Radio Then vs. Now: The Face-Off

I’ve spent most of the last week listening to classic radio. It began when I found the Facebook group Sharing Airchecks, where much of the activity in question involves unscoped radio that I can listen to in real time.

This week’s “at-work listening” has been accompanied by everything from CHR legend WRVQ (Q94) Richmond (10/98) to XEPRS, the Mexican AM targeting Southern California in 1975 with an unusual mix of current R&B and pop oldies, to KENO Las Vegas (6/67) from around the time that I discovered Top 40 radio.

I’m sure my crate digging will taper off, but exploring just that one source of unscoped audio has been a rabbit hole. For years, there wasn’t enough classic R&B radio documented online, but I had my choice of multiple ’70s airchecks from WWRL New York and legendary KDAY Los Angeles. There are also the stations I never really got to hear enough at the time. There’s just been a post with audio from WPIX New York that I mean to delve in to.

I’ve been doing a lot of work with the Classic Country format lately. This week, I’ve been listening to the format from the ’70s and ’80s. I never found enough airchecks of WHN New York, but this week I found Americana WMOT Nashville PD Jessie Scott from the station’s heyday (4-79) and NYC radio veteran Dan Daniels from its last years in the mid-’80s. But also, Classic Rock WPDH Poughkeepsie, N.Y., doing automated Country in the ’70s.

I didn’t need all the airchecks to be great, although I knew, for instance, that my former co-worker Hank Spann on WWRL at a great moment for R&B would indeed be terrific. On the other hand, I heard one favorite station from adolescence that was on autopilot. In general, if they filled in a hole in my radio history or just gave me 45 minutes of radio when I didn’t have to skip past “Ordinary” or “Eye of the Tiger,” that was fine, too.

I want to be careful about saying any of the older radio sounded anodyne. Today’s broadcasters sometimes seize on any such admission to suggest that we have over-romanticized all classic radio. (It’s similar to the false and similarly motivated leap from “this national show is doing great in my market” to “therefore live and local means nothing.”)

In fact, the issue with some of the older radio that I heard was that it very often reminded me of today’s radio. The late-’70s/early-’80s stations that were minimally produced and dependent on liners or cold segues were chasing AOR radio’s similar presentation. The station trying to compete with streaming on its own terms now might have a voice-tracked content break or two, but the overall feel is still “nothing is happening.”

The feeling of engagement definitely made a difference, especially at a moment when the music was weak. I heard a small-market CHR in winter 1982 with no production and four cold segues in a row. I heard Top 40-turned-AC KOIL Omaha a few months later with market veteran Terry Mason in mornings. There were plenty of my least-favorite hits of all-time: “I’ve Never Been to Me” by Charlene, “Yesterday’s Songs” by Neil Diamond, “’65 Love Affair” by Paul Davis. But even doing music on AM during a doldrums, KOIL sounded more vital than a lot of today’s stations.

I also heard WIRK West Palm Beach, Fla., with station veteran Mark Thomas in May 1987, an exciting musical moment for Country after its own doldrums. In the next few years, Country radio’s presentation would change too, but at that moment “K-Country” was still doing the AC-flavored “Continuous Country” format that had been so successful for stations such as WKHX Atlanta. Thomas highlighted new songs and congratulated the song-of-the-day winners, but the emphasis was on four-in-a-row by design. I don’t recall any imaging or jingles.

To be clear, Thomas sounded good. I was also impressed by how much of the music I heard still makes the cut at Classic Country radio. If I had heard WIRK on a road trip, I would have judged it to be a well-executed radio station. But I was more excited personally by stations such as WYAY Atlanta that were bringing aggressive CHR-style production and jingles to Country radio. By the time Country exploded in the early ’90s, it would be led by stations with a CHR feel.

Now owned by Hubbard, WIRK has swapped frequencies with Classic Hits sister WEAT since then, but it was one of the stations from this week’s listening with which I could do a then-and-now comparison that spanned five decades. When I listened to WIRK on Wednesday:

There was a code-word-driven contest with 15 pairs of tickets to Mardi Gras at Universal Studios Orlando with winners qualifying for a two-night getaway.
There were two different “tap that app”-driven opportunities to win tickets to Jelly Roll in May. (The songs were set up with a sweeper that didn’t tell you it was time to enter but did have a signature sound.)
There was another opportunity on the app to win tickets for a “Secret Session” featuring Vincent Mason.
There was a mix of straightforward and attitude imaging. The legal ID/hook promo declared “America’s hottest music is Country music.” There were also sweepers about being as “South Florida as we are,” depending on how many pairs of flip-flops you owned or whether you used a pool noodle as a beer float.
Middayer Moriah Daniels was mostly setting up the various promotions, but she also did breaks about things from youth rarely encountered now (e.g., tree forts), and the South Florida drivers who seemed impatient with her going only 80 MPH. The first topic was used to direct listeners to interact on Facebook.

