WDAS-FM
Encyclopedia
WDAS-FM is an Urban Adult Contemporary
radio station that features R&B and Classic Soul
, and is licensed
to the city of Philadelphia. The station is widely regarded as one of the originators of the Urban AC format which mixes R&B oldies with non-rap contemporary R&B and is now found in many major markets across the United States. WDAS broadcasts at an effective radiated power of 16,500 watts (16.5 kilowatts (kW)) from a class B signal, from a tower located in the Roxborough section of Philadelphia
. The main competitor of WDAS in the Philadelphia market is WRNB
, which broadcasts on the 107.9 frequency. WDAS used to feature the Tom Joyner
Morning Show, until WRNB won the rights to the syndicated morning show. WDAS is the current Philadelphia affiliate for the competing Steve Harvey
Morning Show. WDAS is owned by Clear Channel Communications
.
community, WDAS is the FM equivalent to the perennially popular KYW Newsradio 1060. Widely regarded as the originator of the Urban Adult Contemporary format which it plays today, WDAS continues to occupy its roost amongst the 3 top radio stations in the Delaware Valley as of December 2005 Arbitron ratings, http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/entertainment/columnists/michael_klein/13627367.htm. But it was not always this way.
WDAS-FM came on the air in August 1959, as a hybrid rock and classical music format, the later of which featured on Sundays. The station shared the same WDAS call letters as its AM counterpart on the 1480 frequency. By mid 1960s, the station moved to the classical music format execlusively. However, due to low ratings by April 1968, the format changed back to a rock format, evolving to the new "underground" and album-track trend. This short-lived period introduced much of the new voices of "progressive" FM radio including Michael Tearson
and Ed Sciaky
alongside a revitalized Hy Lit
from WIBG
, and later a popular nighttime show by owner Max Leon's son Steve, who called himself "My Father's Son" on the air. Venerable folk music host Gene Shay
also did his program from WDAS at this time.
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, radio stations were under increased pressure by the Nixon Administration through the FCC to censor music that involved drug content. Steve Leon ignored this directive and continued to play the music that was popular at the time. While playing Arlo Guthrie's "Coming Into Los Angeles", which referenced smuggling marijuana, Leon charged into the station and ripped the turntable arm off the record. Leon then fired his son and the other on the air staff. To fill the void, WDAS staff were used as replacements.
In March 1971, Leon and a group empowered to direct change at the radio station launched its Urban Contemporary formathttp://phillybp.my100megs.com/maxleon.html. The station playlist included the R&B, soul
and funk
playing what would become the classics of their genre and launching careers of national artists like Lou Rawls
and "Philadelphia Sound" acts such as The O'Jays
, The Stylistics
, Patti LaBelle
and the Blue Bells, and Teddy Pendergrass
. WDAS' rising success paralleled the red-hot popularity of the new R&B sound developed at Philadelphia International Recordshttp://www.bsnpubs.com/columbia/pistory.html. By 1975, as the Philly Sound laid the musical groundwork for disco
, the station too began to integrate more disco
into the station's playlist to go along with its rising popularity. By the end of the decade, WDAS introduced its listenership to the new genre of Rap
playing Sugarhill Gang, Kurtis Blow
and again showcasing local talent like Frankie Smith (of "Double Dutch Bus" fame). By 1980, WDAS was the number-one music station in Philadelphiahttp://www.broadcastpioneers.com/georgiewoods.html.
WDAS' activistic voice was as powerful as its musical one. Legendary broadcasters George "Georgie" Woods and Ed Bradley shaped the political voice of the stationhttp://www.broadcastpioneers.com/georgiewoods.html,http://phillymemories.tripod.com/id15.htm. WDAS earned its position as the "voice of the Black community"
The station was sold in November 1979 to Black-owned Unity Broadcasting Network, and it honed the Urban Contemporary
format in 1980. By 1982, new competition from WUSL
forced the station to skew towards the Urban Adult Contemporary
format, and rap music was removed from the playlists. It also further leveraged its community involvement and public affairs programming aimed at the black community. The station moved away from the disco
music into more to urban hits. The station introduced a new slogan was "105.3 WDAS-FM, Say It Loud, We're Black And We're Proud". Despite these efforts, WUSL
, which played primarily black artists geared to both black and white audiences, won the urban ratings battle.
