Recapturing the 'Country Giant'

I recently wrote a short commentary which was published in the January 4, 2006 edition of Radio World. Since Radio World primarily goes to people inside the radio industry, I've decided to share that article here as well.

_____________________

I grew up in Tallahassee, Fla., in a home where my parents listened to the radio regularly - mostly country music on WMEN(AM) 1330 and Paul Harvey over on Top 40 station WTAL(AM) 1450. However, it wasn't until 1969, when I was 11, that I truly discovered radio for myself during a summer trip to the beach.

Hooked on a format
My grandfather's house was located on Mexico Beach, between Port St. Joe and Panama City, Fla. That summer, I happened to take along a small transsistor radio and tuned into "Big Joe Radio", officially WJOE(AM) on 1080,
operating with 1,000 watts of country music. WJOE programmed both new and classic country, along with a daily dose of community news, the twice-daily "Swap Shop," weather forecasts and tide information and a few morning preachers.
Somehow, during that week, I became hooked - not only to WJOE, but also
the "country giant" breed of station in general.
Over the next few years, I discovered lots of these stations, both in our area and later in other parts of the country. My favorite was WLOR (AM) 730, located 6/10 of a mile from the city of Thomasville, Ga., in an old farmhouse.
WLOR had gospel music and preaching shows in the midmorning, agriculture reports at noon, and their version of the "Swap Shop" at 1 p.m.
Like WJOE, the Thomasville station had a lot of the old Pepper-Tanner
jingles that managed to sing out "country giant" along with the call letters and frequency. I heard similar sounding packages on WFIV(AM) 1080 in Kissimmee, Fla; WGKR(AM) 1310 in Perry, Fla., and later WJRZ in New Jersey and KFOX in California.
(I'm editing out part of the story here..)
Most of those stations are gone now. WJOE and WGKR have been silent for years; WLOR is now WSTT with gospel music, WMEN is now WCVC running EWTN Catholic talk.
After retiring from WCVC in 2004 due to its impending format change, I prepared to launch a tribute to these great stations. I chose WJJD as my station of choice, due to its high profile and the fact that many of the stations about which I wrote patterened their programming after WJJD's.
In September (2005) I relaunched the webcast of WJJD, The Country Giant.
A colleague, Erwin O'Conner, who worked at Chattanooga's WDOD (AM/FM)
in its earlier days, donated a classic country music collection dating to the 1950s.
(another edit for brevity!)
For you radio buffs who miss the "country giant" style of programming, I think you will discover the broadcasts to be quite retro-sounding, and yes, quite different and laid-back compared to many of today's radio stations. I hope you enjoy it, and I want to say thank you to the fine folks who have helped bring this project to reality.
The webcast for WJJD is available at http://www.live365.com/stations/alanmccall http://www.live365.com/stations/alanmccall