John1
rimember
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Posts: 1492
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« on: July 02, 2009, 09:46:39 PM » |
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Street Corner Sunday started 20 years ago on WOGL as a 5 hour 7-midnight doo-wop oldies show, as was the successful Doo Wop Shop with Don K. Reed on NYC sister station WCBS-FM which had run for many years. This marked the return of Harvey Holiday after Solid Gold 102 on WIOQ ended. Holiday had 'owned' Sunday nights for years on WDAS-FM until he moved around to WUSL/WFIL, then WPGR, then WIOQ. After WIOQ he was buying commercials on WPGR for his club appearances. When SCS began, the average doo-wop listener was still in a saleable demo - a 1959 high school grad was 48 in 1989, would be 68 now, in a long forgotten demo group. The show was fun with a lot of phonecalls & requests, interactions with producer & singer Stan Archie, with a 9 pm artist spotlight & 2 hours of slow songs. In 2001 the show was abruptly removed from the air, replaced by Mike St. John (who had just left WNJO) for 1 night & then by the Hy Lit Hall of Fame, a 1960's Philly tradition on Wibbage. Later in 2001 station management sent out an 'apology' email and returned the show, splitting the time with Holiday's mentor Hyski, and was now a 3 hour show, soon becoming voicetracked instead of live. A lot of the energy and fun left when it was no longer live, but soon WCBS dropped their show forever, and SCS became (I believe) the last major doo-wop show on a commercial major market FM station.
How long can this show last on a station that is successful with a '60's - '80's pop/soul/disco tight playlist?
It's amazing with all the changes and the average age of the listeners that it's still on. For now, congrats to HH and thanks for creating a Philadelphia radio tradition for 20 years.
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