WMMS

WMMS (100.7 FM, "The Buzzard") is a commercial radio station licensed to Cleveland, Ohio, United States, serving Greater Cleveland and much of Northeast Ohio. Owned by iHeartMedia, WMMS features a mix of active rock and hot talk with Rover's Morning Glory and Alan Cox, is the FM flagship for the Cavaliers AudioVerse and the Cleveland Guardians Radio Network, and also carries The House of Hair with Dee Snider. WMMS's studios are located at the Six Six Eight Building in downtown Cleveland's Gateway District; the transmitter is sited in Seven Hills. This station has been widely regarded throughout its history as one of the most influential rock outlets in American radio. Signing on in 1946 as the FM adjunct to WHK, the WMMS call sign was affixed in 1968 under Metromedia ownership. WMMS originally stood for "Metromedia Stereo" and was meant as a compliment to the newly established progressive rock format, which was dropped the following year in favor of automated music but reinstated by 1970¹. Metromedia sold both WHK and WMMS to Malrite Communications in 1972, which intended to flip WMMS to country but reversed course after significant community protests. John Gorman was hired as program director in 1973, a title he held until 1986.…

WMMS (100.7 FM, "The Buzzard") is a commercial radio station licensed to Cleveland, Ohio, United States, serving Greater Cleveland and much of Northeast Ohio. Owned by iHeartMedia, WMMS features a mix of active rock and hot talk with Rover's Morning Glory and Alan Cox, is the FM flagship for the Cavaliers AudioVerse and the Cleveland Guardians Radio Network, and also carries The House of Hair with Dee Snider. WMMS's studios are located at the Six Six Eight Building in downtown Cleveland's Gateway District; the transmitter is sited in Seven Hills. This station has been widely regarded throughout its history as one of the most influential rock outlets in American radio. Signing on in 1946 as the FM adjunct to WHK, the WMMS call sign was affixed in 1968 under Metromedia ownership. WMMS originally stood for "Metromedia Stereo" and was meant as a compliment to the newly established progressive rock format, which was dropped the following year in favor of automated music but reinstated by 1970. Metromedia sold both WHK and WMMS to Malrite Communications in 1972, which intended to flip WMMS to country but reversed course after significant community protests. John Gorman was hired as program director in 1973, a title he held until 1986. Under Gorman's leadership, WMMS had a stable of personalities that remained fundamentally unchanged, in particular morning hosts Jeff Kinzbach and Ed "Flash" Ferenc and afternoon host Kid Leo, and attained a dominant market share in local ratings. Debuting in April 1974, WMMS's promotional mascot has been an anthropomorphic "Buzzard" cartoon character, initially as a tongue-in-cheek reference to Cleveland's Rust Belt stigma and later becoming one of the most recognizable symbols in the city. WMMS played a key role in breaking several major acts in the United States, including David Bowie, Rush, and Bruce Springsteen, the latter's rise attributed heavily to Leo's support. Springsteen's 1978 concert at the Agora Ballroom celebrating WMMS' 10th anniversary was critically acclaimed, regionally syndicated and heavily bootlegged. Station employees went on to take director and executive-level positions in the recording industry, namely with labels RCA, Mercury, and Columbia. Noted filmmakers, including Cameron Crowe (Almost Famous) and Paul Schrader (Light of Day), have called on WMMS personnel for assistance. WMMS was a major driving force behind the successful campaign to bring the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to Cleveland. The station competed aggressively against WWWM for listeners in the 1970s, and then with WGCL in the 1980s. By 1983, WMMS began playing increasing amounts of contemporary hit radio songs alongside the standard rock playlist in what was dubbed "Rock Forty". Facing a deteriorating environment with upper management, Gorman and multiple staffers jointly resigned on August 1986 to flip WGCL to WNCX. Rolling Stone named WMMS its "Best Radio Station" for a large market from 1979 to 1987 as part of their annual Readers' Poll, but the station admitted to stuffing the 1987 ballot following a February 1988 front-page story in The Plain Dealer exposing manipulation. Amid subsequent years of management and airstaff turnover, the station's ratings, and those of Kinzbach and Ferenc, began to decline significantly in 1992 following WNCX's addition of The Howard Stern Show. Facing significant debt issues, Malrite sold their radio division to Shamrock Broadcasting, who promptly resold WHK and WMMS to former Malrite executive, and WMJI owner, Carl Hirsch. Hirsch's April 1994 takeover induced the departure of Kinzbach and Ferenc, but returned Gorman to the program director role alongside a relaunch as "Buzzard Radio: The Next Generation", with an alternative rock focus. The following month, a WMMS engineer severed a transmission line during a live remote broadcast of Stern's show intended as a mock "funeral" for the Buzzard; several staffers pled guilty in court to the federal offense and WMMS' license faced scrutiny. Hirsch sold WMMS and WMJI to WGAR-FM owner Nationwide Communications in 1996, resulting in Gorman's second departure. WMMS was refocused to an active rock presentation with shock jock Liz Wilde, who sued the station after being fired over low ratings. Nationwide sold its radio division to Jacor the following year; after the sale closed, WMMS underwent a month-long "Death of the Buzzard" publicity stunt implying a format switch that was cancelled at the last minute. Clear Channel (now iHeartMedia) bought Jacor in 1999. WMMS became notorious between 1994 and 2008 for an inability to find a successful morning show, a problem that was ultimately resolved with the addition of Rover. The station also began emphasizing talk in the afternoons, first with Maxwell from 2004 to 2009, and with Alan Cox from 2010 onward. Co-flagship of the Cleveland Browns Radio Network from 1991 to 1993 and again from 2001 to 2012, WMMS has been co-flagship of the Guardians since 2012 and the Cavaliers since 2014. In addition to a standard analog transmission, WMMS broadcasts over three HD Radio channels and is available online via iHeartRadio. WMMS-HD2 is relayed over translator W256BT ( ) and has a sports format as "Sports Radio 99.1". WMMS-HD3, relayed over translator W266CJ ( ), is the Cleveland affiliate for the Black Information Network. ==History== ====Coffee Break Concerts==== During this time, WMMS also began broadcasting a remarkable number of live concerts, many of which originated in Cleveland and were produced by the station itself. The WMMS Coffee Break Concert was a weekly music-interview show broadcast live from the station's studio, and later with an audience at the Agora Ballroom. Warren Zevon, John Mellencamp, Lou Reed, Tim Buckley, Peter Frampton, and a host of others performed on the program over the years, recordings of which are still widely available as bootlegs. The WMMS Coffee Break Concerts were booked and directed by Denny Sanders and hosted by Len "Boom" Goldberg, Debbie Ullman, and later, Matt the Cat. The concert series continued on well into the 1990s and early 2000s, albeit much less frequently. ===Album-oriented rock (1973–1994)=== ====From "Find Me" to FM powerhouse==== In July 1973, John Gorman joined WMMS as music director and was promoted to program director and operations manager two months later where he remained for thirteen years. During this time, with Denny Sanders as his creative services director and Rhonda Kiefer as programming assistant, WMMS broke all Cleveland ratings and revenue records. WMMS was the first radio station to employ full-time promotion and marketing directors: Dan Garfinkel and his successor, Jim Marchyshyn. In time, the station adopted new slogans reflecting the callsign: "We're your Modern Music Station" and "your Music Marathon Station." Although never used on the air, listeners alternately knew the callsign as an acronym for "Weed Makes Me Smile" and "Magic MushroomS," the latter referencing the somewhat controversial logo used before the Buzzard. WMMS also began referring to its frequency in promotions as "101 FM", a rounding-off which continued for the next decade. . Poster by David Helton. ]] Contrary to what many believe, the choice of the second Malrite logo had nothing to do with Buzzard Day, the annual "folksy event" held in Hinckley Township, Ohio. Rather, WMMS adopted a buzzard as its mascot in April 1974 because of the then tenuous economic state of Cleveland – less than five years away from becoming the first major American city to enter into default since the Great Depression – and the winged-creature's classification as a scavenger. In other words, the carrion-eating bird represented "death and dying" – a darkly comic reflection of the city's decline. EC horror comics, Fritz the Cat, Rocky and Bullwinkle, and Looney Tunes – all served as inspirations for the "bird of prey with attitude" concept. The station was known as "The Home of the Buzzard" at first. The Buzzard was the co-creation of Gorman, Sanders and American Greetings artist David Helton. A study conducted by MBA students at Case Western Reserve University in 1975 found that the new WMMS logo was more recognizable to those living in Greater Cleveland than both Chief Wahoo of the Cleveland Indians and even Coca-Cola. In 1981, Radio & Records identified "the malevolent feathered figure" as "the best-known station symbol in the country." From the onset, Helton's streamlined artwork resulted in an aggressive, yet family-friendly symbol for the station, one that continues to endure more than 40 years later. The Buzzard became synonymous with WMMS, Cleveland radio and the city itself, spawning a series of T-shirts so numerous that they are now impossible to catalog, many with slogans like "Where Music Means Something" and "Ruler of the Airwaves." A major contributor to the ratings success was an airstaff that remained fundamentally unchanged for many years: personalities like Kid Leo, Jeff & Flash, Matt the Cat, Dia Stein, Denny Sanders, Murray Saul, Debbie Ullman, Betty "Crash" Korvan, Ruby Cheeks (Debra Luray), BLF Bash (Bill Freeman), TR (Tom Renzy) and the late Len "Boom" Goldberg were invaluable to the station's popularity. Of all the personalities that worked at WMMS, Len "Boom" Goldberg remained the longest. He joined the station in early 1972 before its sale to Malrite, and stayed in different capacities until 2004. He was best known as the voice for the station's hourly IDs, music segues, sweepers, and commercials, and was also a member of The Buzzard Morning Zoo in the mid-80s. ImageSize = width:800 height:auto barincrement:20 PlotArea = left:170 bottom:65 top:20 right:30 Alignbars = justify DateFormat = mm/dd/yyyy Period = from:01/01/1970 till:01/01/2005 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal format:yyyy Colors = id:orangeA value:redorange legend:Years_at_WMMS id:Lines value:black legend:Station_ownership_change id:bars value:gray(0.92) Legend = orientation:vertical position:bottom BackgroundColors = bars:bars ScaleMajor = increment:2 start:1970 ScaleMinor = increment:1 start:1970 LineData = at:01/01/1973 color:black layer:back at:01/01/1992 color:black layer:back at:01/01/1994 color:black layer:back at:01/01/1996 color:black layer:back at:01/01/1998 color:black layer:back at:01/01/1999 color:black layer:back BarData = bar:Denny text:Denny Sanders bar:Boom text:Len "Boom" Goldberg bar:Gorman text:John Gorman bar:Kid text:Kid Leo (Lawrence Travagliante) bar:Matt text:"Matt the Cat" Lapczynski bar:Betty text:Betty "Krash" Korvan bar:Jeff text:Jeff Kinzbach bar:Flash text:Ed "Flash" Ferenc bar:BLF text:BLF Bash (Bill Freeman) PlotData= width:10 textcolor:black align:left anchor:from shift:(10,-4) bar:Denny from:01/01/1971 till:12/31/1986 color:orangeA bar:Gorman from:01/01/1973 till:12/31/1986 color:orangeA bar:Gorman from:01/01/1994 till:01/01/1996 color:orangeA bar:Boom from:01/01/1972 till:12/31/2003 color:orangeA bar:Kid from:01/01/1973 till:10/31/1988 color:orangeA bar:Matt from:01/01/1973 till:10/31/1988 color:orangeA bar:Matt from:01/01/1990 till:10/31/1992 color:orangeA bar:Betty from:01/01/1973 till:12/31/1983 color:orangeA bar:Jeff from:01/01/1973 till:12/31/1993 color:orangeA bar:Flash from:01/01/1974 till:12/31/1993 