Ratings expert Chris Huff notes that WIRK went 6.2–4.7 12-plus in spring ’87. (The 6.2 was atypically high. The 4.7 was more in the station’s normal range at the time.) In the Holiday 2025 Nielsen PPM report, the station rebounded 3.2-4.6 6-plus, this time from an atypically low share in December. (The January ratings for WIRK will be out later today.)

It was nevertheless encouraging to hear to a station offering more of a full-fledged radio experience in 2026 than 1987. Hubbard is a well-respected broadcaster, but it’s doing so amidst the same radio challenges as everybody else. (WIRK shares PD Grover Collins with his homebase of WUBE Cincinnati.) And I also heard some still-existing heritage stations this week that sound much less purposeful than their earlier incarnation.

Here’s “The Country K” in May 1987 around 1:30 p.m. For those songs that weren’t current or recurrent at the time, I’ve included the year:

Steve Wariner, “You Can Dream About Me”
Earl Thomas Conley, “That Was a Close One”
Juice Newton, “Cheap Love” (1986)
Kenny Rogers & First Edition, “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town” (1969)
Moe Bandy, “Till I’m Too Old to Die Young”
George Jones, “He Stopped Loving Her Today” (1980)
Charley Pride, “Have I Got Some Blues for You”
Forester Sisters, “I Fell in Love Again Last Night” (1985)
Jim Croce, “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” (1973) — Country was still a few years away from no longer needing reverse crossovers in the gold library
Ronnie Milsap, “Back on My Mind Again” (1979)
Eagles, “Peaceful Easy Feeling” (1972)
John Conlee, “Common Man” (1983)
Randy Travis, “Forever and Ever, Amen” – one of the game-changing songs of the era, heard during its chart ascent
Don Williams, “Miracles” (1981)
Alabama, “Lady Down on Love” (1983)
Randy Travis, “1982” (1986) — I heard a few artists twice during the full length of this aircheck, but it certainly could have been a reflection of having a new core artist
Judy Rodman, “Girls Ride Horses Too” — As exciting in the moment as “Forever…”; it didn’t endure equally on the radio, but you can hear its connection to Lainey Wilson and Ella Langley today
Oak Ridge Boys, “Sail Away” (1979)
Judds, “Rockin’ With the Rhythm of the Rain” (1986)

Here’s “New Country 103.1” just before 10 a.m., February 25, with titles that peaked before 2025 designated by year:

Thomas Rhett, “It Goes Like This” (2013)
Luke Combs, “Sleepless in a Hotel Room”
Vincent Mason, “Wish You Well”
Russell Dickerson, “Happen to Me”
George Birge, “Mind on You” (2024)
Morgan Wallen, “20 Cigarettes”
Darius Rucker, “Wagon Wheel” (2013)
Corey Kent f/Koe Wetzel, “Rocky Mountain Low”
Florida Georgia Line, “Cruise” (2012)
Jordan Davis, “Tucson Too Late” (2024)
Old Dominion, “Making Good Time” — with a “Next from Nashville” sweeper featuring the band
Jelly Roll, “Need a Favor” (2023)
Ty Myers, “Ends of the Earth”
Cody Johnson, “The Fall”
Kane Brown & Katelyn Brown, “Thank God” (2022)
Morgan Wallen, “Love Somebody” (2024) on “the station for Morgan Wallen”
Max McNown, “Better Me for You”
Jelly Roll, “Halfway to Hell” (2024)
Jordan Davis, “Turn This Truck Around” — another “Next from Nashville” feature
Nate Smith, “Fix What You Didn’t Break”
Parmalee, “Take My Name” (2022)

Meanwhile, Ted Gorden Smucker and Bill Shannon’s salutes to classic radio stations have long figured in to my comparisons of radio then and now. Their next tribute, this one for Chicago’s WCFL, is on the way March 7 and March 14. Details are here.