History

WNNJ and pre-move WPAT-FM The 103.5 frequency first went on the air in 1948, as WNNJ, which then changed its name to WPAT-FM. FM listenership was very light in those early days of FM broadcasting, and in 1950 WPAT-FM's Garrett Mountain transmitter was damaged by a tropical storm and never re-built. WPAT-FM was reborn in 1956 on 93.1 a frequency that became available when Major Armstrong signed off his experimental station. WPAT-FM was a top rated beautiful music outlet until it was acquired by Spanish Broadcasting who changed to a Spanish language format.

WTFM

The WTFM logo from 1980-1982

The 103.5 frequency was assigned to Babylon, N.Y. as WGLI-FM. In 1958, the station moved from Babylon to Lake Success and transmitted with 20Kw from a 200 foot stick outside the studio building visible from the Long Island Expressway. A short time later the transmitter was relocated to the Chrysler Building and a major signal boost was accomplished. As WTFM using the slogan, "The International Stereo Sound of New York," they played an instrumental-based easy listening format until 1978, when the old WKTU (on 92.3) went from an adult contemporary format to a disco music format. As an easy listening station, WTFM's was up against several similar stations, WRFM and WPAT had higher ratings. So in the fall of 1978, WTFM switched to an adult contemporary format, even though ratings would remain low with the new format.

WAPP

The Apple 103.5

The WAPP apple logo from 1982-1986

In 1982, Doubleday bought the station, and that June, the station switched to an Album-oriented rock format similar to WPLJ and WNEW-FM down the dial. The station was renamed "The Apple 103.5", with the call letters WAPP. The station went commercial-free for the duration of that summer, and as a result, it became the highest-rated radio station in New York City. Then, when the station added commercials, listeners switched back to WPLJ and WNEW-FM, and so ratings went down. In 1983, when WPLJ switched to a CHR format, the station's ratings got a slight boost.

In 1983, a then-unknown Bon Jovi visited the station and wrote and sung the jingles for the station. He spoke with DJ Chip Hobart, who suggested Bon Jovi let WAPP include the song "Runaway" on the station's compilation album of local homegrown talent. Bon Jovi was reluctant, but eventually gave them the song, on which Bon Jovi had used studio musicians to play on the track "Runaway" (which was written in 1980). WAPP worked with WOR-TV (now WWOR-TV) in nearby Secaucus, NJ on a music video show, Rock 9 Videos, for a short time in 1984.

Additional/Supplanting information to the above. In 1983, as part of its marketing effort, WAPP-FM launched a contest called "New York Rocks 1983." Local music acts were encouraged to submit demo tapes to this competition. Among the tapes submitted to this contest was "Runaway" by John Bongiovi, aka Bon Jovi. But it didn't win the competition. Another act called the "Frankie Carr Band" won the honors over Bon Jovi and "Runaway." This competition was repeated in 1984.

As 1984 progressed, WAPP's ratings were on the upswing. However, the station's owners decided to change the station's format to CHR that fall. They felt that if stations that they owned in Washington, D.C. and Minnesota could do well with the format, then this station could as well. This would not be the case, as the station could not compete with WPLJ or Z-100, and their ratings fell. Not even a change back to a rock format in the summer of 1985 could solve the station's ratings woes.

The original WKTU

See WBMP section on WKTU for the original WKTU that existed from 1975-1985 and achieved great fame as a disco station known as "Disco 92" in the late 1970s.

WAPP becomes WQHT

In 1986, Emmis Broadcasting bought rock formatted 103.5 WAPP from Doubleday Broadcasting. There was speculation in the industry as to what Emmis was going to do with WAPP, since their ratings were low. On August 13, 1986 WAPP switched to what appeared to be a classic rock format, stunting as "Classic 103."

On August 15, 1986 at 6 pm, The Rolling Stones' "It's All Over Now" and a bomb noise rang out WAPP and the classic rock titles. The station debuted as "Hot 103" with new call letters WQHT and a new CHR/Dance format. The first song was believed to be "R.S.V.P." by Five Star. Nobody in the radio industry expected it, but the new rhythmic/CHR format was taking shape. WQHT was the second such station with the format, months after Emmis launched it on KPWR "Power 106" in Los Angeles earlier that year.

