WIDB History Chapter 30

On-Air Antics

WIDB was facing new and important challenges from inside and out. As "old guard" staff heads departed, new ones were stepping up. Actually, it was a plus that transitions at important staff positions were happening in winter, because there was less external tumult at that time. A student named Rob White visited the station. He pointed out that WIDB had no programs aimed primarily at the needs of black students. Charlie delegated this to Howie, who was still Program Director. Howie delegated to Tom Scheithe. Tom could not argue that WIDB had any black-oriented programs. WIDB's first black-oriented program (which never had any official name, but was referred to as the Soul Show) was hosted by Rob. He called himself "Rob ‘Ol' Blood’ White". Click to hear another golden WIDB moment

The concept of "oldies" has become blurred, but the term was very clear in 1971. "Oldies" were hits from the past. They were released as singles, had "charted," and were no longer played as current. While top-40 stations had short playlists, and would play the same current records every three hours (or even more often), a paticular record would be played from a few days to a few months MAX. After that, it was an oldie.

Oldies were more attractive than current records. Hundreds of #1 or Top Ten songs were available; these were far more popular (in their day) than just about any current record. They were also familiar and easily recognized, because one had heard them 8 or 9 hundred times. They sounded fresher compared to current hits because oldies had not been played 67 times in the last two weeks. Oldies also took the listener somewhere; they triggered a package of memories associated with listening to the record dozens of times when it had been current. For this reason, oldies are often promenently used to this day in TV commercials. At WIDB, a large portion of (if not most) requests for songs were for oldies.

WIDB played oldies every other record on the weekends, and they began an oldies show on Sunday night. Hosted by Jim Hoffman (Jim Lewis) the concept was to record the phoned-in request and play the request on the air over the bridge of the record. It was a big success. Again, no other station in the area was playing oldies and airing requests like WIDB. Hear another golden WIDB moment!

While oldies were popular, and were featured on a specialty show, the primary station programming was top-40. It occupied about 110 hours out of the 132 hours programmed each week. Yet, the three "specialty" programs, oldies, soul (black-oriented) and underground, relegated to "back-burner" status in 1971, were slated to become the major pillars of WIDB's programming in the future.

There were other important specialty programs during the first year of WIDB. Dan Mordini started the "Pillowtalk" program. Running from 1-4am on Friday and Saturday nights, the concept was to play music appropriate for intimate activities. This was a popular show, and was taken over by Susie Myers (Stacy Brennan) and Kay Kessler (Jennifer) and later by Pat Becker. One of the best promos produced in 1971 was for "Pillowtalk", featuring Kay, Sam Glick and Jim Rohr as the announcer. And here it is!

Another important show was "Anodyne", the interview/talk/call-in show on Monday evenings. Traditionally, the GM hosted it. It was live, and the impact of each show varied. Some were very significant. Anodyne was partly for experimentation; some shows worked, some didn't.

In less than a year of existence, WIDB had become a focal point for communication access to students. This was reinforced every time a listener called with a request, a news question, or as a contestant in a prize giveaway, when campus groups asked for publicity, or when a WIDB newsman visibly covered campus events. It was also reinforced when students like Rob White showed up and demanded that WIDB do more to serve its audience.