WCZX - History (to 1991)

History (to 1991)

The 97.7 frequency first signed on in 1969 as WHVW-FM, sister station to WHVW (then a Top 40 station that was #1 in the Poughkeepsie market). For the first several years of its existence, it simulcasted WHVW's Top 40 programming during that station's operating hours and aired automated easy listening music during the nighttime hours when WHVW was not on the air.

This format would remain until 1976 when WHVS evolved to Soft Adult Contemporary, a format which two years later would be replaced by an automated Top 40 format as WJJB, "Jib 98."

When the owners of WHVW and WJJB went bankrupt in 1982, WJJB was sold to the Sillerman-Morrow Group, a Middletown-based partnership headed by investor Robert F.X. Sillerman and New York City radio legend Bruce Morrow ("Cousin Brucie"). The Morrow half of the group would take over programming of the station and relaunched it as 98 Fame, a CHR/oldies hybrid. A mild ratings success (part out of Morrow, widely known in the market, doing a regular weekend show), the format would last until 1987 when the Sillerman/Morrow partnership was dissolved.

Under new ownership led by Harry Gregor, the former General Manager for the Sillerman Morrow Group, the 98 Fame format was tweaked to a classic hits approach under the new calls WCZX and the name being modified to "'CZX Classic Hits" with former WKIP News Director Ron Lyon programming the station the station successfully evolved to oldies as "97-7 'CZX". In 1989, as the Hudson Valley Market recoiled under the IBM 'downsizing '(39000 employees from the Hudson Valley were 'early retired' or transferred), revenues fell dramatically, and the loan called in by Barclays Business Credit. After months of negotiations, Gregor filed for bankruptcy, and the station was sold to locally based Beehive Entertainment which picked up many personalities formerly of WEOK which had previously been the oldies station in the market.