Then, Emmis VP of Programming Rick Cummings said the company was considering four formats for the old WAPP but were leaning towards the classic rock and CHR/Dance formats. "It was an 11th hour decision," Cummings told Billboard magazine on 8/30/1986.

The Program Director ended up to be Joel Salkowitz (who was first named only as Asst Program Director) and Steve Ellis was Music Director (a hold over from WAPP) Don Kelly was the consultant for both WQHT and KPWR in those early months.

The All New Hot 103

Hot 103 played a different variety of music than what was on the New York radio dial at that time. 1983 Queen of Dance and Freestyle Shannon debut with her Grammy nominated, World hit, sales of more than 8 million, charted Billboard Pop #8 like, "Let The Music Play", followed by "Give Me Tonight", "My Hearts Divided", & "Do You Wanna Get Away ?". There was no CHR/Dance station in the market since 92KTU WKTU left the air a year earlier. WQHT came on the air with a new, improved dance oriented format, which trade magazines of the day called a hybrid format. The station mixed in CHR hits with Dance and Club music of the day.

Songs that appeared on 103.5 during the first few months included "Say It, Say It" by E.G. Daily, "Something About You" by Level 42, "Rumors" by the Timex Social Club, "Diamond Girl" by Nice & Wild, and "I'll Be All That You Need" by Trinere.

The station started to play "hotmixes" or extended versions of certain songs. The "hotmixes" were either just the extended versions available commercially on 12" Singles, or mixes that were created by local club DJs, such as "Little" Louie Vega, especially for WQHT. They also aired regular versions of the songs that had longer intros than that of their competitors such as Z-100. Noel used the Hot 103 version of his single "Silent Morning" for the music video, as evidenced in the video's credits. With the debut of WQHT, some record labels such as Atco and Elektra reportedly started to see a spike in 12" single sales in the New York Metropolitan Area, as was reported by Billboard Magazine.

Hot 103.5's (the name was later shortened to Hot 103 in the Fall of 1986) imaging sounded similar to that of sister station KPWR a.k.a. "Power 106" as WNAP's very own Chuck Riley and Eric Edwards became the official voices of the station. Chuck mainly voiced the bumpers and sweepers, while Eric mostly voiced the promos and specialty liners. These two were also the voices for other Emmis stations at the time such as KPWR, WLOL, and WAVA.

As September approached Hot 103 started to add more personality to the station. Some of the first DJs or "Hot Jocks" to join WQHT were Deborah Rath from KPWR a.k.a. "Power 106", Alan "Al Nouveau" Bandiero from 92KTU, Johnny "Big John" Monds from WUSL a.k.a. "POWER 99fm", Sonny Joe Fox from KMEL a.k.a. "Northern California's All Hit 106 KMEL", Niecie Colon from WBLS, Frederick "Fast Freddie" Colon, with Vanessa Scott, and Rufus Hurt, who was a hold over from WAPP.

"Broadway" Bill Lee from Denver's KPKE a.k.a. "All Hit 96 FM" was chosen to joined the Hot 103 Hot Jocks around Christmas time, alongside with it was Rick Allen as Production Director as well being the voice of WQHT's electronic prizedroid Robojock and with a little help from TM Communications they customized the "K-Power!" jingle package for Hot 103 under the name of "The Hot Streak!" and it was featuring Chuck on rapping vocals instead of singing he was rapping & saying "Hot 103" instead. Rick would go on to fame as the person who created the famous "From the top of the World Trade Center" top of the hour ID, also voiced by Chuck for Hot 103 and then Hot 97. Other radio stations, to this day, try to duplicate that particular ID. Many radio production directors were impressed by Rick's work he ended up releasing some of the production elements and music beds used for Hot 103 into syndication under the brand name "Continuous Climax."

