560 WFIL Philadelphia. 1980-1981 aircheck clips including the September 4, 1981 format change to country. On Tuesday, September 1, 1981, I read in the Philadelphia Inquirer that the station was changing to country on Friday. I recorded the station four days straight and woke up at 5 a.m. that Friday to catch the transition. The station's audio sounds distorted. At the time, I compared to other stations and realized the problem was with them. At 17 years old, I recorded these airchecks on a portable cassette tape recorder. Most of the edits you hear were made in-tape at the time. These airchecks were scattered across several cassettes and I am proud to have finally organized them and present them in their proper chronological order. Here are highlights of what I heard that week:

September 1, 1981 7:13 p.m. Dick Fennessy 03:25. Fennessy says "A 'FIL" over a rock song at 04:02. Note turntable slows at 08:43.
September 1, 1981 7:38 p.m. "You're Home on WFIL" ballad. Alan Connors, vocal. 12:36
September 2, 1981 8 a.m. Dan Malloy 16:54
September 2, 1981 8:09 a.m. Pioneer Car Stereo commercial 17:22
September 2, 1981 8:10 a.m. Shadow Traffic, Rod Carson 17:55
September 2, 1981 8:17 a.m. WFIL change to Country music 30 sec. promo 19:40
September 2, 1981 11 a.m. Barbara Sommers. 20:38
September 2, 1981 11 a.m. Steve Nikazy news. Nikazy mentions the upcoming Philadelphia school strike that kept me out of my senior year of high school until almost Halloween. 20:56
September 2, 1981 12:07 p.m. Shadow Traffic, John Brown 22:34
September 2, 1981 Name That Tune contest 27:53
September 2, 1981 Ellery Queen Minute Mystery promo 28:37
September 2, 1981 Sound Off promo 35:31
September 2, 1981 On The Line with Stan Walters and Tony Bruno promo 36:06
September 2, 1981 3 p.m. Barbara Sommers sign-off / Dick Fennessy sign-on 42:23
September 3, 1981 Philadelphia and WFIL spot 44:54
September 3, 1981 10 a.m. Dan Malloy sign-off / Barbara Sommers start 51:42
September 3, 1981 2:48 p.m. Barbara Sommers sign-off with quip, "WFIL air personalities are compensated for personal appearances" 3:00 p.m. Dick Fennessy sign-on 1:02:02
September 4, 1981 5:17 a.m. John Jeffries overnight 1:10:09
September 4, 1981 5:52 a.m. On The Line promo 1:11:29
September 4, 1981 6:00 a.m. Steve Nikazy news 1:13:29
September 4, 1981 6:05 a.m. format change with Barbara Sommers 1:13:53

Also on this video are recordings shortly before and after the format change:

October 6, 1980 Tom Dooley 00:00
October 6, 1980 WPHL The Great Entertainer commercial 00:16
October 7, 1980 Tom Dooley 01:17
March 1981 Joe Simone 01:51
Early April 1981 Barbara Sommers WFIL Night at Liberty Bell Park spot 02:56
September 14, 1981 Mike Crossan for Dan Malloy 1:15:42
September 14, 1981 Dan Malloy afternoon drive promo 1:16:03
Late October 1981 WFIL Listening Phone message (recorded off the telephone) 1:17:13
February 26, 1982 WFIL almost six months into country format 1:17:47
February 1982 Country Close-Up with Glen Campbell promo 1:18:26

Unfortunately, the following songs had to be scoped to prevent this video from being blocked:
Same Old Lang Syne
Rock With You
New Kid In Town
Bandstand Boogie

Many of the jocks are on here from the 1980 to 1981 period including Tom Dooley, Joe Simone, Barbara Sommers, Dick Fennessy, Dan Malloy, and John Jeffries. Don Cannon, Dennis John Cahill, Joe Simone and newsman Alan Stone departed when the format changed. Tony Bruno also left.

On the eve of their format change to country, WFIL ran promos saying that WFIL as you have known it since 1966 will be a thing of the past. This was not true. WFIL's "Boss Jock" programming finally died in 1977 when they migrated to an AC format. These aircheck clips show that WFIL started a "Come Home to WFIL" promotion in early 1981 which remained until their change to country in September 1981.

MORE TO COME!