Dan Mason began his career in radio doing overnights at WKLO in Kentucky. In 1974 he moved to nights at Z-93 / WZGC-FM in Atlanta. He was later named Asst. Program Director and became Program Director in 1975. Dan joined WPGC in May of 1977 during the 'Great Strike That Struck Out'. He left for the General Manager position at KTSA / KTFM in San Antonio in 1979.

During his tenure he successfully moved the station in a more adult friendly direction during the day yet still maintained programming catering to teens at night. By the time of this tape in 1978, WPGC had truly become multi-generational in appeal to both Adults who had grown up with the station in the '60's as well as their offspring.

It was not uncommon to hear an artist such as Anne Murray in the daytime yet KISS at night. Future format fragmentation would eventually put an end to that but with a one-two knockout punch like that, it was no wonder WPGC would unseat WMAL within a few months after this aircheck as the 12+ champ in DC.

Dan also became the first off-air Program Director in the station's history when he was promoted to National Program Director for First Media, WPGC's owner at the time. He would however pull the occasional fill in shift as the need arose and his schedule permitted.

Heard here just a couple of days before the holidays, Dan's high energy approach is contagious. This was a station that was anything but sleepy! You'll hear him mention major station promotions such as the Toys For Tots concert that WPGC had presented a couple of weeks earlier at the Capital Centre as well as the upcoming 2nd Annual Unknown Star contest. Other contesting present on the station at the time were Blues Brothers albums.

Although none are contained on this aircheck, jingles in use were from JAM's Positron package, created the year before for WABC / NY and rank as some of the finest ever used on both stations. Interestingly, they were not used out of commercial sets.

1978 saw the advent of segueing two songs together without any station identifying element in between. Backsells of both titles were brief and heard exiting the latter of the two. A concerted effort to streamline the presentation minus typical mechanics associated with Top 40 was obviously underway. FM was now king and that's reflected in the Legal ID where the familiar 'AM & FM, Morningside' (great name for a website!) had now been replaced by 'FM& AM'.

'News' consisted of a series of music industry stories covering artists as diverse as Bob Luman, Donna Summer & Dolly Parton and fell under the general entertainment related and lifestyle oriented dictate of 'Happy News' in vogue in the industry at the time. Though hard news stories were covered in morning drive, the focus in the other dayparts was on more palatable topics to a music hungry audience.

Shortly before the tape ends, listen for a quick topical holiday greeting voiced by midday guy, Dave Foxx. Ironically, he would eventually wind up doing mornings on the station in the early '80's.

 

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