Since Hot 103 was playing music heard primarily in nightclubs, the station did a lot of appearances at various night clubs in the tri-state area. Therefore, the station even had "HotSpot" reports with reporters such as Kimberly Howard of B91 in Brooklyn phoning in the latest club happenings every Friday and Saturday during the night show so listeners knew where the party was.

By 1987, Hot 103 was making a name for itself by playing Freestyle. Artists such as Noel, Safire, The Cover Girls and TKA were made famous because they were played in heavy rotation right next to Mainstream Top 40 artists such as Exposé, Debbie Gibson and Taylor Dayne. Freestyle and club music from other cities such as Miami wasn't ignored either. Company B and Tiger Moon, who were famous in the Florida club scene, were played on WQHT as well. In fact, Hot 103 pioneered custom station versions of songs, where the artists would change lyrics and sing about the station. WHTZ Z100 copied Hot 103's success by adding a few Freestyle titles, as well for both Urban Contemporary stations WBLS and WRKS were playing long versions of the records they played as well.

To bolster that they were on the club scene, Hot 103 added a local weekly countdown show called New York's Hot Tracks hosted by Bill Lee, which counted down the top 10 selling 12" singles of the week in the tri-state area. The show started on Sunday Nights and then moved to Friday Nights at 6:00pm and then later at 5:00pm. It featured short interview clips and aired sonovox numbers produced by Rick Allen identifying the chart position (The show was later hosted by Jeff Thomas, and was cancelled in 1993). N.Y.H.T. was produced, for a time, by PD Joel Salkowitz and researched by future WQHT jock herself, Angie Martinez who would go on to dominate PM Drive after the station flipped to Hip-Hop and R&B in 1992.

In July 1987, Hot 103 wanted to devote some airtime to older dance music at the urging of jock Al Bandiero. Management agreed, and thus began "The Hot 103's Disco Classics' Showcase", which would feature older dance music, which usually had to be at least 7 years old to get played on the show. The show was broadcast for an hour from 8 pm-9 pm on Sunday nights. In 1989, the show was expanded to 2 hours. Later hosts would be Paco Navarro in 1992 from 92KTU fame and Freddie Colon. The show lasted until 1994.

During that summer, WQHT celebrated its first anniversary as Hot 103 and released the "Hot 103 Anniversary Album" on cassette, LP or CD on Warlock Records. The album contained four "Hotmixes" of CHR/Dance hits heard on Hot 103 over the past year. Sister station Power 106 also released the same album but under the Power 106 name.

Morning drive

Since the station signed on the air, it presented a music intensive morning show with only two stopsets of commercials an hour. Mornings were first hosted by Rufus Hurt with news by Judy Hernandez (another hold over from WAPP where she went by the name Judy Herron.) After Rufus left, Johnny "Big John" Monds began took over for him.

By the fall of 1987, Hot 103 was looking for a morning team to round out it's dayparts. It settled on the veteran team of "Walton & Johnson & The Not Ready For Drive Time Players." The show didn't click, and was off the air in a couple months.

In 1988, the station brought in the married morning team of KSHE 95's Ron Stevens and Joy Grdnic to handle morning drive. Stevens & Grdnic were unique as they were a male/female team rather than the usual male/male morning show. Veteran newsman J. Paul Emerson of The KMEL's Morning Zoo was joined as the wild newsman with a CKLW tabloid type delivery. The station added traffic updates via Shadow Traffic and contracted with WNYW Fox 5 Meteorologist Nick Gregory to provide live weather updates.

Hot 103's big impact

In February 1987, Billboard magazine created a new "Crossover 30" chart in response to Hot 103 and the rise in popularity of other CHR/Dance stations and the type of music that they played. The chart was based solely on airplay from stations that reported to it. Radio trade magazine "Radio and Records" created a similar chart and started reporting the weekly music adds by Hot 103 and others.

