WFAN-FM - The WPIX-FM Era

The WPIX-FM Era

After the station was purchased by the New York Daily News in late 1963, WBFM adopted the WPIX-FM call letters on October 11, 1964, as the station was now co-owned with television station WPIX. Originally an easy listening station, WPIX-FM was famous for not being able to settle on a format for any real length of time, and was derisively nicknamed "the format of the month station" by many in the New York City radio industry, as it went through 11 different formats during this period:

• 1971-1975; 1976-1977: Adult Top 40 - a Top 40 format at the time that played new songs less often than WABC; while still focused on current music, it mixed in rock and roll oldies from about 1964 to what was then recent.
• 1975: Disco. The New York Times reported, "Characterized by a strong bass, a simple melody, and terse repetitive lyrics...'Disco,' as this music is called...is becoming increasingly popular on AM and FM radio stations. WPIX-FM recently switched several hours of its nightly programming over to 'disco'" and leaned disco the rest of the day. The nightly show "Disco 102" was first hosted by Dr. Jerry Carroll, then by Howard Hoffman when Carroll moved to afternoons. By the summer of 1976 the station was back to a gold leaning Top 40 format which was popular on FM stations back then.
• Mark Simone launches "The Simone Phone", a pioneering FM comedy talk show featuring then producer/writer Tom Leykis that contained many popular features like "Dial-A-Date", which were later borrowed by other radio shows.
• 1977-1978: Top 40/rock.
• 1978-1980: Punk/New Wave Rock—At a time when other rock stations in New York were sticking with traditional AOR formats (WPLJ, WNEW-FM), Adult Top 40 (WXLO) or oldies (WCBS-FM), WPIX staked out a groundbreaking format focused on new wave and punk but included older rock and roll as well, hence its advertising slogan: "From Elvis to Elvis." It helped break in New York and nationally early records by Elvis Costello, the Police, Nick Lowe, the Clash, the Cars, Squeeze, Devo, the Kings, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, the Buzzcocks, Cheap Trick, Talking Heads, David Johansen, Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd, to name just a few. The station was even featured in lyrics from the Squeeze song, 'I Think I'm Go Go' (P I X and rock and roll).
• March 1980-1981: Rock-based top 40--According to The New York Times, a station spokesperson said the station was "modifying the format to improve the product to make it more mass acceptable."
• 1981-1982: Album-oriented rock.
• January–March 1982: CHR (Top 40)--basically a transitional format to Adult Contemporary.
• March 1982: adult contemporary--began positioning itself as "Nothing But Love Songs" in 1983. Had good ratings from 1983 to 1985.
• 1985: hot adult contemporary "The Ballads and Beat of New York."
• August 16, 1986: adult contemporary/standards/eclectic rock "The Bright and Lively Sound of New York."
• 1987: Hot Adult Contemporary during the day and urban adult contemporary evenings.
• 1987-1988: Hot Adult Contemporary during the day and overnights using "Easy Rock" as a slogan. Smooth jazz in the evenings.

Notable air personalities during the WPIX-FM period included Mark Simone, Dennis Quinn, Jim Kerr, Alan Colmes, Meg Griffin, Les Marshak, Gus Gossert, Alfredo, Jane Hamburger, Joe "from Chicago" Piasek, Ray Otis as "Johnny Alligator," Robert Desidario as "Desi da kid from da Bronx," Dan Neer, Alfredo Santos, Rick Allison, Bill Vitka, and John Ogle. Forecaster Phil Rodent moonlinghted in costume as Capt. PIX. Another of its disc jockeys, Jerry Carroll (a.k.a. "Dr. Jerry"), would gain fame as commercial spokesperson for the Crazy Eddie retail chain. Ted David would later go on to be a news anchor at ABC Radio, and then a business news anchor at CNBC.

The station gave up quickly on both the Disco and the Rocknroll/new wave formats to see both genres of music become popular several years later.

WPIX-FM then stayed as an adult contemporary station for a few years, as its ratings during this period were pretty good. By 1985, the station began mixing a number of eclectic songs into its adult contemporary format, and was known as "the ballads and the beat of New York."

Also in 1985, the station was running a nighttime show called "The PIX Penthouse", which played R&B and soul songs. It was also used through the 1960s as the station's tagline for an easy-listening format. ("The PIX Penthouse Party" had been originally used as a program title during WPIX-FM's Punk/New Wave era and was notable for playing 1960s music that influenced Punk and New Wave Rock.)

From 1966 to 1988, WPIX-FM simulcast the background holiday music played during WPIX Television's annual Yule Log program on Christmas Eve.