup of coffee and relive the almost forty-year long saga of America's greatest classical music station.

WNCN first signed on in 1956 as part of the Concert Network which originated at WBCN in Boston owned by Mitch Hastings. Other stations in the network included WHCN, Hartford, CT, WRCN, Riverhead, NY, WXCN, Providence, and of course, WNCN.

Because New York was effectively the country's cultural capital WNCN soon stopped relaying music programs from Boston (continuing with newscasts, however), and started originating its own programs.

Gordon Spencer, whose announcing/hosting career at WNCN spanned several decades has written about his experiences at the very onset of WNCN in the fifties.

One of the early Music Directors was Albert Fuller the renowned harpsichordist, followed by Brit Maurice Essam, and then David Dubal who guided the music playlist for over two decades.

Some of the music presenters during the fifties and sixties included Harry Fleetwood, Gordon Spencer, Bernie Alan, Bill Watson, Matt Edwards, Bob Adams, Max Cole, Chris Borgen, Frank Waldecker, Lucien Ricard, Dana Bate, and many others.

The station went through several ownership changes, but the on-air "sound" was surprisingly consistent, largely because the core group remained the same. There was no effort to appeal to a larger audience since WQXR had locked up that market thanks to its ownership by The New York Times. In the 60s, the station's on-air slogan was "Fulltime for Fine Music" although during the Essam years it was expressed as "Fulltime for Mozart" by the station staff.


For about a year while under the ownership of Starr Broadcasting it became WQIV, a rock station. However, two listener groups "The WNCN Listener' Guild" and "Classical Radio for Connecticut" were quickly formed and mounted a legal challenge which led to a stay of the scheduled change by the US Supreme Court. However, on appeal, the station was allowed to become WQIV. A number of simultaneous issues were in play, including SEC censures against Starr Broadcasting which resulted in a seven figure fine, and disciplinary actions against certain principals. The WNCN Listeners' Guild case is still studied in Communications Law courses. (A page of links to articles regarding the WNCN fight is in preparation)

The WNCN/WQIV saga came to a head when a Chicago group headed by William Benton (who owned the Encyclopedia Brittanica) formed Concert Radio, Inc. along with principals from WFMT (the Chicago Fine Arts station) and challenged WNCN's license at renewal. To avoid a competitive hearing at the FCC, which would be lengthy, expensive and time consuming, and with a questionable outcome, the situation forced Starr to accept an offer engineered by the Listener's Guild, for GAF Broadcasting to buy WNCN at a fire-sale price of around $3 million.

Likening it to a death in the family and a portent of America's capitulation to "fast-food, mall mentality," listeners yesterday bemoaned and berated the sudden demise of the classical music radio station WNCN-FM and its jarring, immediate reincarnation as "Pure Rock, Q-104.3."

A forlorn gaggle of members of the station's Listeners' Guild, told of the imminent passing only hours earlier, gathered outside WNCN's offices on the Avenue of the Americas at 47th Street minutes before midnight Friday. With disbelieving ears, they heard the last strains of classical music struggling, like a death rattle, through a small portable radio, followed by several minutes of tick, tick, ticking before the first blast of rock-and-roll.

At that moment, 20 miles to the north, a woman who insisted that she and her family had stayed tuned to WNCN, literally "around the clock," for nearly two decades, angrily snapped the station off.

"Ever since it went on the air -- it must be 20 years -- we never had it off," said Barbara Arnold of Nyack, N.Y. "Honest, even when we were asleep. It's soothing, you know."

But at midnight, when WNCN became WAXQ-FM "and they put on that horrible, horrible rock-and-roll, I just turned it off," Mrs. Arnold said. 'Heart Wasn't in It'

Among those unhappy with the change was the violinist Itzhak Perlman. "It's ridiculous," he said.

But Mr. Perlman said WNCN's "heart wasn't in it" for quite a while. "The way they were treating classical music, trying to popularize it, they were sort of excusing themselves away from it," he said. "When it gets to something like that, it's a shame."

The station, owned by the GAF Broadcasting Company, announced the change in a news release on Friday afternoon, saying it would feature groups like Aerosmith, AC/DC, Pearl Jam, Nirvana and Stone Temple Pilots. Listeners were not told until minutes before the switch.

