In February 1996, I, Dave "The Wave" Dresden submitted a proposal to WDRE radio GM Dan Zako outlining what I would have done with the station had I been hired PD. Dan was interested in working with me, although he wanted to phase me into the radio station by giving me a four-hour Sunday night specialty show. When Dan was let go, PD Ted Taylor didn't even return one of the 120 calls I placed between 2/96 and 4/96. I still feel that had my proposal been implemented then, WLIR (WDRE) would have at least a 2.0 rating in Nassau/Suffolk today. I know it's a large step hiring somebody to program a station when they've never even been behind an air console before, but I know I have what it takes to be a sucessful programmer on the frequency that has a history of being cool, 92.7.
HELP! I'M SINKING IN A SEA OF RADIO MEDIOCRITY!!
The New York area is by far North America's most cosmopolitan metro center. The city and its suburbs represent a population of over 20,000,000 people from all different national and ethnic backgrounds. For a white 18-24 year-old living here, the radio scene is dreadful. Dreadful in that you have 92.3 K-Rock playing Soundgarden every 45 minutes, Z-100 playing Toni Braxton and The Spice Girls every half hour, WNEW re-hashing the same rock shit we've all been hearing for the last 20-30 years and WKTU playing the same 20 oldies every hour on the hour. The irony about all this, is that New York also hosts a very large club scene which is fueled by the underground buzz for dance music. PEOPLE WANT TO HEAR DANCE MUSIC. They look for it in the stores; they ask the DJs to make them tapes for $20 a pop; they buy up all the tickets when Chemical Brothers and Underworld tour; They follow DJs around. But where can they hear this music on the radio? Besides late night on Friday and Saturday, NOWHERE. And what does playing dance music late nights do for the fans of it anyways? Most of them are in a club at those hours.
WHAT ABOUT 92.7 WLIR? THAT WOULD BE A PERFECT DANCE STATION.
Yes it would. Don't think so? Read the history of the station.
In the 1980's, 92.7 WLIR ruled. They ruled because they were exclusive. While not being a massive Arbitron success, WLIR did quite well for themselves by playing the cool music which other stations wouldn't touch, presented by personality DJs whom the public took a liking to. Then the station got sold. It became WDRE, with many of the same cool kinks that WLIR had, only it was owned by a far more professional group than WLIR's original owner, Tex.
Unfortunately, WDRE lost Dennis MacNamara several years later, the PD who dared introduce the New York area to bands such as R.E.M, Depeche Mode, Human League, Heaven 17, U2, INXS, Psychedelic Furs, etc... In his place came the death of cool-ness as we know it, Tom Calderone, who made some of the dumbest moves one could make by dropping from the playlist core artists such as Pet Shop Boys, Depeche Mode, Erasure and all the other 80's synth-pop/gothic bands which were almost unanimously embraced by WDRE's vast tri-state area listenership. He had a bigger plan: Bring back guitars to the Island. This came at a time when 'grunge' or 'alternative rock' was making a surge in popularity in the U.S. Sure, Nirvana was good, so was Pearl Jam for a time, but then the whole thing became boring rather quickly. Because of this boringness which was being copied on like six other New York area stations, WDRE changed to the Underground Network (U.N.) with stations all over America and things went even further downhill. The problem there was that nobody took a station that played Stone Temple Pilots and called themselves 'underground' seriously.
