Looking at 103.5 WKTU New York over the years, particularly through its music, you see two different through-lines. One is the state of Mainstream Top 40. The other is the history of dance music on the radio over the last 25 years. Those two sagas are often intertwined. The boost that WKTU gave dance/pop in the late ‘90s was a key part of CHR’s resurgence. When Top 40 found new currency in the late ‘00s/early ‘10s, dance anthems were again the driver, and WKTU saw a resurgence as well.
This article began as a First Listen to WKTU’s launch on Feb. 10, 1996, and a Fresh Listen to the station today. But there are five other monitors from the station throughout its history — three times longer than that of the legendary “Disco 92” WKTU that it invoked — that tell the story as well.
The New ‘KTU helped end one of CHR’s worst periods, but by launching as a dance-pop outlet with a ’70s disco component, some observers saw it as further fragmenting the format. The weekend ‘KTU signed on, much of the industry was at the Gavin Report convention in Atlanta; the launch only confirmed, for some panelists, that the format could never play “all the hits” again. Those predictions resonate now, even if the backdrop — from COVID-19 to competition from streaming — is more complex.
FEBRUARY 10, 1996
The first hour of WKTU followed a week of stunting that included simulcasts of Evergreen Media’s other stations, including R&B KKBT (the Beat) Los Angeles and Top 40 WXKS (Kiss 108) Boston, whose “dropping the beat from the top of the Pru” liner became “ … from the top of the World” for ‘KTU, swapping the Prudential Center for the World Trade Center.
When the new ‘KTU launched, disco was already becoming part of Adult Contemporary radio at stations like WBMX (Mix 98.5) Boston and sister WYXR (Star 104.5) Philadelphia, which had attempted a similar format a few years earlier. Besides dance gold from the disco era, ‘KTU had every pop/dance crossover from the last two years to draw on. As stations returned to the CHR format, many would use the dance/pop stash in a similar way, blurring the line between current and recurrent in a way that’s familiar now, but was less typical in 1996.
Here’s WKTU in its first hour on Feb. 10, 1996:
- C & C Music Factory, “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)”
- Mariah Carey, “Fantasy”
- Snap!, “Rhythm Is a Dancer”
- Madonna, “Open Your Heart”
- Real McCoy, “Run Away”
- CeCe Peniston, “Finally”
- Lina Santiago, “Feels So Good (Show Me Your Love)”
- Prince, “I Would Die 4 U”
- KC & Sunshine Band, “Please Don’t Go”
- Cynthia, “Change on Me”
- TLC, “Diggin’ on You”
- Diana Ross, “Upside Down”
- Janet Jackson, “Escapade”
- Haddaway, “What Is Love”
- Salt & Pepa, “Whatta Man”
- Whitney Houston, “Exhale (Shoop Shoop)”
- Donna Summer, “Hot Stuff”
- Seal, “Kiss From a Rose”
DECEMBER 1, 1996
WKTU was phenomenally successful. Its lineup was now in place, including Rupaul & Michelle Visage in mornings, “Broadway Bill Lee” in afternoons, Hollywood Hamilton & Goumba Johnny at night. One key moment, as RadioInsight publisher Lance Venta notes, was the phenomenon of the “Macarena” over the summer. “Macarena” was one of the first big hits that really belonged to CHR as stations begin to filter back into the format around the country. In the Northeast, ‘KTU had signature songs in abundance, from its bringbacks to the emergence of Rockell as a local hitmaker to other dance one-offs.
With the station giving away tickets to its Three Divas on Broadway station show, starring Gloria Estefan, Donna Summer, and Chaka Khan, here’s ‘KTU on Dec. 1, 1996, with Al Bandiero:
- Billie Ray Martin, “Your Loving Arms”
- Gina G, “Ooh Aah … Just a Little Bit”
- A Taste of Honey, “Boogie Oogie Oogie”
- Le Click, “Tonight Is the Night”
- Debbie Deb, “When I Hear Music”
- Donna Lewis, “I Love You Always Forever”
- Love Tribe, “Stand Up”
- En Vogue, “My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It)”
- Bizarre Inc., “I’m Gonna Get You”
- Stevie B., “Spring Love”
- Amber, “This Is the Night”
- Lime, “Babe, We’re Gonna Love Tonight”
- Celine Dion, “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now”
- Culture Beat, “Mr. Vain”
- Rockell, “I Fell in Love”
- Taylor Dayne, “Tell It to My Heart”
- No Mercy, “Where Do You Go”
- Bad Yard Club f/Crystal Waters, “In de Ghetto:”
- S.O.S. Band, “Take Your Time (Do It Right)”
- Val Young, “If You Should Ever Be Lonely”
- Blackout Allstars, “I Like It”
- Snap!, “Rhythm Is a Dancer”
- Pajama Party, “Over and Over”
- Toni Braxton, “You’re Making Me High”
- Madonna, “Burning Up”
MARCH 30, 1999
Z100 and Mainstream CHR were resurgent. After the fall ’96 book, Z100’s return to the format had steadily started to erode WKTU, although it was still a successful 4-share franchise around this time. Teen pop was getting the attention, moving into a second wave with the arrival of ‘N Sync and Britney Spears. But dance/pop was still a major part of the format, especially as remixes proliferated. There’s also the surge in Latin crossover artists. Ricky Martin was already on his third hit in New York thanks to WKTU. Here’s the station with Diane Prior on March 30. (Every song in this monitor is the uptempo mix, and Cher’s “Believe” is a “mastermix,” an even higher-energy version than the familiar radio hit.)