The impact of Hot 103 and other similar stations such as WPOW a.k.a. "The New Power 96 FM", WHQT a.k.a. "The New Hot 105 FM" in Miami, and on KPWR a.k.a. "Power 106" in Los Angeles, has somehow spurred Emmis to join with Westwood One to create a weekly national dance music countdown called "American Dance Traxx". The show debuted the week of March 23, 1987.

The show was groundbreaking as it presented the countdown in long music sweeps rather than just 2-songs in a row and then a commercial break. The 3-hour "American Dance Traxx" was hosted by WUSL's alum & KPWR's PD and DJ Jeffrey "Wyatt On The Radio" Wyatt and produced in NY by WQHT PD Joel Salkowitz. The show used the same music beds that were on WQHT and KPWR and featured short interviews with the artists of the day. A.D.T. aired on WQHT Sundays from 9:00pm–12:00am. Deborah Rath would substitute for Jeff on occasion. After Jeff left both KPWR and Emmis, Deborah Rath was made the permanent host until former MTV VJ and host of "Club MTV" "Downtown" Julie Brown took over in 1992.

Hot Night

In February 1987 the tradition started with the first of several "Hot Night" concerts. Hot Night consisted of the top CHR/Dance artists of the day and the only way in to the concert was by winning on WQHT. Hot Night 1 was held February 4, 1987 at the Palladium and starred Sheila E. and The Cover Girls. Hot Night 2 was held at the same location, starring The Jets and Debbie Gibson.

As years went on, "Hot Night" got bigger and expanded to more exotic locations such as the Bahamas and Cancun, Mexico. The last known "Hot Night" was in 1993, where it all began, at the legendary Palladium and starred SWV.

The Hot 103's Original Saturday Night Dance Party

In June 1987 WQHT debuted the "The Hot 103's Original Saturday Night Dance Party", live from 4D NightClub in Manhattan from 10:00pm–2:00am, with no commercials and limited interruption. Sometimes 20 minutes would go by without a station identification. Everything on the radio was live from the club as WQHT plugged right into the DJ booth mixer. The mixing, the WQHT jock host, and sometimes even the crowd could be heard over the air. Scotty Blackwell was the first DJ to spin for "The Hot 103's Saturday Night Dance Party", where he would mix with 4 Technics 1200ML Turntables. There was even a cart machine on hand to play the Hot 103 sweepers over the air and inside 4D.

As time went on, WQHT was wired into two dozen different clubs around the tri-state area. "The Hot 103's Original Saturday Night Dance Party" would bring The Palladium, The Copacabana, Foxes, Emerald City, The Tunnel, Chicago, Limelight, 1018, The L.I. Exchange, and The Roxy right into New York, Connecticut and New Jersey living rooms, cars and boom boxes.

Other notable club DJs such as Glenn Friscia, DJ Animal, Roman Ricardo, Freddie Bastone and Mojo Nicosia were on the turntables for "The Hot 103's Saturday Night Dance Party". Artists such as France Joli, Safire, Cover Girls and others would occasionally perform live on the radio and in the clubs.

WYNY

The WYNY logo used from 1988-1996

On September 22, 1988, WQHT would change frequencies, as Emmis acquired NBC's radio stations. Since Federal Communications Commission regulations at the time required that a company can only own one FM radio station in a market, Emmis sold the 103.5 frequency to Westwood One (which, coincidentally, had also acquired the remnants of the NBC Radio Network). At the same time, they moved the format at 103.5 FM to the 97.1 FM frequency which they acquired from NBC, with WQHT becoming "Hot 97." As a result, WYNY, which was running a country music format at the 97.1 frequency prior to the sale, would move to 103.5 FM.

The station, now known as "Country 103.5", had mediocre ratings in their first few months at its new frequency. Even though rumors of a format change were always existent at the station, the country format remained. In 1993, the station would be sold to Broadcast Partners, whom were committed to keeping Country on WYNY. As a country station, Jim Kerr would be the station's morning show host from 1990 to 1993, while their airstaff included Dan Daniel, Randy Davis, Bill Rock, Ray Rossi Lisa Taylor and Charlie Berger.

