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Brief History

Frequency: 92.3 FM

Call-letter meaning: ?

First station on the 92.3 dial was WMCA-FM

in 1948.

July 24th, 1978 - WKTU changed format from mellow rock to 'all-disco' with incredible succes. Within a few month they went to

the top of the arbitron rates.

An unbelievable track record:

WKTU's great success in the Oct./Nov.

arbitron rates gave reason to an intensive discussion of that maneuver and the effects

on the market.

The experts arrived at the conclusion that

Disco went more and more popular and so

somewhere along the way radio had to

respond.

WKTU brought the 'all disco format' at the

right point of time and  - as KTU's program director Matthew Clenott at the end of the year explained - without a revoloutionary new concept. He became program director just one month before the change over and didn't now anything about disco.

In the first two or three weeks they just played

the Billboard charts. He also opened the doors

for anyone who wanted to tell him about disco.

In cooperation with consultant Kent Burkhard,

Wanda Ramos (was hired from WBLS) and Me-

lanie Shorin (Club scene reports) they built up an up-to-the minute information system from most discos of the area.

They were in touch with discjockeys, record stores (Downstairs, Disc-O-Mat, Disco Disc

and Record Shack) and the record pools.

This street level research was in Clenott's opinion the key to success.

He also kept a blackboard in his office on which he maintained a 'watching list' of 25

to 30 records. These were potential hits and

the DJs and record shops were questioned

on them. Also the requests of the request line were tabulated.

The station's playlist was 'a shade over 40'

with usually three to four records added a

week. Thirty-three got meaningful rotation.

Heavy rotation for WKTU is four and a half

hours.

Clenott and general manager Dave Rapaport

took great pride in station's morning drive

show, which had introduced some program-

ming innovations.

A major difference from most morning prog-

rams was that there is no news and informat-

ion block. News ad information were packed

in 90 second units delivered seven times an

hour.

Paul Robinson was the morning drive DJ, and

got help from Shorin's disco reports, news-

caster Janet Rose and sports reporter Bob

Meyer. In the morning drive hours were four

newscasts, three sport reports, four traffic

reports and 11 weather reports (in 90 second

packages!).

A comparism of the arbitron rates in 1978's second half year demonstrate how succesfull WKTU was:

Jul.-Aug. 1978

WABC  7,6

WKTU  1,0

Oct.-Nov. 1978

WABC  7,5

WKTU  7,8

(many thanks to Doug Hall of Billboard!)

Clear & brief:

'Paco' - Manuel Paquito Navarro

'Paco is my name and disco is my game'

With these words he appreciated his listeners

every night. He was the untouched radiojock

number one in New York and the only real radiopersonality for WKTU (as important for WKTU as Frankie Crocker for WBLS).

His arbitron rates for Oct.-Nov. 1978 still are a

real legend: 15.8 (!!).

The Puerto Rican-born came to WKTU

from KTU's sister station WJIT where he

played salsa.

He always said that it was also his idea to

switch the fomat from mellow rock to disco.

When he met with SJR Communications

(company that owned WKTU & WJIT) exe-

cutive vice president Eddie Cossman he

suggested that WKTU had to switch to

salsa disco. Salso lasted two days...

He originated his succes in three things:

Disco, his sexy accent and his storys

to the records he played.

June 1979: Alant Enterprises of Los Angeles

undertook production of the 'Studio 92'

sets on Fridays (11 p.m. to 2 a.m.). The shows

format presented the top disco DJ's in the

New York area.

Dec. 1979: Station responded on disco's

reduction of demand and had modified its

format.

The on-air line up changed and the word

'Disco' was banned from the airwaves.

The only survivor from the 'Disco 92' days was

Paco. He moved to 2 to 6 p.m.

50% of the music were changed but the station

still had a strong disco sound.

They added Teddy Pendergrass, the Commo-

dores and Earth, Wind & Fire to the program

and moved to 7inch versions. The long 12inch disco cuts they prefered were banned.

A research of disco club play and retail sales

(50 discos & 50 retail outlets weekley) were still checked.

January 1980 - New Arbitron rates showed how

fast the radio market changed:

Billboard titled 'Disco radio by another name is still king in New York'. But then WBLS was for

the second straight Aritron rating period still

number one. Followed by it's arch rival WKTU

in second place.

Disco was still present but the stations expe-

rimented with a much wider range of music.

WKTU had expanded it's playlist to include

rock, soul and ballads. WBLS added for ex-ample Frank Sinatra and Glenn Miller.

The station was first called 'Disco 92'

but after disco had retired the name

was changed in '92 KTU'.

Mixshows:

     - famous 'Paco's Super Mix' was aired

       weekdays 4:10 p.m.

       'weekdays ten after four - I have more -

        Paco's super mix'

     - 'Studio 92': friday & saturday night

                             (11:00 p.m. to 02:00 a.m.)

     - 'remix weekends'

Important Discjockeys:

     - Aldo Marin

     - Tommy Musto

     - Latin Rascals

     - Jose 'Animal' Diaz

     - Tee Scott