The demise of WNCN leaves only one commercial classical-music radio station, WQXR-FM, owned by The New York Times Company. There are also noncommercial stations that play classical music at certain times, including WNYC-FM. Evading the Competition

Randy Bongarten, the president and general manager of GAF, acknowledged on Friday that the change in format had been made secretly. "It wasn't aimed at the classical-music community," Mr. Bongarten said. "We did it this way to hide it from our competitors. We didn't want them to have a chance to respond to our move."

He said the change was dictated by "the fact that we were in a market that was limited." Given the competition with WQXR, "it was a saturated situation," he said, adding, "We decided to look for a market that was unserved."

What was being served, said Bruce Adolphe, 38, a composer and music adminstrator for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, was "the fast-food, mall mentality of this country."

'It's a kind of death for New York, and for the education of young people in the city," Mr. Adolphe said. "Those of us who have higher standards and values other than big bucks are increasingly struggling against a kind of wave of people in high places giving up, selling out to sheer commercial interests."

Clara Roesch, the artistic director of the Long Island Singers Society, a classical choral group based in Glen Cove, said she was not knocking rock. "Not that some rock-and-roll isn't wonderful," she said. "But we have so few resources to get to people's ears about the great music."

Officials of the station could not be reached yesterday for comment on the protests. A recorded telephone announcement said WAQX's number "is not connected yet," and a message answering the old WNCN number barred contact with any live voices. What Not to Expect

Over the air yesterday, the banter of disk jockeys seemed relatively low-key, with an apparent imitation of the trademark Beavis and Butt-head staccato grunt, "Huh, huh, huh," preceding a phrase implying the full panoply of heavy-metal programming: 'AC/DC, A to Z. One taped promotion played snippets of Toto's "Rosanna" and Bob Dylan's 'Just Like a Woman" to illustrate just what the new Q-104.3 format will not be.

The station had changed its format to rock-and-roll before, from November 1974 to May 1975. But the 5,000-member Listeners' Guild was a successful party to efforts by the Federal Communications Commission to force the owner to sell the station to GAF, whose chairman was then Jesse Werner, a devotee of classical music. Mr. Werner was ousted as chairman in the early 1980's.

The guild's lawyer, David Rice, said yesterday that the organization still has a legal challenge to that transfer of control before the Federal Court of Appeals in Washington. "It has been briefed, argued and awaiting a decision," Mr. Rice said. If the guild is successful, it could require the F.C.C. to hold a hearing on whether the transfer of control was in the public interest." Mr. Rice could not say what effect the change in format might have on the court decision. Rallying the Fans

"We will be on the streets and in the courts and the F.C.C. and whatever else we can do to rally music-lovers to bring classical music back," Mr. Rice said.

Among those who plans to join any rally is Rodney Leinberger, 54, of Upper Montclair, N.J. "I'm in shock, sick to my stomach," he said after turning to his favorite station yesterday morning. "I'd rather walk on broken glass than listen to that stuff."

Another listener, Gail Appel of North Merrick, L.I., who holds bachelor's and master's degrees in music, first realized something had changed when she punched the button on her car radio several times yesterday while returning from the bagel store. "It's just hard to believe that New York cannot support more than one classical station," she said. "Are we in deep mourning about this? Not quite. But we're walking around the house saying, 'What are we going to do?'"

The FM station first took to the air on December 1, 1956 as WFMX,[4] and within a year adopted the call letters WNCN (for New York Concert Network).[5] As such, it was a part of a group of classical music stations in the northeastern United States, the Concert Network, programmed from WBCN in Boston and carried by affiliates including WXCN in Providence, Rhode Island and WHCN in Hartford, Connecticut. Later, WNCN was acquired by medical ad agency owner Ludwig Wolfgang Frohlich, the founder of the National Science Network,[6][7] and added daily medical news reports to the schedule, since it was believed that classical music was the choice of the medical and dental professions. It also moved the antenna from the Hotel Pierre to the Empire State Building, increasing the station's coverage. National Science sold the station to Starr Broadcast Group in 1974. The station would retain a classical music format for many years, except for a short period during 1974–1975 when it took up a rock format with the call letters WQIV. During the brief run of WQIV, the station's progressive album-oriented rock appealed to long-time WNEW-FM listeners and included some veteran 70s FM rock DJs including Rosko and Carol Miller. This brief period also saw deployment of a short-lived technology as unintentionally brief as the format change itself: WQIV broadcast in Quadraphonic sound (a precursor to "Surround Sound") as indicated by the new call letters "Q" (quadraphonic) "IV" (Roman numeral 4). This choice of call letters was a constant reminder to audiences of this technical innovation, although history shows that the free market quickly abandoned quad.

