WCMF-FM

WCMF-FM is a radio station located in the Rochester, New York area and broadcasts at 96.5 FM. Its transmitter is located on Pinnacle Hill in Brighton, Monroe County, New York.

WCMF is the heritage classic rock station in the Rochester area. Its major claim to fame was its morning show, hosted by Alan Levin, better known as Brother Wease. As of February 7, 2008, "Brother Wease" is no longer employed at WCMF, but now hosts a competing morning show on Clear Channel's similarly formatted WFXF ("Fox 95.1").

The current WCMF morning show is now called "The Break Room" and features Bill Moran (Billy Mo/Moranimal) and co-hosts Tommy Mule' and "Christian Dan" Borrello, and traffic reporter Phil "Phil-Billy" Sherman. They are often joined by Rochester "comedian" Pat Duffy. Long time co-host Sally Carpenter chose to leave the show in September 2009. She had been broadcasting remotely from Philadelphia, and did not renew her contract, due to the stipulation that she move back to Rochester.

Program Director/Midday host Dave Kane returned to the station in February 2008 after Wease's departure.

The station is currently owned by Entercom Communications, which officially purchased it and several other stations from CBS Radio on November 30, 2007. WCMF was originally owned by Community Music Service, Inc., which is the reason for "CM" in the call letters. The history of WCMF FM is truly a story of the american dream. In 1968 the station was owned by a handful of Rochester locals. Several were engineers at General Dynamics, there was a lawyer from Harris Beech Wilcox, and several others. The station had a mish mash of formats from " Candlelight & Wine in the morning hosted by Bill Rund to Hard underground rock hosted by Bob Drake( Francati). On friday evening a local attorney hosted a very popular Jazz show. The owners were not broadcasters and the station was searching for identity. In 1968 everything changed when the 6am to 10am morning personality left. Drake then program director hired a young black DJ " Herb Hamlett" who had briefly worked at R&B giant WUFO in Buffalo, but was tired of the commute. Hamlett took the morning slot to supposedly play light classics, his show was called " Sunup in stereo" Hamlett realizing that the owners were not hands on soon turned up the heat and started mixing a R&B flavor. Which was okay to then GM Bill Bennett. Hamlett soon began going out and selling the time himself and soon was also promoted to sales manager. Hamlett and Drake soon realized the emergence of a major coup, and split the format into basically R&B from 6am to 3pm and Underground rock from 3pm to sign off at midnight. Even with this success Drake had constant disagreements with the owners. Drake quit in 1970 to work in banking at Marine Midland and was replaced by a handful of personalities including Bill Ardis the Jazz powerhouse from WHAM AM the 24 hour giant. Ardis picked up where Drake left off and along with Hamlett turned the station into a basic two format power " Soul and Underground" In 1971 Herb Hamlett made a major mistake and tried to back door buy the station. Hamlett took what he thought was sufficient proxy's to swing a majority of the stockholders, was defeated when one of his proxies switched at the stockholders meeting. The Herb Hamlett show was the biggest thing Rochester's black community ever had, but the young Hamlett misread the true feeling of the handful of owners. Hamlett left in 1971 and a new GM, Jim Trayhearn was brought in and was successful in putting together a buyout of the old Community Music Service stockholders and created a marketable 24 hour underground rock format. But anyone around Rochester in 1968 through 1972 will tell you of Herb Hamlett the predecessor to all R&B WDKX FM which was formed in 1974. Hamlett teamed up with his two old buddies from WUFO Frankie Crocker and Eddie O'Jay and began managing and promoting R&B groups. In 1974 Hamlett joined telcom giant IT&T.

WCMF is an affiliate of the Sabres Hockey Network. It is one of two affiliates in Rochester (the other being sister station WROC) but is the only one that broadcasts Buffalo Sabres playoff games as well as regular season games.

External links

• WCMF Website
• Query the FCC's FM station database for WCMF
• Radio-Locator information on WCMF
• Query Arbitron's FM station database for WCMF