In the spring of 1995, Broadcast Partners opted to sell the station to Evergreen Media, and after a lot of speculation about the station's future, Evergreen confirmed in January 1996 that the station would be changing formats. On the final weekend that the station would play country music (which would be from February 2 to February 4, 1996), the entire airstaff said goodbye. WYNY ended local programming at 6 PM on the 4th with "The Dance" by Garth Brooks, followed by syndicated programming. After airing the syndicated After Midnite with Blair Garner show in the early morning hours of February 5 (which also ended with "The Dance"), the country music format was gone from the station, thus leaving the entire New York City area without a full time Country station. (Later that year, country would resurface on several suburban stations, one of which would get the WYNY calls, resurfacing in late 1998.) Beginning at 6 AM on the 5th, WYNY then began stunting with a simulcast of WRCX/Chicago. On February 6, at 6 AM, the simulcasting switched to Mainstream Urban-formatted KKBT/Los Angeles. On February 7, at 6 AM, the simulcasting switched to Talk-formatted WLUP/Chicago. On February 8, at 6 AM, the simulcasting switched to AC-formatted KIOI/San Francisco. On February 9, from 6 AM to 6 PM, the simulcast switched to Alternative-leaning Top 40 WXKS-FM/Boston. At 6 PM, the simulcasting of sister stations ended.

New York City would not have another full-time country station until January 2013, when Cumulus Media launched WNSH.

WKTU, "The Beat of New York"

103.5 KTU Logo since Feb. 10, 1996

At 6 PM on February 9, WYNY began stunting with a heartbeat, promoting the launch of a new format coming the following day at Noon. At that time, WKTU was relaunched on 103.5 FM with a dance-based CHR format; WKTU's first song was "Gonna Make You Sweat" by C&C Music Factory. The station instantly skyrocketed to number one in the Arbitron ratings, although in the decade since, they have cooled down considerably. Drag performer RuPaul co-hosted mornings with Michelle Visage, Lisa Taylor and Freddie Colon around this period, further helping their ratings. Sean "Hollywood" Hamilton and Goumba Johnny followed in mornings from 1998-1999. By 2002, the moderate amount of rap played on the station was gone and the station evolved into more of a Hot Rhythmic AC.

On May 31, 2006, WKTU announced that actress/comedian Whoopi Goldberg would become the station's new morning host, and that KTU would serve as the flagship station for her syndicated morning show. Her show, which airs mostly on AC and Rhythmic outlets in the United States, especially those owned by WKTU's parent company Clear Channel, began on July 31, 2006. The news of Goldberg being named 'KTU's new morning star, and the departures of popular afternoon drive DJ "Broadway" Bill Lee and late night hostess Jewelz in June 2006, led to talk that KTU might switch formats (some suspected an upbeat female targeted Hot AC-type direction similar to sister station KBIG/Los Angeles) with Goldberg's arrival. KTU management insisted that there were no plans to flip formats, even with Goldberg in mornings. Another surprise move was the reunion of former KTU morning hosts Sean "Hollywood" Hamilton and Goumba Johnny, who hosted afternoons for the station beginning September 5, 2006. Hamilton continues to host his popular syndicated shows the Weekend Top 30 and the Remix Top 30 heard in over 250 cites across America and around the world.

However, on September 9, 2006, after many format flips by Clear Channel Communications of other radio stations throughout the country, 'KTU took on the upbeat Rhythmic AC direction by playing only popular current rhythmic material, as well as increasing the airplay of older rhythmic sounds such as soul, disco and freestyle.

On November 28, 2007, WKTU announced that it had dropped Whoopi's morning show. According to station management, the reason was due to Goldberg's duties on The View, although it may also have to do with the show's ratings.[1] Her show continued to air in syndication through Premiere Radio Networks until April 18, 2008, when she called it quits. Cubby Bryant, who served as Goldberg's sidekick, left the syndicated show and returned to WKTU in January 2008 to host his own morning show.

