A new owner and other changes for 1260 AM

The staff tried everything to attempt to gain points in the ratings war. One rather interesting ploy was a completely new non-music format. WMMM switched to all comedy programming. The new format featured comics from the likes of the Three Stooges to George Carlin. The best known routines of these performers were showcased. While this format managed to propel the station to more than a 3 share, this lead didn't last long. With a limited amount of programming the laughs became stale fast. The station returned to it's former music format.

After a lengthy battle to keep the station afloat, Donald Flamm would finally sell the struggling AM station. Robert "Red" Graham, known as being co-creator of the popular "Duffy's Tavern" radio program of the 1930's and owner of Westport's Minuteman Travel, purchased the station in 1987. His son, Mark, served as executive vice president and news director while Gary Flamm stayed on in the capacity of sales manager. Some of the changes that took place behind the scenes included the transition to a CD based music format. The station purchased the Century 21 Gold Disk library as its prime music source, augmented with other oldies disks from a variety of sources. New equipment purchases included a new studio-transmitter link system, updated modulation monitors as well as new CD players for the production and on-air studios.

Around the time I became chief engineer for the station a new general manager took over. Lou Griest had some rather unique ideas for the station. Without much knowledge of the higher-ups, he "had a vision" of new call letters and a new identity for the station. The proposed new call letters were WCFC which would stand for "Central Fairfield County". Unfortunately, this call sign was unavailable. An alternate set of calls were selected, and that's how WCFS came to be. WCFS stood for "Central Fairfield (County) Station," a catch phrase that really never took off. John Labarca recently told me a fact I had previously been unaware of. Mr. Greist was a born-again Christian and the station calls letters were secretly rumored to stand for "Christ forgives sinners." Station staffers joked that the call letters meant "Can't Find the Song" or "Can't Find the Signal", the latter referring to when the station switched to its pre-dusk power of 50 watts or its newly assigned night time power of nine (9) watts.

All sorts of promotions were tried to expose listeners to the station and its new image. A new studio direct line was installed for listeners to call in for requests and contests. After 15 minutes on the phone with the phone company Gary and I finally got a phone number that could be associated with the station: 454-GOLD. Since WCFS played "Solid Gold" and it was impossible to obtain a local phone number with the new call letters, this was a solution that was settled upon.

One of the most notable promotions for the station at this time was the Jukebox giveaway. On-air promotions and remotes promoted the grand prize of a 50's vintage Wurlitzer jukebox which would be given away at a special drawing. Listeners won mini jukebox-style tape players as well. Other promotions followed, but the station never really got the turnouts enjoyed by their rival stations.

On-air personalities for the time included John Labarca, Al Mathews, Lenny Kerr,and Bob VanDerheyden. Weekend and fill-in jocks included Chris Cimmino, Mike Eastland, Tony Napoleon, Lee Moore and Chris "Chuck Styles" Switzer. Voices heard delivering the news included Megan O'Connell, Mark Graham, Karen Kranick, Don Ruley, Lynn Searle and Fred Trumpler.