RIP: WHTS (All Hit 98.9)

[musicradio77]

There is an article courtesy of the Quad-City Tmes about the demise of WHTS All Hit 98.9. It was a sad day for radio. I'm not super familiar with the Quad City market that All Hit 98.9 did their farewell show last night at 10:00 PM. It featured all their current hits and even a few stuff that I've never heard of before. And finally the last song that was played on All Hit 98.9 was "Amercian Pie" by Don McLean. It was the end of an era. It was a ending since WABC left the airwaves back in 1982 where the station flipped to talk after Top 40 was done. There were also the way that WNBC signed off in 1988, same as WCBS-FM flipped from oldies to "Jack" and finally K-Rock switched to a hot talk format known as Free-FM after his departure from Howard Stern back in December. And now, WHTS, All Hit 98.9 signed off the air forever. Take a look at the article:

Tears, final songs fill radio station’s last day

By David Burke

Thirteen-year-old Mariah Armstrong and her mother drove about 55 miles from Galesburg, Ill., to Davenport on Friday afternoon to say goodbye to her favorite radio station.

“I’ve been crying because now there won’t be anybody to talk to,” Mariah said as she stood outside the studios of WHTS-FM 98.9, or All-Hit 98.9. “And they played the best music.”

Mariah’s tears weren’t the only ones as listeners, co-workers and radio staff past and present steadily streamed into the basement studios of Clear Channel Broadcasting’s Quad-City Radio Group.

The oldest FM signal in Davenport, 98.9, was forced to be sold by its owner, Mercury Broadcasting, which had an agreement with Clear Channel to operate the station.

As of midnight today, the signal broadcasts “K-Love,” a satellite-delivered, Christian pop music format operated by California-based EMF Broadcasting.

For the past 19 years, the station has played top-40 music, first as WPXR-FM, or Power 98.9, and since 1995 as All-Hit 98.9.

Afternoon host “Red Hot” Brian Scott, who has worked at the station for most of the past seven years, took listeners’ music requests spanning the past 20-plus years and regretted not being able to read the deluge of e-mail he had received, much less answer the messages.

“Everyone in this area has listened to this form of pop culture — All-Hit 98.9, Power 98.9 — and the vibe is ‘You’re taking away part of my childhood,’ ” said Scott, who fought back tears numerous times during his last afternoon air shift Friday.

The sale was announced in early December, but staff members did not know until this week when the switch would take place.

“It’s like when someone’s on life-support,” Scott said. “You know the inevitable’s going to happen.”

Larry Rosmilso, general manager of the station, said the mood had been somber throughout the day.

“It’s like a funeral, when the family knows someone is dying and going away,” he said.

Rosmilso said some of the songs that were played on All-Hit 98.9 will be heard now on sister station KMXG-FM (96.1), or Mix 96, which is making alterations to its adult contemporary format.

“Now we can put music on that fits the Mix genre but still is very popular with the ’HTS listeners,” he said.

Plans for the final hour of WHTS were for as many former on-air staff members as possible to “gather together, talk and hang out and share stories and talk to listeners,” Scott said.

“Eleven-fifty-nine — I’d better watch it or I’ll get teary — is the end.”

Scott doesn’t have a new job lined up, but several other staffers have moved on to new markets. Program director Tony Waitekus is with a pop music station in New Bern, N.C. Morning show host “Malibu” Mark Manuel has the same shift at a new country station in Madison, Wis. And nighttime host Darik Christopher is leaving for a job in Colorado Springs.

Waitekus, in a telephone call to Scott, said all of the staff was grateful for the outpouring of emotion at the station’s demise.

“Music and radio have always been based on an emotional tie to people,” Waitekus said. “Over time, that emotional tie is taken for granted. But since people know that tie is going to be broken, that emotional tie certainly comes to the foreground. People are losing something they assume has always been there.”

He was awestruck by the listeners’ show of support for the staff.

“It’s nice to know we’ve touched people that way,” he said, “but people have touched us, too.”

I want you to listen to the last two hours of All Hit 98.9. This was sad news.

http://airchecks.tmesser.com/audio/w...359-scoped.mp3