color:orangeA bar:BLF from:01/01/1975 till:12/31/1997 color:orangeA WMMS during this period would play a key role in breaking several major acts in the US, including: Rush, Roxy Music, Bruce Springsteen, Southside Johnny, Fleetwood Mac, Meat Loaf, The Pretenders, the New York Dolls, Lou Reed, Mott the Hoople, Boston, and The Sensational Alex Harvey Band. Of special note was the early support of Bruce Springsteen by Kid Leo and others, prior to the release of the Born to Run album. For the station's tenth anniversary in 1978, WMMS hosted and broadcast a live Springsteen concert at the Agora Ballroom independent of his concert tour. Heavily bootlegged, the concert further cemented the relationship between the two in fans' minds, and well into the 2000s Cleveland remains one of Springsteen's strongest bases. Right up until his departure in 1988, Kid Leo played "Born to Run" as his signature sign-off song every Friday night at 5:55 to kick off the weekend for area listeners. Leo was chosen for Rolling Stone's "Heavy Hundred: The High and Mighty of the Music Industry" (1980) and named "The Best Disc Jockey in the Country" in a special 1987 issue of Playboy. ====World Series of Rock==== The World Series of Rock was a recurring, day-long and usually multi-act summer rock concert held outdoors at Cleveland Municipal Stadium from 1974 through 1980. Staged by Belkin Productions and sponsored by WMMS, the concerts attracted popular hard rock bands and boasted as many as 88,000 fans; attendance was by general admission. Concertgoers occasionally fell – or jumped – off the steep stadium upper deck onto the concrete seating area far below, causing serious injury. The Cleveland Free clinic staffed aid stations in the stadium with physicians, nurses and other volunteers, and through 1977, made its treatment statistics public. From 1978 on, Belkin Productions conditioned its funding of the Free Clinic on the nondisclosure of the number of Clinic staff on duty at the concerts, the nature of conditions treated and the number of patients treated. ====Rock Forty and the Rock Hall==== WMMS was directly influenced by then and current sister station WHTZ/New York City (Z100), which rose to the top of the ratings books immediately after installing a contemporary hit radio (CHR) format. Among the more significant moves taken by WMMS was the formatting of the morning zoo concept created by Z100's Scott Shannon onto the show Jeff & Flash (Jeff Kinzbach and Ed Ferenc) were already hosting. Kinzbach and Ferenc had already been a morning team – with sidekicks – since 1976, seven years prior to adopting the "morning zoo" label, so the basic structure was already in place. The music structure also was modified at this time as artists such as Michael Jackson, Madonna and Prince soon found airplay on WMMS. The change was done for many reasons: as a nod to the sudden influence Z100's format had on the Malrite group; Gorman and Sanders intention to stay with the current music trends as the album-oriented rock (AOR) format was, even then, in a state of decline; and as a means to attract a female audience. By 1984, the WMMS format moved to an CHR/AOR hybrid, playing a great deal of Top 40 rock singles in hot rotation mixed with album cuts; this new blended rock/Top 40 format was soon known by those at the station as Rock Forty. The station also started to devote a Saturday night program to the classic rock artists and groups. In the mid-1980s, WMMS was an important contributor in organizing a campaign (along with former Cleveland ad agency president Edward Spizel and author-deejay Norm N. Nite) which brought the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to Cleveland. John Gorman, Denny Sanders and Kid Leo organized the original campaign with Tunc Erim, assistant to Atlantic Records president Ahmet Ertegun. Jeff & Flash were also credited as being major contributors in bringing the Rock Hall to Cleveland, by heavily promoting on-air a USA Today reader poll to decide which city should get it. John Gorman and Denny Sanders left the station in fall of 1986, leading fourteen staff members with them to start rival station WNCX. Gorman credits his decision to