- Toni Braxton, “Unbreak My Heart”
- Britney Spears, “Baby, One More Time”
- Haddway, “What Is Love”
- Razor & Guido, “Do It Again”
- LaBouche, “Be My Lover”
- Ricky Martin, “Livin’ la Vida Loca”
- Montell Jordan, “This Is How We Do It”
- Deborah Cox, “Nobody’s Supposed to Be Here”
- TKA, “One Way Love”
- Cher, “Believe”
- Shania Twain, “You’re Still the One”
- Miquel Brown, “So Many Men, So Little Time”
- Veronica, “Release Me”
FEBRUARY 4, 2003
In the late ‘90s/early ‘00s, CHR was shaped by Clear Channel stations well outside New York. The group’s “Kiss-FM” stations in markets like Cincinnati and Pittsburgh were heavy on crossover Hip-Hop, devastated their competition, and pulled the charts away from dance/pop as well as Modern AC. WKTU still supported pure dance product, but some of its biggest titles had few places to go outside New York radio. In 2006, the hiring of Whoopi Goldberg for mornings meant that the station would go more gold-based and stop developing new dance titles for a number of years.
Here’s WKTU just before 10 a.m. on February 4, 2003, according to BDSRadio.
- Bonnie Pointer, “Heaven Must Have Sent You”
- Wide Life, “I Don’t Want You”
- Cover Girls, “Inside Outside”
- Neja, “Back 4 the Morning”
- Amber, “Anyway (Men Are From Mars)”
- Donna Summer, “Last Dance”
- C & C Music Factory, “Robi-Rob’s Boriqua Anthem”
- Reina, “No One’s Gonna Change You”
- Force M.D.’s, “Tender Love”
- Anastacia, “One Day in Your Life”
- Freeez, “I.O.U.”
- JC Chasez, “Blowin’ Me Up (With Her Love)”
- Soul II Soul, “Back to Life (However Do You Want Me)”
- Deborah Cox, “Nobody’s Supposed to Be Here”
- Jennifer Lopez f/LL Cool J, “All I Have”
- Tavares, “Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel”
- Luther Vandross, “I’d Rather”
- Modjo, “Lady (Hear Me Tonight)”
JUNE 20, 2009
Top 40 radio was in a four-year up cycle. American Idol was one of the drivers of a pop resurgence. So was the arrival of PPM measurement, which spurred a boom in second CHR stations in many markets, including WXRK (92.3 Now FM), which arrived in March 2009. Stations such as Now FM were positioned tightly between Mainstream Top 40 and Hip-Hop/R&B stations, and particularly tied to the emergence of EDM-driven “turbo-pop,” the more aggressive sound taken by acts from Britney Spears to the Black Eyed Peas to Lady Gaga to even some former teen-punk acts.
A few months after Now FM attacked Z100, WKTU’s Rhythmic Hot AC format segued back toward Top 40 as a way of preempting Now FM, which struggled for nearly a decade to gain traction. At that moment, Top 40 product was strong enough that broadcasters were confident having two, even three CHRs in a market. And just a few days after I covered WKTU’s change in an early edition of Ross On Radio with this music monitor, another event that would affect WKTU took place — the death of Michael Jackson.
Here’s WKTU at 4 p.m., June 20, 2009
- Lisa-Lisa & Cult Jam, “Can You Feel the Beat”
- Kristinia DeBarge, “Goodbye”
- Lady Gaga, “Poker Face”
- Pitbull f/Lil Jon, “The Anthem”
- Pussycat Dolls, “Hush Hush Hush Hush”
- Kardinal Offishall, “Dangerous”
- Natasha Bedingfield, “Unwritten”
- Nina Sky, “Move Ya Body”
- Kelly Clarkson, “My Life Would Suck Without You”
- Rihanna f/Jay-Z, “Umbrella”
- George Lamond, “Where Does That Leave Love?”