Around 2009, WKTU did another tweak in their Rhythmic AC format, dropping the older elements of dance music (disco and freestyle, including Judy Torres' "Freestyle Free For All" Sunday show; Torres has since returned to doing a Sunday afternoon shift at WKTU) and focusing mainly on a current direction, with mainstream dance and rhythmic sounds. It pursued the advertiser-friendly demographic of people who are 25–54 years old. That has helped increase the ratings of the station. In September 2010, the station returned to a Rhythmic Top 40 direction, as WKTU was added to the Mediabase Rhythmic panel joining rival WQHT. On December 15, 2010, Goumba Johnny left WKTU after 15 years, leaving Hamilton solo in afternoons.

On April 4, 2011, WKTU was moved from the Rhythmic CHR panel on Mediabase to CHR (Top 40), reflecting the recent evolution of the station's music to a more rhythmic adult contemporary sound again without the disco titles. At the same time, Nielsen BDS refrained from including WKTU's playlist on its Top 40/CHR panel because of its direction and having sister station WHTZ as a reporter, but the station did contribute to BDS' Dance/Mix Show Airplay panel due to having club music mix shows on the station. On Memorial Day weekend, WKTU started airing Commercial Free Weekends, in order to compete with WBMP 92.3, which also started airing Commercial Free Weekends after the station was relaunched as 92.3 AMP Radio. The Commercial Free Weekends era on WKTU lasted until Labor Day weekend. As of August 16, 2014, however, WKTU is now also listed on the BDS Pop panel, but continues not to use its playlist. It also has added in some non-Rhythmic titles, based on its playlist, such as OneRepublic's Counting Stars. However, it is somewhat of a Rhythmic leaning Adult CHR due to playing Michael Jackson songs.

WKTU's ownership

As a result of a series of transactions from Evergreen Media, SFX Communications, and Clear Channel Communications in the late 1990s and early 2000s, WKTU is currently owned by iHeartMedia, which changed its name from Clear Channel in September 2014.

HD2 Operation

Like other Clear Channel stations WKTU began Multicasting in the late winter of 2005. On WKTU HD-1, the Rhythmic Top-40 format is heard on the original analog station, while WKTU HD-2 has played Country Music similar to the previous Country station occupying 103.5. HD stations can only be received with an HD Radio. HD Radios receive both the primary analog station, the duplicate HD Feed, and the Multicasting feeds. Stations can put as many as five (previously three, using older Iboq equipment) sets of HD programming on one dial position plus their original analog broadcast. On July 23, 2009, the Country music format was dropped in favor of Pride Radio, a dance station catering to the LGBT community. The Country format has since moved to 106.7 HD-2.

The WKTU subcarrier also airs Catholic programming in Italian from Radio Maria New York, the local unit of Radio Maria USA.

Signal

Due to its antenna on top of the Empire State Building, WKTU's signal can reach as far as Clinton in western Hunterdon County. Before transmitter changes in the early 2010s, it was able to reach into most of the Philadelphia area, particularly Camden, Burlington and Gloucester counties in southern New Jersey.

It is short spaced due to 103.3 WPRB cutting into WKTU's reception in central New Jersey and 103.7 WNNJ cutting into its signal in Eastern Sussex and Morris Counties in northwestern New Jersey.

Beatstock

Every August, WKTU holds an annual event called Beatstock. The event showcases artists from every dance genre, from disco to electronica, and is held at two locations in the New York area: Jones Beach Theater (now the Nikon at Jones Beach Theater) in Wantagh, NY and The Garden State Arts Center (now the PNC Bank Arts Center) in Holmdel, New Jersey. The original KTU Beatstock concert, which took place in 1997, was an all-day event held at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, NY. It featured over 50 acts from various genres of dance music, all performing on one stage. For 2011, WKTU had decided to no longer sponsor the event; however, Beatstock continued for the year in Long Island at the Brookhaven Amphitheater on August 20. (That event was featured in The Real Housewives of New Jersey, episode 4.12 (15 July 2012), as two of the cast members - Melissa Gorga and Teresa Giudice's daughter, Gia - performed there.)