WPLJ - Station History - AOR Years

AOR Years

In late 1970, Allen Shaw decided to install a 100% live "free form" rock format and hired John Zacherle, Vin Scelsa, and Michael Cuscuna (from WMMR and WXPN in Philadelphia) to do live shows on the station. On February 14, 1971, the station changed its call sign to WPLJ after Allen Shaw noticed the call letters as the name of a song on the Mothers of Invention record, "Burnt Weeny Sandwich" (1970). The song, "WPLJ", was originally performed by the Four Deuces in 1955 and stood for "White Port and Lemon Juice". The station became a politically radical and musically eclectic voice of the counter-culture. It received positive critical reviews from the "underground" press, but did not generate a large enough audience to become financially viable.

In September 1971, Allen Shaw and ABC Programming Executive Bob Henaberry designed and pioneered the very first AOR (album oriented rock) format, playing only the best cuts from the best selling rock albums with a minimum of disc jockey talk. The slogan of the station was "Rock 'N Stereo". The station would play the music of artists such as Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Aerosmith, Jimi Hendrix, Cream, The Doobie Brothers, Steely Dan, Elton John, Deep Purple, Rod Stewart, and The Allman Brothers. The station would also play pop songs from artists such as James Taylor, Stevie Wonder and Carly Simon. The station was different from Top 40 stations (such as co-owned WABC) in that they played more album tracks. The audience ratings shot up dramatically, and WPLJ became New York's most listened-to FM rock station for most of the 1970s.

In 1973, Allen Shaw brought Willard Lochridge, the General Manager of sister station WRIF in Detroit, to New York to manage WPLJ. Lochridge then brought Larry Berger, Program Director of WRIF, to WPLJ.

Larry Berger took over as Program Director of WPLJ in 1974, and the station adopted the slogan "New York's Best Rock". Some of the personalities on the station during this period included Jim Kerr, Pat St. John, Jimmy Fink, Carol Miller, Tony Pigg, John Zacherle, and Dave Charity. Berger himself hosted a Sunday night call-in show, during which he would discuss the station with listeners, but would decline to discuss the specifics of the music playlist, something many listeners were concerned with. During these call-in segments, callers suggested that the station sped up or "pitched up" the music so that they could fit in more commercials while still being able to claim that they played a large number of songs per hour. Berger repeatedly denied that this practice was in use at WPLJ. In the 20 September 1999 episode of Crap from the Past, host Ron "Boogiemonster" Gerber suggested that music was sped up on WPLJ to make the same music sound less dynamic on other stations.

Another Sunday night show begun in 1975 was then-Father Bill Ayres' long-running On This Rock, which mixed spirituality and social consciousness together with the music of Harry Chapin, Bob Seger, and others. Bill Ayres was a Roman Catholic Priest with the Archdiocese of New York City. The show also aired on its sister station WABC on Sunday mornings within the last years of its Top 40 music format. Bill Ayres eventually left the priesthood in the 1980s but continues to host a call in Sunday night show today on the station.

By 1977, WPLJ tended to emphasize hard rock artists such as Led Zeppelin (there was a nightly "Get the Led Out" segment), Black Sabbath, Rush, Kansas, Boston, and Queen, who happened to get less airplay than on competing station WNEW-FM. At this point, the station stopped playing pop songs, and their audience ratings remained good.

During its album-oriented phase, the station was noted for its promotional montages, snippets of classic-rock songs spliced together emphasizing a particular subject, such as gasoline (during the gas shortages of the 1970s).

In 1982, WPLJ got a direct competitor in WAPP, which adopted a near-identical AOR format to WPLJ (WAPP launnched its rock format commercial-free and remained so for the summer of 1982). WAPP beat WPLJ in the ratings in the Fall of 1982, and WPLJ reacted by adding more New Wave such as A Flock of Seagulls, Dexy's Midnight Runners, The Go-Go's, Elvis Costello, Men at Work and Soft Cell, mixed in with the usual AOR fare. WPLJ's ratings ended up being better than those of WAPP after WAPP started playing commercials in the Fall of 1982. In early 1983, the station added "Billie Jean" by Michael Jackson, playing it several times a day (note that many AOR stations including WNEW-FM added that song and it did chart on the rock tracks chart). In March, WPLJ added "Beat it" by Michael Jackson, which received very positive reaction. While Jackson was not a typical AOR artist, that cut was played by many AOR stations due to Eddie Van Halen's role in the song. The station also dropped most 1960s songs by May and was cutting back on AOR artists while playing more modern rockers.

During this time WPLJ's logo was very similar to its sister station KLOS in Los Angeles.