Talk:WSAN

History merge with WSAN.
This page should have been moved to WSAN when the call sign changed instead of creating a new article. Added history merge tag to WSAN per User:JPG-GR's suggestion since there has been no objection. RobDe68 (talk) 21:45, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Edit history for WSAN
A history merge was not possible, therefore some edit history for WSAN can be found in the redirect pages' WSAN (FM) and WYHM edit histories. RobDe68 (talk) 21:32, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Studio 13 WKAP
In Sept of 1978, a local club DJ by the name of Mike Jacobs came up with an idea to broadcast live an entire evening  of music commercial-free-at a local niteclub. At the time the station was an independent local AM station. The PD, Chris Bailey, Station Mgr Jerry Duckett and the staff were very interested in the project that could help them in competition with their cross-town nemesis WAEB 790AM and add a possible ratings boost to the TOP40 outlet.

The facility to be used was "The Castle Garden Ballroom" located in Dorney Park in Allentown, PA. The parks owners, Robert Plarr and Robert Ott were also on board for this project. After extensive renovations, Castle Garden was opened for business in the late fall of 78. Crowds averaged about 300-450 per night and the owners and mgmt were looking for a spark to drive this to bigger and better crowds. The ballroom had a capacity of approx 2000 people and 300-450 looked pretty thin at the time.

The idea was refined and in Jan of 79, Studio 13 debuted with a bang. It was broadcast Saturday's from 9:00 PM - 2:00 AM with DJ MIke Jacobs as the DJ/Host/MC. Bill Sheridan ( now employed by Nassau Broadcasting ) and Shotgun Steve Kelly were the Board Techs .Sponsorship for the show was secured and Pepsi-Cola came on board as the primary sponsor. Commercials were inserted by Bill & Steve by having Mike Jacobs backtime the breaks in the music and then the station inserting voice-only commercials over the breaks in the music while the music played the instrumental break WITHOUT INTERRUPTION. Listeners heard them only! The show opened with the Parliament's " Shit, Goddamn, Get Off Your Ass & Jam " followed by Bell & James " Livin It Up ". This resulted in a FCC Warning to the station and made the local news. The first night the crowd was 600 people. After the news coverage and word of mouth, Studio 13 averaged 2,000 people per night and could have done more had there not been a Fire Marshall's limit on the amount of people.

WKAP realized a ratings jump from 3.8 to 23.4, Saturday evenings from 9:00PM to 12 Midnight in a 1 month period and maintained this throughout the summer till the shows conclusion on Labor Day of 1979 at the Parks request.

The Mgmt of Castle Garden also invested in and shot a 1-hour video pilot entitled " Castle Garden" that it tried to syndicate, but alas it went nowhere due to poor promotion.

The one bright spot was in the fall of 1979 in NYC at the Annual Billboard Disco Forum & Convention. Mike Jacobs received an Honorable Mention as DJ of the Year for the Philadelphia region and was invited to spin at the Roseland Ballroom during the convention. WKAP also fared well at this convention being nominated for Most Inovative Breakout Radio Show for the year 1979, but losing out to WCAU_FM in Philly.

Mike Jacobs continued in radio and clubs in the area until 1997 and then retired!

The Lehigh Valley has never seen another show of this caliber since " STUDIO 13 ".

WKAP has since faded from the Lehigh Valley radio scene and Top 40 AM Personality Radio is now history, but the memories still survive!!

The “You’ll Love To Live With Us” contest, 1982.
How on earth has this story been missed: ? Martinevans123 (talk) 13:37, 25 September 2018 (UTC)


 * The history of WSAN could not be more incomplete. This was the most significant station in the Valley's history. Hands down. No mention of the Roxy concerts or the deejays who made WSAN a great station...Denny Somach, Lynn Kratz, Joe Swanson, Dave Fox, Joe McLaine (of WAEB "good guys" fame a decade earlier). No mention of Harold Fulmer, the "hamburger king" who bought the station in the 1980s, the station's trafffic helicopter, the billboard contest. I realize cites are short on these subjects since other local media ignored radio as much as possible in those days, but still I'm sure enough could be dug up to flesh out at least a better story than one-liners. Allreet (talk) 12:48, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

WSAN history: close but no cigar
Where the current story on the early days came from is hard to fathom. Here's an account I synopsized from RadioWorld:

WCBA and WSAN both went live in 1923, at 5 and 10 watts respectively. In 1927, the Federal Radio Commission allowed both stations to increase to 250 watts. WCBA was owned by the Allentown Call and WSAN by Rev. B. Bryan Musselman. In 1934, WCBA assumed control of WSAN with Musselman managing the two stations, which had separate transmitters. In 1936, the FCC approved construction of a shared transmitter, and the next year, the two stations merged with the Call owning 65 percent and Musselman, 35 percent. WCBA officially ceased to exist at that point. Since the deal gave the Call control of the town's only newspaper and only radio station, a long FCC battle ensued during which the station used dual call signs. Finally, in 1944, the Call gave up and sold out to Musselman.

The RadioWorld article's one inaccuracy is its claim that the Musselman's sold out in 1985. Actually, former hamburger baron Harold Fulmer III bought the station in late 1981 (according to Broadcasting magazine, January 1982). In any case, the Wikipedia account gets bogged down in the 1970-80s with discussions of format changes that appear to be based on someone's memory while missing WSAN's incredible Roxy Theatre concert series and its outstanding air staff of the 70s, as well as events under Fulmer's ownership in the 80s, including its billboard contest and helicopter traffic reports.

I'm in the process of digging up materials to re-write the section, but some stuff will be lost to history since the Call studiously avoided covering radio station machinations because of the competition for ad dollars. Ownership is a different matter in terms of sources, and the site American Radio History provides a wealth of publications where these details can be unearthed. Allreet (talk) 20:38, 28 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Here is the FCC History Card.StreamingRadioGuide (talk) 19:08, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of File:WSAN iHeartpodcast1470 logo.png


The file File:WSAN iHeartpodcast1470 logo.png has been proposed for deletion&#32;because of the following concern: "Non-free former logo being used in a WP:DECORATIVE manner in a gallery of former logos in WSAN which fails WP:NFCC and WP:NFG. Non-free former logos can be used as long as their use complies with WP:NFC and this almost always means the logo itself about the logo and the associated change in brandling that led to its replacement is the subject of sourced critical commentary. Simply adding the logo to 'show' what it looks like is not considered sufficient to satisfy WP:NFC, except in cases where the logo is being used for primary identification purposes at the top of or in the main infobox of an article about the organization the logo represents."

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