leave to changes in management, and the station's overall shift to a more "corporate" mentality. ====Rolling Stone Readers' Poll==== Rolling Stone named WMMS "Radio Station of the Year" nine straight years (1979–1987) as part of its annual Readers' Poll, but a February 1988 front-page story in The Plain Dealer revealed station employees had stuffed the annual survey's ballot box for the 1987 poll to allow for the possibility of a tenth straight win the following year. Lonnie Gronek, then general manager of the station, claimed in The Plain Dealer article that the process had gone on "for years", however other accounts dispute Gronek's claim. The station claimed it was simply "a marketing strategy" and "much in line with what many stations did." Negative reaction was swift and widespread; some called the scheme a mere "lack of judgement," while a reporter for the Akron Beacon Journal compared the station's response to that of discredited former Vice-president Spiro Agnew. ====Changing times==== By the late 1980s, most of the original staff members had departed: John Gorman and Denny Sanders left in 1986 to launch upstart station WNCX, and Columbia Records hired Kid Leo in 1988. Four different program directors, including Rich Piombino and Michael Luczak, came and went with varying levels of success. DJ additions included station engineer Ric Bennett as "Rocco the Rock Dog," Scooter (WMMS music director Brad Hanson), Tom "Jack" Daniels, Lisa Dillon and veteran Matt the Cat, who returned to the midday slot in 1990 after a two-year absence. Ratings steadily increased during the time of the First Gulf War, but The Howard Stern Show was soon picked up by a then struggling WNCX. Stern's ratings exploded and this – along with a growing urgency from management not to compete with or mention Stern on the air – led to a sudden and steep ratings decline for The Buzzard Morning Zoo. Matt the Cat was permanently let go in December 1992 due to "budget problems." From 1991 to 1993, WMMS served as the FM flagship for the Cleveland Browns, sharing coverage with then-sister WHK; the late Nev Chandler served as play-by-play announcer. Unable to service its growing debt, Malrite chose to leave radio and sold off all its remaining properties in 1993: WMMS went to Shamrock Broadcasting, the Roy Disney broadcasting firm. Management ordered a change to the Buzzard by giving it a flat-top and mullet. The station continued to decline during the ownership transition from Malrite to Shamrock; then Shamrock sold both WMMS and WHK to OmniAmerica, a broadcasting company run by former Malrite executives Carl Hirsch and Dean Thacker, which already owned oldies station WMJI. WMMS' decline culminated on April 14, 1994, with the high-profile departure of Jeff Kinzbach, effectively ending "Jeff & Flash" on WMMS (Ferenc would leave the station several weeks later; both would pair up again at WWWE). Lisa Dillon, Ric Bennett and Tom Renzy also would depart the station that same day. ====The Cleveland Funeral==== One of the most notorious broadcasts of The Howard Stern Show occurred on June 10, 1994. Stern had arrived on the Cleveland airwaves less than two years earlier, and in that time took his syndicated program on rival WNCX from an Arbitron ranking of thirteen to number one. As promised, Stern held a party for his fans on the streets of Cleveland – a "Funeral" for his local rivals, much like similar events held in New York City, Los Angeles and Philadelphia – and broadcast it nationwide. During the now infamous broadcast, WMMS engineer William Alford snipped a broadcast wire used for the Stern show's satellite feed. Stern continued on with the program over a phone line as engineers worked to quickly patch together the severed broadcast wire. Alford was subsequently caught, arrested and later sentenced to ten days in jail and a $1,000 fine. Station management initially claimed that Alford acted alone, however WMMS Promotions Director Heidi Klosterman – working under the name Heidi Kramer – later pleaded guilty to a felony charge of attempted disruption of a public service and a misdemeanor of receiving stolen property; Greg Smith, a former Klosterman