- Black Eyed Peas, “Boom Boom Pow”
- Gwen Stefani, “Hollaback Girl”
- Notorious B.I.G., “Hypnotize”
AUGUST 8, 2012
When Jackson died on June 25, 2009, WKTU was one of the first stations that aggressively brought his music back to the radio. Within a few years, WKTU had settled into a unique position — recurrent, rhythmic-leaning CHR (but not exclusively dance) with a gold library heavily reliant on Jackson. It worked so well that many of the first Classic Hip-Hop stations that emerged a few years later made a similar exemption for Jackson. I wrote about them just a few days after WKTU had gone to No. 1 25-54 in PPM. (The station’s 6-plus peak was a 5.6 in September ’11, according to ratings historian Chris Huff.)
I wrote at the time that while WKTU had moved to Top 40 a few years earlier, Top 40 had also moved toward WKTU. In 2012, dance music was pop music. For a few years, superstar DJ/producers had been supporting the major acts as they ventured into a bold new sound. Soon, EDM acts were going to be packing arenas and putting their name first on their own hits. Soon EDM/pop would become more aggressive, followed by aggressive and slower. Instead of “dropping the beat,” the beats per minute were dropping.
But at the format’s apex, here’s WKTU at 11 a.m. on Monday, August 8, 2012 courtesy of Nielsen BDSRadio:
- Alexandra Stan, “Mr. Saxobeat”
- Kardinal Offishall, “Dangerous”
- Afrojack f/Eva Simons, “Take Over Control”
- Bruno Mars, “Just the Way You Are”
- Michael Jackson, “Smooth Criminal”
- LMFAO, “Party Rock Anthem”
- Pitbull f/T-Pain, “Hey Baby (Drop It to the Floor)”
- Beyonce, “Naughty Girl”
- Katy Perry, “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)”
- Kevin Rudolph, “Let It Rock”
- Santana, “Maria Maria”
- Black Eyed Peas, “Just Can’t Get Enough”
JANUARY 29, 2021
Top 40 radio, seemingly extinct before its 1996-97 rebound, has been through two more doldrums and has rebounded from one. Dance radio’s cycles have been more complex. In 1996-97, a few ‘KTU-like stations emerged in other markets, particularly WDRQ Detroit, but mostly dance/pop fueled the mainstream CHR rebound that many had thought impossible. In the early-’00s, party rock anthems dominated the format, but there wasn’t room for dance radio, because CHR was dance radio.
Throughout WKTU’s history, there have been certain signature songs that endure from monitor to monitor, another one of the station’s through-lines. It’s worth noting that just after I stopped monitoring the station earlier this week, they then played Snap!, “Rhythm Is A Dancer,” one of the songs heard in the station’s first hour, and also one of the songs that made dance/pop seem like a potential salve for Top 40 in its 1992-95 period of near-total collapse.
In the time leading up to WKTU, there was a lot of discussion about whether the Euro-dance one-offs from Snap!, Real McCoy, LaBouche, and others were really the beginning of a CHR resurgence, or merely songs that dance fans, unwilling to acknowledge the mid-‘90s strength of Hip-Hop, just wanted to be hits. It’s a discussion that resonates now as CHR tries to triage between TikTok crossovers and the retro-disco-flavored hits of Dua Lipa, Doja Cat, etc. As in 1995 or 2003, dance hits are part of why CHR sounds more vital in Europe now, but they pile up waiting for 1-2 slots at Mainstream CHR in America. It may not be an either/or question. By 1997, it had turned out that CHR got its groove back by acknowledging dance pop, teen pop, and finally playing Hip-Hop again.
Presentationally, today’s WKTU deserves its own forthcoming Fresh Listen. I was listening here more with an ear to the evolution of its dual formats, particularly as we wait to see how and if CHR can rebound yet again, although I enjoyed the continuity of hearing Hamilton in afternoons. There is generally not a presence of new/developing dance music on the station (with one recent exception), but there is certainly a yesterday-and-today rhythmic through-line. And the through-line gives me encouragement for both pop radio and dance music. Here’s the station just before 3 p.m.
- Bell Biv Devoe, “Poison”
- Ariana Grande, “Positions”
- Mark Ronson f/Bruno Mars, “Uptown Funk”
- Jennifer Lopez f/Pitbull, “On the Floor”
- Camila Cabello f/Da Baby, “My Oh My”
- The Weeknd, “Blinding Lights”
- Backstreet Boys, “All I Have to Give”
- 24kGoldn f/Iann Dior, “Mood”
- Calvin Harris f/Rhianna, “This Is What You Came For”
- Harry Styles, “Watermelon Sugar”
- Dua Lipa, “Break My Heart”