History of The Radio Program
WABC Radio (770 AM, New York City) played rock and roll from 1960 until May 10, 1982, before changing to a talk radio format. With talk shows not quite as popular on the weekend, Tim McCarthy, WABC President and General Manager, and Phil Boyce, Operations Manager and Program Director, decided to bring back the oldies music on Saturday nights. "Saturday Night Oldies" premiered on December 3, 2005, exactly 6 months after WCBS-FM (also in New York) dropped the oldies format on June 3, 2005.
Mark Simone hosts the show. The show features popular music from the late 1950s through the 1970s with an emphasis on songs that became popular, but have largely been forgotten. Original WABC jingles from the stations Top 40 era are played and the DJ takes phone calls and reads posts from the Message Board discussing a wide variety of events in popular culture from that time period.
The program's production crew includes Mike Gunzelman, the producer, who answers the phones, and Mike Savilli on the controls.
In July 2009 the show was renamed "Saturday Night" and shortened to 3 hours, airing from 6 PM to 9 PM. Newer music is now played, as well as oldies, and a wider range of guests from the entertainment world are interviewed along with more discussion of entertainment issues.
In September 2010 the show was further shortened to 2 hours, from 7 to 9 PM. It was also announced at that time that the "Saturday Night" show would soon be going national, and would be syndicated to stations in other cities.
Read more about this topic: Saturday Night Oldies
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