colleague, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor of breaking and entering. ===Alternative rock (1994–97)=== ====BuzzardFest==== During this time, WMMS held a series of sold-out rock festivals that featured many of the new up-and-coming artists receiving station airplay. Buzzard-Palooza was the first of these: held in July 1994 at the Nautica Stage, the all-day concert included sets from Collective Soul, Junkhouse and Fury in the Slaughterhouse, but was cut short after turning into a "rock-and-bottle-throwing melee." Cleveland Police wearing riot gear were called in just as headliner Green Day took the stage. WMMS scheduled a second Green Day performance just two months later – this time at Blossom Music Center – and at a near-record-low cost of $5 per ticket, the station gave fans a "second chance" to see the band live. The Ramones headlined BuzzardFest '95 the following spring (May 1995) at Blossom; other acts included Our Lady Peace, The Rugburns and Face to Face. BuzzardFest II was held the very next fall (September 1995) – again at Blossom – and featured performances from the Goo Goo Dolls, Alanis Morissette, Jewel, as well as the Dance Hall Crashers, Eleven, Green Apple Quick Step, Prick and Sons of Elvis. The next of these multi-act shows, simply titled BuzzardFest, was held in May 1996 at Blossom Music Center and featured performances from 311 and No Doubt, along with Candlebox, The Nixons, Goldfinger, Gods Child, Dash Rip Rock, Holy Barbarians, and Canadian rock band The Tragically Hip. BuzzardFest 2000 was held on June 30, 2000, at the Nautica Stage; Stone Temple Pilots, performing in Cleveland for the first time in six years, headlined the event. ===Active rock (since 1997)=== ====Morning troubles==== From the 1994 exit of Jeff Kinzbach and Ed Ferenc until the arrival of Rover's Morning Glory in 2008, WMMS gained notoriety for airing 13 distinct shows in morning drive. Ross Brittain temporarily filled in prior to the arrival of The Brian and Joe Radio Show on the Buzzard Morning Zoo, hosted by Brian Fowler and Joe Cronauer. Brian and Joe were moved to afternoons in February 1997 after a change in ownership, with shock jock Liz Wilde (Anne Whittemore) from WPLL/Miami taking their place; her firing less than a year later sparked a successful lawsuit against both the station and then-owner Nationwide Communications. Danny Czekalinski and Darla Jaye teamed up in October 1997 with Liz Wilde holdover Cory Lingus (Cory Gallant) until August 1998. Matt Harris served in the interim until WMMS hired Dick Dale (Bert Morris) from WPLA/Jacksonville. In 2000, the station turned to Wakin' up with Wolf and Mulrooney – hosted by Bob Wolf and John Mulrooney – from Albany's WPYX, which initially continued to originate and simulcast the program. The team did later relocate to Cleveland, but lasted only a few months until an acrimonious breakup between Wolf and Mulrooney. Other shows, like The Buzzard Morning Show with Rick and Megalis (Rick Eberhart, Tom Megalis) and WMMS Mornings with Sean, Cristi, and Hunter (Sean Kelly, Cristi Cantle, Hunter Scott), came and went in quick succession. Cantle later called the failure of Sean, Cristi and Hunter as "a real team effort" and compared herself unfavorably to Johnny Manziel: "too young, too overconfident and too drunk to handle the responsibility... however I have no intentions of playing Canadian football". Finally, The Bob & Tom Show aired in the time slot from 2006 until April 2008. ==Current programming== WMMS features Rover's Mornings Glory in mornings, Corey Rotic middays, and The Alan Cox Show in afternoons, while other talent is voice-tracked via iHeartMedia's internal "Premium Choice" network. Rover's show is nationally syndicated via Premiere Networks and is available through multiple digital platforms. The House of Hair with Dee Snider also airs on Sunday evenings. The station serves as the FM flagship for both the Cavaliers AudioVerse and the Cleveland Guardians Radio Network. ==Notes== ==References== ==Documentaries== ==External links== WMMS at Case Western Reserve University's Encyclopedia of Cleveland History

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