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"Son Of Steve", 96.7-2:November 2013 (gone again)   15 comments

Posted at 11:26 pm in Uncategorized

Since we were talking about radio today, I thought I'd note the passing of Son Of Steve.

When TV went digital a few years back, it was almost like having cable-lite: Each channel was now split into two or three subchannels, and along with the all-weather-all-the-time air filler, we also got fairly nice content like Me TV.

I finally got a digital radio for my car after the first replacement radio gave out and found that the same thing was true for it. Of course, in Columbia, that is not saying a great deal as the only digital channels I can think of here are WUSC and 967 Steve FM. While WUSC does run a secondary channel, it always seems to be some sort of world music that I don't care for when I hit it.

Steve, on the other hand, ran a secondary channel dubbed Son Of Steve which was, in theory, a 90s jukebox. I always got the feeling that it was someone's pet project and didn't get a lot of attention from management. For one thing, there were never any commercials, so, while that was nice, it can't have been a money-maker. For another thing nobody ever went through and equalized the levels on the promos and inserts -- they were always much louder than the music, to the extent that you had to hit the volume knob sometimes. And finally, it really wasn't a 90s channel. In fact, it seemed to skew 80s more often than not. Still, I like the 80s, and it was always a sure bet to find an actual song while commercial hopping amongst all the other local stations.

The way my car radio works is when you hit the primary channel for a digital station, the next time you hit the seek button, it hops to the secondary channels in order. So, I was used to punching the Steve button, and then hitting seek to hop to Son Of Steve. I was somewhat surprised last month when doing that tuned in a sermon. It turns out that if there is no secondary channel on Steve, the next hop is 97.1 which seems to be a religious station.

Interestingly, I can't find anything on the web to prove that Son Of Steve ever existed. If it was ever anywhere on the WLTY web site or any promo material, it's gone now, and it seems nobody else ever mentioned it online.

UPDATE 21 April 2014: Gone again.

Written by ted on December 3rd, 2013

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15 Responses to '"Son Of Steve", 96.7-2:November 2013 (gone again)'

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  1. I wouldn't know a thing about digital radio. My car is so old it has a cassette deck in the dash and a six disc CD changer in the trunk. My home stereo is still centered around an old Kenwood amp I bought int he 80's an a set of Realistic Mach Two speakers.

    But I digress. Several years ago I added a Sirius/XM receiver to my car and since then I RARELY listen to conventional radio. Awesome station selection, no commercials on most channels and no crappy DJ's talking over songs and carrying on and on trying to be funny. It's money well spent.

    Homer

    4 Dec 13 at 12:21 am

  2. I got hooked on XM in '99 when I bought a car and received free service for 6 months. I thought about dropping the service several times (every year when the invoice shows up for renewal) but a quick spin around the FM dial convinces me to re-up.

    Terry

    4 Dec 13 at 2:04 am

  3. Ted - where is that tower in the pic? Is it one of the old WIS-AM towers down towards the river?

    Homer

    4 Dec 13 at 2:58 am

  4. @Homer, yep that's from here.

    ted

    4 Dec 13 at 7:16 am

  5. I honestly could not imagine driving without XM after having had it for so many years. I couldn't name a single local station, having only spun through the dial once when I first came up here house-hunting way back when and deciding on the spot to keep XM forever if this was what I had to choose from up here.

    Jason

    4 Dec 13 at 9:38 am

  6. Steve FM (WLTY) tower is located behind WFMV studios Millwood Ave. The tower has WCOS-AM and WLTY-FM antennas located on the tower.

    mike

    4 Dec 13 at 10:44 am

  7. I'm pretty bummed that Son-of-Steve disappeared without a word. For what it's worth, "Steve-FM" is not a one off station, there are numerous "insert-some-name-here"-FM. Bob-FM in Ottawa, Ontario comes to mind.

    As for XM... After the trial, and seeing how much repetition there was... No thanks.

    J.P.

    4 Dec 13 at 11:24 am

  8. I have enjoyed listening to B106.7 and rarely find myself out of their signal range...my current car's radio isn't compatible with XM and at this point I think I would need to travel more than I do to justify XM.

    Andrew

    4 Dec 13 at 11:44 am

  9. On the off chance that I am listening to the radio at home I usually flip between Steve and the Palm. If I want to listend to something heavier I'll go to 93.5. I used to listen to Fox 102 but you can only stand Sweet Home Alabama and Don't Fear the Reaper so many times.....

    Homer

    4 Dec 13 at 9:27 pm

  10. @mike -- Hmm I would not have guessed Millwood. I did know it wasn't the one in the picture, of course -- I was just looking for a generic looking radio tower as an illustration.

    @J.P. -- year, I've run into a bunch of them. The one in Charleston is, of course, "Chuck".

    WUSC still has some gems, but if you don't like what you just heard, you're probably not going to like the next hour (and the kids tend to over-talk).

    ted

    5 Dec 13 at 1:54 am

  11. @J.P. - repetition is something you just have to live with be it commercial or satellite. I think it was WNOK-FM, years ago, that experimented with the pre-recorded, no DJ format. It was so bad that after a while you knew what song was going to be played next by what was currently being aired. It really sucked!!!!

    Homer

    5 Dec 13 at 2:34 am

  12. It was the mid eighties WNOK did that. I worked at a pool and the radio was horrible. "Oh, God...Madonna's coming up next..."

    tonkatoy

    5 Dec 13 at 7:42 am

  13. And son-of-steve is back on the airwaves, still at 96.7-HD2!

    JP

    J.P.

    27 Jan 14 at 11:28 am

  14. So it is! I wonder what that was all about?

    ted

    27 Jan 14 at 10:37 pm

  15. Vinyl Classic Radio seems to be gone and 96.7-HD2 is now just simulcasting the base channel.

    ted

    9 Aug 17 at 1:00 am

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