(from Ricky:) Mike Joseph was the consultant behind this attempted modern-day replication of 60’s style Top-40. Joseph preceded Sklar at WABC in the 60’s.

In the early 1980s, CBS launched a new format on some of its owned and operated FM stations. In many respects, the format was reminiscent of 60s style Top 40 radio. B-96 (WBBM-FM) debuted in Chicago in 1983. Like other stations in the CBS FM group, B-96 featured format elements many contemporary radio programmers and consultants had dismissed as “clutter”, such as high energy personalities, jingles between every record, talkover weather jingles, phone bits, contests, and lots of reverb. I think the CBS FM approach was successful because it was an entertaining departure from the “less talk” stations of the day.

Most of the 1984 B-96 staff appears on this composite, including Don Geronimo in mornings with Mike Elston (news), Scott (Letourneau) O’Brian in middays, Gary Spears in afternoons, and Dave Robbins and Mark Windsor, nights. Check out Dave Robbins’ talkup of Van Halen’s “Panama” at the start of the clip. Can you talk that fast?

I got this clip in 1984 from my friend Scott Letourneau with whom I worked in the late 70s at KEEL in Shreveport. Scott simply pulled the tape from the station’s cassette skimmer one day and edited it down to the presentation here. There are plenty of B-96 airchecks floating around but you won’t find this one from the early days anywhere else.