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WINS 1010 AM Changes to All-News Format

4/19/2015

6 Comments

 
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The future of the Ticker by Louis M. Glackens, Published in Puck Magazine, January 7, 1914. Shows an outlandishly dressed tour guide at a museum explaining an exhibit showing a ticker tape machine to an equally outlandishly dressed couple touring the museum. Courtesy Miscellaneous Items in High Demand, Library of Congress, LC-DIG-ppmsca-28013
On this day, April 19th, 1965, New York City radio station WINS, 1010 kHz (AM) changed it’s format from a Rock and Roll station to become the first  news only radio station in the United States.

From the beginning WINS had a template format, with the distinctive teletype sound effect playing in the background.

Prior to this format change, WINS was competing, against three other stations, WMCA, WMGM, and WABC for the rock-and-roll audience, and was losing, with WMCA gaining dominance by 1963.  WINS saw its ratings decline consistently until 1965.

The News format was initially considered a poor choice.  Up to the WINS, all attempts at an all-news format had been failures.  Much to radio industry insiders’ surprise WINS succeeded where the others had failed.  In fact, WINS became the prototype all-news station.

WINS has been owned by Westinghouse Electric since 1962, and in 1995, Westinghouse also purchased CBS, including WINS’s number one rival (since 1970) WCBS, 880 AM.  There was speculation that one of the stations would drop the all-news format, but in the ensuing years the two have co-existed, due primarily to differences in the ratings numbers within and outside the City.  WINS has tended to have better ratings within the City, while WCBS has done better in the suburbs.

It could be said, that within New York City 1010 WINS, won!

6 Comments
Gerald Williams link
7/15/2023 01:45:35 pm

Thank you so much for sharing this amazing article with us.Will stay connected with your blogs for the future posts.

Reply
Albert Knapp link
7/15/2023 01:47:57 pm

I am really happy to say it’s an interesting post to read . I learn new information from your article , you are doing a great job . Keep it up.

Reply
Michael Riley link
7/15/2023 02:45:40 pm

The wins all attempts at an all news format had been failures. Much to radio industry insiders surprise wins succeeded where the others had failed. I truly appreciate your great post!

Reply
Shreya link
7/21/2023 06:38:11 am

WINS has tended to have better ratings within the City, while WCBS has done better in the suburbs. This is what I always felt. Thanks for sharing.

Reply
S Santra link
7/24/2023 08:01:05 am

Really glad to read this!

Reply
W.B.
1/19/2025 05:57:18 am

1010 WINS won all right, especially since the demise last Aug. 26 of WCBS Newsradio 880.

However, it should be noted they didn't have that Teletype sound originally. In that excerpt from that first day it was not heard behind the first anchor of the "all news" format, Jim Gordon, as he was reading the latest news out of Vietnam some time after 5:30 A.M. that spring morning. Apparently it wasn't until after the station moved from 7 Central Park West to 90 Park Avenue in the fall of 1965 - about six months after the switch - that the 'clack-clack-clack' was first heard in the background (and thus, just in time for their reporters to walk up and down 19 flights of stairs when the lights went out on Nov. 9-10, 1965, which firmly put the new format on the map).

From what (very) little airchecks have turned up (especially compared with the treasure trove of WCBS airchecks as on Don Swaim's Newsradio 88 appreciation site), WINS had about three variants in their Teletype sound over a 55-year period. Their first was very subtle, if based on WNYC's preservation in their archives of WINS' Oct. 23, 1969 debate among Mayor Lindsay, State Senator John Marchi and Comptroller Mario Procaccino (it was heard at the start as Brad Phillips introduced the debate, which was moderated by their longtime City Hall reporter Doug Edelson) and their coverage of the Oct. 20, 1973 "Saturday Night Massacre" as it was unfolding that night; the second, which would have been unveiled around the time they adopted the "20-minute wheel" and Top 40-derived news presentation in 1975, sounded a bit muddy and somewhat louder, but still behind the anchors; and the third and longest, starting in 1985-86 (but definitely in place by the time they moved in 1986 to 888 Seventh Avenue) was looped from a 28.620-second (or 176-'clack') section of "Teletypes," Track B14 from Elektra Records' 1964 album "Authentic Sound Effects, Volume 2" (from which the cash register sound that opened Pink Floyd's "Money" from their "The Dark Side Of The Moon" album also originated) - and that, too, was cut up into several subsections including continuous loops of 10.089 (62 'clacks') or :07.799 seconds (48 'clacks') - the latter heard over and over again during the Blackout of 2003. The discontinuance of that distinctive sound, in September 2020, was due to sonic inconsistency; in the wake of the COVID pandemic, it was only heard behind those anchors still working at their Hudson Square studios (to which they moved in August 2009), while those working at home did not have the sound behind them, so it was decided to ditch it altogether.

Oh, and for a period from the mid-to-late 1980's to early '90's, that last of their Teletype sounds was played BACKWARDS behind the anchors. It was most notable on an aircheck from the evening of Dec. 25, 1988 as on YouTube, anchored at the bottom of the hour by Brad Sherman and at the top of the hour by Palmer Payne; at certain points you can hear the metal clanging with reverse reverb, ditto for the 'clacks'. But I clearly remember it played in reverse "back then."

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