Open House Party
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| Open House Party | |
| Genre | Top 40/CHR, dance |
|---|---|
| Running time | 5 hours |
| Country |  United States |
| Home station | WRDW (Sunday) |
| Starring | John Garabedian (Saturday) Kannon (Sunday) |
| Air dates | 1987 to Present |
| Website http://www.openhouseparty.com |
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Open House Party is an American radio show hosted on Saturday nights by John Garabedian that promotes itself as "the biggest party on the planet". It focuses on playing contemporary hit radio (CHR) music, also known as Top 40. The show differentiates itself from most Top 40 stations because it plays a fairly significant amount of electronic dance music. OHP started in 1987 and is syndicated by SuperRadio to more than 150 stations in the U.S. A companion program, Open House Party Sunday, hosted by Philadelphia, PA WRDW radio DJ Kannon, also runs on the next evening on many stations.
The Saturday show originates from the basement of Garabedian's house, located in suburban Boston, Massachusetts. The Sunday show originates from the WRDW studios in Philadelphia, PA.
Both programs are broadcasted live (in Eastern and Central time only) via satellite from 7:00 P.M. to midnight (in Eastern and Mountain time) or from 6:00 P.M to 11:00 P.M (in Central and Pacific time). Some stations only broadcast OHP on Saturday, while others broadcast it only on Sunday, while most broadcast it on both Saturday and Sunday. Some stations only broadcast a portion of OHP to make room for a local or another syndicated program. Many stations rebroadcast OHP from midnight to 5:00 A.M. (in Eastern and Mountain time) or 11:00 P.M. to 4:00 A.M. (in Central and Pacific time).
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[edit] History
In 1955 the original Open House Party was created as the afternoon show on radio station WORC in Worcester, Massachusetts.[1] A few years later, then 17-year-old John Garabedian was hired to DJ on Saturdays and Sundays. One night in 1987 Garabedian went to a party in Boston. There he bumped into Sunny Joe White, radio programmer of Boston's WXKS-FM "Kiss 108". White asked Garabedian if he would do the weekend shift. The following week, the two of them met to discuss it at dinner, where Garabedian proposed the idea for the idea of a national interactive weekend party show. White loved it, and agreed to put it on Kiss 108 after Garabedian created a studio to do the show. After looking into various office buildings, Garabedian decided to do just the show from his basement. He and his friends strapped a 50-foot pole to his chimney to hold up a little microwave antenna aimed at the Prudential Tower 27 miles East in downtown Boston.[1]
On September 5, 1987 at 7 PM, Open House Party hit the air for the very first time on Kiss 108.[2] Within six months it became the most listened to radio program in Boston on Saturday night, as well as the most listened to radio program every week in the Boston radio market with a 14.8 share.[1]
By the following April stations across the country had heard about Open House Party’s success and were signing on. The 50-foot pole was taken down and was replaced by a satellite dish. By 1990 over 100 stations were carrying Open House Party in the United States and another 40 in Canada.[1]
John continued to DJ on both Saturday and Sunday, until March 2004, when WFLZ afternoon DJ Kane took over the Sunday night show from his house in Tampa. Kane later moved to Washington, DC and is now the morning host on WIHT, which also airs Open House Party Sunday Nights. However, in December 2007 Kannon, the afternoon DJ at WRDW "Wired 96.5" in Philadelphia, PA became the new host of the Sunday edition.
[edit] Listener request line
Listeners can call 1-800-669-1010 to make song requests during the live show.