By 1989, WDAS evolved into a successful, community-oriented Urban Adult Contemporary format after that, and WDAS had flipped to Urban Gospel in 1989. In 1994, Unity Broadcasting sold both WDAS stations to Beasley Broadcast Group
. In 1995, when the Tom Joyner Morning Show
went syndicated nationwide through ABC
, WDAS became a flagship affiliate. In May 1996, Beasley sold WDAS to Evergreen which owned WUSL, making WDAS and WUSL sister stations. In 1997, Evergreen and Chancellor merged to form Chancellor Media and later restructured in 1999 as AMFM, Inc. In 2000, Clear Channel Communications acquires AMFM along with several of the top urban radio stations in the United States.
Since 1979, WDAS-FM has sponsored Unity Day, an annual summer gathering on Benjamin Franklin Parkway.
Urban Adult Contemporary
Urban adult contemporary is the name for a format of radio music, similar to an urban contemporary format. Radio stations using this format usually would not have rap music on their playlists. The format was designed by Barry Mayo when he, Lee S. Simonson and Bill Pearson organized Broadcast...
radio station that features R&B and Classic Soul
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
, and is licensed
City of license
A city of license or community of license, in American and Canadian broadcasting, is the community that a radio station or television station is officially licensed to serve by that country's broadcast regulator....
to the city of Philadelphia. The station is widely regarded as one of the originators of the Urban AC format which mixes R&B oldies with non-rap contemporary R&B and is now found in many major markets across the United States. WDAS broadcasts at an effective radiated power of 16,500 watts (16.5 kilowatts (kW)) from a class B signal, from a tower located in the Roxborough section of Philadelphia
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
. The main competitor of WDAS in the Philadelphia market is WRNB
WRNB
WRNB is an Urban Adult Contemporary station broadcasting at 100.3 FM. Licensed to Media, Pennsylvania, it serves the Philadelphia market and is owned by Radio One. The station originally operated as WSNJ-FM in Bridgeton, New Jersey, first broadcasting on 98.9 in the 1950s before moving to 107.7...
, which broadcasts on the 107.9 frequency. WDAS used to feature the Tom Joyner
Tom Joyner
Thomas "Tom" Joyner is an American radio host, host of the nationally syndicated The Tom Joyner Morning Show, and also founder of REACH Media Inc., the Tom Joyner Foundation, and BlackAmericaWeb.com.-Early life:...
Morning Show, until WRNB won the rights to the syndicated morning show. WDAS is the current Philadelphia affiliate for the competing Steve Harvey
Steve Harvey
Broderick Steven "Steve" Harvey is an American actor, comedian, entertainer, television and radio personality and best-selling author. He is best known as the star of the WB sitcom The Steve Harvey Show, and as one of the four comedians featured in the Spike Lee film The Original Kings of Comedy...
Morning Show. WDAS is owned by Clear Channel Communications
Clear Channel Communications
Clear Channel Communications, Inc. is an American media conglomerate company headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. It was founded in 1972 by Lowry Mays and Red McCombs, and was taken private by Bain Capital LLC and Thomas H. Lee Partners LP in a leveraged buyout in 2008...
.
History
WDAS is one of at least two "legendary" radio stations in Philadelphia, pioneers in a format so successful that listenership is passed on from generation to generation. In Philadelphia's African AmericanAfrican American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
community, WDAS is the FM equivalent to the perennially popular KYW Newsradio 1060. Widely regarded as the originator of the Urban Adult Contemporary format which it plays today, WDAS continues to occupy its roost amongst the 3 top radio stations in the Delaware Valley as of December 2005 Arbitron ratings, http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/entertainment/columnists/michael_klein/13627367.htm. But it was not always this way.
