W4 is the name Detroiters commonly use for the
Detroit radio station WWWW. W4 has an interesting, bitter place in Detroit radio history. In the ‘70s and early ‘80s, there was no cooler
AOR (rock) station than W4.
Howard Stern was their morning guy. They broadcast in
SQ-4 Quadraphonic sound. They put acts like
Bob Seger and
Mitch Ryder on the map. DJs joked that no radio station could have more perfect call letters. Even if stoned, it was easy to remember who you worked for when you were on air.
You weren’t fashionably dressed in Detroit unless you had a W4 t-shirt on (noted for its distinctive big
orange disk with “W4” set in a
lightning font in the middle).
And then the sky fell. With no warning, with no hints, one dark morning in 1982 W4 switched from rock to
country. People were aghast. Country music. In Detroit? A silent protest movement spontaneously emerged. People took their treasured W4 t-shirts, the ones with the W4 logo in the middle of an orange disk, and they put a black slash, making it appear like W4 was (in
Ghostbusters fashion) in a “
no entry” traffic sign.
Stern packed up within days. Detroit rock fans could at least take solace that Detroit had two cool back up rock stations,
WRIF and
WABX (WABX itself later would change formats much to horror of fans who enjoyed one of America’s last true free-form progressive rock station).
Curiously, the country format proved highly profitable for W4 for a couple decades. However W4’s rating eventually slipped when it didn’t jack into the, errr, “
new country” sound quickly enough. By the end of the Summer of ’99, W4 switched back to the format it abandoned in ’82 and became a rock station.