As Soft AC started becoming more and more popular in the 80s, many stations began flipping to the format. In mid 80s, CHR station WBTT “B97″ became “Light 97 WLTQ” with the soft AC format. Through the years, WLTQ was Milwaukee’s premiere Soft AC station. When it came to the well known syndicated show Delilah, WLTQ was there running it back in the 90s before the show expanded to the way it is now. WLTQ was also known for running all Christmas music during the season. During 2003 and 2004, the station’s ratings have been falling considerably. Rumors have been flying that the station was going to flip to Air America. On September 17th 2004, the 11:00AM Hour was filled with songs hinting that the end was coming. The last 2 songs on Light 97.3 were Green Day “Time Of Your Life” and Phil Collins “We Said Hello Goodbye”. At 12noon, the station started stunting with songs with the words “Air” and “America” in the song title or artist name. Liners during the stunting said that “Milwaukee will be TALKing about 97.3” with clips of Air America’s Al Franken from his days on SNL. And told people to tune in Monday at 6AM. This immediately made people think that Air America was coming to Milwaukee. But some people changed their minds after finding websites for a station called “The Brew” and noticed that the audio processing was changing and adding more bass. Speculations then began of an 80s based format. Sure enough Monday September 20th 2004 at 6AM, “97.3 The Brew: The Rock Of 80s & More” was born with 10,000 songs in a row. The Brew features popular rock from the 70s, 80s and early 90s.
Aircheck and Summary contributed by Jeremy Andrews