WDAS-FM came on the air in August 1959, as a hybrid rock and classical music format, the later of which featured on Sundays. The station shared the same WDAS call letters as its AM counterpart on the 1480 frequency. By mid 1960s, the station moved to the classical music format execlusively. However, due to low ratings by April 1968, the format changed back to a rock format, evolving to the new "underground" and album-track trend. This short-lived period introduced much of the new voices of "progressive" FM radio including Michael Tearson
Michael Tearson
Michael Tearson is an American pioneer underground DJ, concert and special appearance host, author and actor.-Biography:Michael Tearson was born in 1948, Baltimore, Maryland. Attended The Park School, Brooklandville, Maryland. His father had attended the University of Pennsylvania and his mother...
and Ed Sciaky
Ed Sciaky
Edward Leon Sciaky was a disc jockey in Philadelphia.He was born in New York City and raised in Philadelphia, where he graduated from Temple University...
alongside a revitalized Hy Lit
Hy Lit
Hyman Aaron "Hy" Lit was an American DJ based in the Philadelphia area from the 1950s until 2005. In his 50 year career, Hy Lit broadcast from WIBG-AM, WDAS/WDAS-FM, WKBS-TV, WIFI, WSNI/WPGR, KPOL, WKXW, among many others. His last station was WOGL, where he broadcast from 1989 until his...
from WIBG
WIBG
WIBG is a talk radio station from Ocean City, New Jersey. These call letters were previously used in Philadelphia for a pioneering rock 'n' roll station now called WNTP....
, and later a popular nighttime show by owner Max Leon's son Steve, who called himself "My Father's Son" on the air. Venerable folk music host Gene Shay
Gene Shay
Gene Shay is an American radio personality. He is a representative of Philadelphia's folk music scene. He has produced weekly folk radio shows since 1962...
also did his program from WDAS at this time.
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, radio stations were under increased pressure by the Nixon Administration through the FCC to censor music that involved drug content. Steve Leon ignored this directive and continued to play the music that was popular at the time. While playing Arlo Guthrie's "Coming Into Los Angeles", which referenced smuggling marijuana, Leon charged into the station and ripped the turntable arm off the record. Leon then fired his son and the other on the air staff. To fill the void, WDAS staff were used as replacements.
In March 1971, Leon and a group empowered to direct change at the radio station launched its Urban Contemporary formathttp://phillybp.my100megs.com/maxleon.html. The station playlist included the R&B, soul
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
and funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
playing what would become the classics of their genre and launching careers of national artists like Lou Rawls
Lou Rawls
Louis Allen "Lou" Rawls was an American soul, jazz, and blues singer. He was known for his smooth vocal style: Frank Sinatra once said that Rawls had "the classiest singing and silkiest chops in the singing game"...
and "Philadelphia Sound" acts such as The O'Jays
The O'Jays
The O'Jays are an American R&B group from Canton, Ohio, formed in 1963 and originally consisting of Eddie Levert , Walter Williams , William Powell , Bobby Massey and Bill Isles. The O'Jays were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2004, and The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005...
, The Stylistics
The Stylistics
The Stylistics are a soul music vocal group, and were one of the best-known Philadelphia soul groups of the 1970s. They formed in 1968, and were composed of lead Russell Thompkins, Jr., Herbie Murrell, Airrion Love, James Smith, and James Dunn. All of their US hits were ballads, graced by the...
, Patti LaBelle
Patti LaBelle
Patricia Louise Holte-Edwards , better known under the stage name, Patti LaBelle, is a Grammy Award winning American singer, author and actress who has spent over 50 years in the music industry...
and the Blue Bells, and Teddy Pendergrass
Teddy Pendergrass
Theodore DeReese "Teddy" Pendergrass was an American R&B/soul singer and songwriter. Pendergrass first rose to fame as lead singer of Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes in the 1970s before a successful solo career at the end of the decade...
. WDAS' rising success paralleled the red-hot popularity of the new R&B sound developed at Philadelphia International Recordshttp://www.bsnpubs.com/columbia/pistory.html. By 1975, as the Philly Sound laid the musical groundwork for disco
Disco
Disco is a genre of dance music. Disco acts charted high during the mid-1970s, and the genre's popularity peaked during the late 1970s. It had its roots in clubs that catered to African American, gay, psychedelic, and other communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and...