The WQIV era was during ownership by Starr Broadcast Group, of which William F. Buckley Jr. was chairman. The GM was Alan Eisenberg, and the program director was Larry Miller (WKTU). The announcement that the station was changing to rock music was read by Mr. Buckley himself and repeated frequently on the air. Two groups, the WNCN Listeners Guild and Classical Radio for Connecticut, were formed, and petitioned the FCC to forbid the change. A last minute stay by a Supreme Court Justice delayed the scheduled changeover, but that was lifted and WNCN became WQIV. The first selection played on the air by program and music director Larry Miller after the changeover was Electric Light Orchestra's "Roll Over Beethoven".[8] William Buckley admitted he loved classical music, but had a responsibility to Starr shareholders to maximize returns. The Listeners Guild continued its fight, and eventually forced a change back to classical music when an application was filed for the frequency by a new group headed by William Benton of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Starr relented, and in a negotiated settlement, sold the station to GAF Broadcasting.[9][10] WQIV signed off with "Funeral for a Friend" by Elton John. The station then played the last 2 notes of the last classical song on the original WNCN that were cut off, then said "sorry for the interruption". The first selection played on the air after the change back was from Bach's B-minor Mass, "Et resurrexit".[11]

From 1971–1974 and again from 1975–1994, David Dubal served as music director of WNCN. In 1976, he hosted a regular program of comparative performances titled A Musical Offering, and more than a hundred of these programs have been archived at YouTube.[12] WNCN's influence continues at WQXR-FM where Dubal, Annie Bergen, Paul Cavalconte, Clayelle Dalferes, and Elliott Forrest host.[13]

The station was owned by GAF until 1996, when Viacom purchased it for $100 million.

WAXQ (1993–present)
On December 18, 1993, at Midnight, WNCN signed off for good with Joseph Hadyn's Symphony No. 45 (also known as the "Farewell Symphony") as the station adopted a current-based album-oriented rock (AOR) format, along with new call letters WAXQ and the branding "Q104.3".[14]
...

It was 20 years ago Wednesday that thousands of WNCN listeners who expected to wake to the soothing sounds of Bach on 104.3 FM were blasted out of bed by AC/DC and "Highway to Hell."

At midnight the night before, classical WNCN became "active rock" WAXQ. Without telling anyone ahead of time.

"Yes, the phones rang," recalls Marino, who was WNCN's assistant program director. "But that was a Saturday. It was Monday when the phones went wild.

"Everyone wanted to know what was up. Someone even called the police because they thought the station must have been invaded and taken over."

Not exactly. Management had simply decided "active rock" would be more lucrative than challenging WQXR for the classical audience.

"WNCN was a good station, but this was the right decision," says Marino, who was one of the few staffers to stay on with the new format, where he also became music director. "No other station played active rock then."

The decision was so closely guarded that the staff didn't find out until a meeting at noon that Friday, says Marino.

"It was a bittersweet day," he says. "Almost everyone, all the people you'd worked with, were cleaning out their desks and leaving — while the few of us who were staying had 12 hours to put a whole new station on the air."

That kind of unannounced changeover is known in radio black humor as "cume cleansing," where in one blast you drive away all the people who loved the format you have just abandoned.

"That wasn't a bad way to go," says Marino. "The mistake was starting with a full day of AC/DC, which branded us as a heavy metal station. That isn't what we intended. We wanted to be alternative, like Nirvana and Pearl Jam.

"But we could never get listeners to see it that. If we had, I think we could have made it, even though New York isn't really a rock town."

The 1993 WAXQ only lasted a couple of years before the station switched to a classic rock format that's now one of the most successful in the city.

Marino went on to WQXR, ABC News Radio and WEMP. He also taught at the College of Staten Island and produced syndicated shows.

And as a final footnote to the "Highway to Hell" morning, Marino says it didn't bother everyone.

WNCN General Manager Randy Bongarten called WQXR General Manager Warren Bodow that morning, Marino says, and left a message saying the call was from "Santa Claus."

In appreciation for WQXR's main rival quitting classical music, Bodow sent Q104 "a huge bouquet of roses."