When Howard Stern announced his departure from terrestrial radio in late 2004, then-Infinity Broadcasting was left with a year to put together plans for replacements. In October, they announced a new initiative called Free-FM, branding all of its FM Talk stations under that name and included 4 different shows replacing Stern in various markets. Infinity also announced they would be flipping additional stations to the format including K-Rock in New York.
K-Rock, which was New York’s only source for current Rock music, had only earlier in the year refocused from Alternative to Mainstream Rock in an attempt to hold on to the audience leaving after Stern’s show ended each day. The new format was built in an attempt to keep the same audience all day.
On December 16th, 2005 following Howard Stern’s final show, the transition to Free-FM began with a preview montage leading into “Free Rock”, the broad Rock programming that will be featured on the weekends.
Listen to The Free-FM Preview Montage
The next step in the evolution to Free-FM came on January 1, 2006 with the change in call letters from WXRK to WFNY-FM.
Listen to the First WFNY-FM Legal ID
Finally, on January 3, 2006 at 6:00am the new 92.3 Free-FM debuted with the launch of The David Lee Roth Show, one of four syndicated programs brought by Infinity to replace Howard Stern. The complete inaugural line-up on Free-FM included:
6:00am – 10:00am – David Lee Roth
10:00am – 2:00pm – JV and Elvis (formerly known as The Doghouse on KYLD San Francisco)
2:00pm – 3:00pm – Penn Jillette
3:00pm – 7:00pm – The Radio Chick (Leslie Gold, formerly middays on WNEW and mornings on WAXQ)
7:00pm – 11:00pm – Booker (former afternoons on K-Rock and previously mornings on WNEW in its Blink incarnation)
11:00pm – 3:00am – Jake Fogelnest and Jackie Clarke
Listen to 92.3 Free-FM Debut
Wow… The end of an era.
Not only the end of the era, but the beginning of mediocrity. Not for nothing, but there are flashes of hillarity and brilliance in some of the shows. But geez louise, most of them–shockingly–are quite pedestrian. It’s like I’m listening to college radio again… But in a bad way…
Holy crap is David Lee Roth not interesting! And Jake Fogelnest? His show is just so insular. He’s funny at times, but it’s like one big in-joke. When I laugh at his show I really laugh, but then when it bombs it’s like I’ve got some annoying pot-head that won’t stop talking at party.
This is a major step backwards. More focus. More focus. More focus. Keep the funny. But more focus. A pirate radio station is more interesting.