, the station too began to integrate more disco
Disco
Disco is a genre of dance music. Disco acts charted high during the mid-1970s, and the genre's popularity peaked during the late 1970s. It had its roots in clubs that catered to African American, gay, psychedelic, and other communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and...
into the station's playlist to go along with its rising popularity. By the end of the decade, WDAS introduced its listenership to the new genre of Rap
Hip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...
playing Sugarhill Gang, Kurtis Blow
Kurtis Blow
Kurt Walker , better known by his stage name Kurtis Blow, is an American rapper and record producer. He is one of the first commercially successful rappers and the first to sign with a major record label...
and again showcasing local talent like Frankie Smith (of "Double Dutch Bus" fame). By 1980, WDAS was the number-one music station in Philadelphiahttp://www.broadcastpioneers.com/georgiewoods.html.
WDAS' activistic voice was as powerful as its musical one. Legendary broadcasters George "Georgie" Woods and Ed Bradley shaped the political voice of the stationhttp://www.broadcastpioneers.com/georgiewoods.html,http://phillymemories.tripod.com/id15.htm. WDAS earned its position as the "voice of the Black community"
The station was sold in November 1979 to Black-owned Unity Broadcasting Network, and it honed the Urban Contemporary
Urban contemporary
Urban contemporary is a music radio format. The term was coined by the late New York DJ Frankie Crocker in the mid 1970s. Urban contemporary radio stations feature a playlist made up entirely of hip hop/rap, contemporary R&B, pop, electronica such as dubstep and drum and bass and Caribbean music...
format in 1980. By 1982, new competition from WUSL
WUSL
WUSL, known as "Power 99 FM", is a mainstream urban radio station, owned by Clear Channel Communications and licensed to Philadelphia...
forced the station to skew towards the Urban Adult Contemporary
Urban Adult Contemporary
Urban adult contemporary is the name for a format of radio music, similar to an urban contemporary format. Radio stations using this format usually would not have rap music on their playlists. The format was designed by Barry Mayo when he, Lee S. Simonson and Bill Pearson organized Broadcast...
format, and rap music was removed from the playlists. It also further leveraged its community involvement and public affairs programming aimed at the black community. The station moved away from the disco
Disco
Disco is a genre of dance music. Disco acts charted high during the mid-1970s, and the genre's popularity peaked during the late 1970s. It had its roots in clubs that catered to African American, gay, psychedelic, and other communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and...
music into more to urban hits. The station introduced a new slogan was "105.3 WDAS-FM, Say It Loud, We're Black And We're Proud". Despite these efforts, WUSL
WUSL
WUSL, known as "Power 99 FM", is a mainstream urban radio station, owned by Clear Channel Communications and licensed to Philadelphia...
, which played primarily black artists geared to both black and white audiences, won the urban ratings battle.
By 1989, WDAS evolved into a successful, community-oriented Urban Adult Contemporary format after that, and WDAS had flipped to Urban Gospel in 1989. In 1994, Unity Broadcasting sold both WDAS stations to Beasley Broadcast Group
Beasley Broadcast Group
Beasley Broadcast Group, Inc. , based in Naples, Florida, is an owner/operator of radio stations in the United States. As of January 2011, the company owned 17 AM stations and 28 FM stations. -History:...
. In 1995, when the Tom Joyner Morning Show
Tom Joyner
Thomas "Tom" Joyner is an American radio host, host of the nationally syndicated The Tom Joyner Morning Show, and also founder of REACH Media Inc., the Tom Joyner Foundation, and BlackAmericaWeb.com.-Early life:...
went syndicated nationwide through ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
, WDAS became a flagship affiliate. In May 1996, Beasley sold WDAS to Evergreen which owned WUSL, making WDAS and WUSL sister stations. In 1997, Evergreen and Chancellor merged to form Chancellor Media and later restructured in 1999 as AMFM, Inc. In 2000, Clear Channel Communications acquires AMFM along with several of the top urban radio stations in the United States.
Since 1979, WDAS-FM has sponsored Unity Day, an annual summer gathering on Benjamin Franklin Parkway.