103.5 KTU

I remember this station’s inception in 1996 when it was formerly a country music station.
«The Beat of New York, 103.5 KTU.»
Fast forward 2015
With the passage of time, music and music style progress but the interest and abiding passion to feel music from this station died as the energy emitted from my radio is bland and monochromatic. Dry and melancholy.

«The Beat of New York, 103.5 KTU.»
This station dates back to 1940, but has been on the air in its current incarnation since 1996.
I actually remember the day it went live. I was listening intently and waiting as there was much hype leading up to this «new» station. There was about a 24 hour stretch when the station was simulcasting 92.3 The Beat from Los Angeles, and then on the evening of February 9, 1996 KTU went live with «Gonna Make You Sweat.»
I immediately fell in love with KTU. It was something unique, the likes of which hadn’t been on New York radio in quite some time. A real dance and house station with just the right amount of pop mixed in to «pay the bills.»
Over the next 10 years, KTU gradually became the station I listened to the most, as many of the other NYC stations started having identity crises during that time.
Hot97 started playing more and more garbage masquerading as Hip Hop, Z100 got even more generic than it already was, WBLS stopped playing Hip Hop entirely for a while and refused to play anything that required even the slightest bit of editing for content.
KissFm went pretty much exclusively Neo Soul. No more DJ Red Alert, no more being at the forefront of Hip Hop and R&B. As of about a year and a half ago, no more KissFM. They merged into WBLS.
At least I could count on KTU for real dance music ²⁴⁄₇. But what really kept me hooked was the Saturday Night Dance Factory. If you were listening during that time, you’ll know how awesome it was. Beginning at 7pm on Saturday night it was 5 levels of music:
Level 1, 7−9pm: The KTU Funhouse. Mostly classic disco and 70s dance.
Level 2, 9pm-​11pm: The KTU Freestyle Free-​for-​all. You guessed it, 2 hours of straight freestyle. Stevie B. Coro. Noël. Lizette Melendez. You get the point.
Then it started to get real with levels 3 – 5:
Level 3, 11pm-​1am: The KTU Clubhouse. All the current dance and house music that was hot in the clubs. They broadcasted from various clubs and parties on many a Saturday night. Think Sound Factory, Club Exit, The main floor at Club Speeed.
Level 4, 1am-​3am: Ok I forget the title of this block but this was all the new progressive, hardcore techno and house mixes of current hits. Think Paul Oakenfold, Peter Rauohffer (RIP), Hex Hector.
Level 5, 3am-​5am: The Sanctuary. This was all the progressive trance and hardcore EDM. Really, really trippy and progressive stuff. Think Sunday night at Webster Hall.
Crazy right?
The Saturday Night Dance Factory was the soundtrack to many a crazy Saturday night for me for almost 10 years.
I’d typically be pulling out of my driveway at around 8pm on a random Saturday in 1999 to Gloria Gaynor and returning home at some ungodly hour blasting something by some Japanese trance DJ that I couldn’t pronounce. Oh the stories I could tell.
Many people probably would agree that KTU was arguably the best station on in NYC at the time.
So what did they do? They ruined it all of course.
As the mega media corporations acquired more and more stations and exercised all of their corporate magic to increase revenue and and efficiencies, the first thing to go was the Saturday Night Dance Factory in 2006. No more live mix shows whatsoever. Then they started screwing with the format and on air staff.
Its an entirely different discussion as to what has happened to terrestrial FM radio overall. Suffice to say, since 2006 it’s gotten harder and harder to distinguish KTU from Z100 or any other generic pop station. Incredibly repetitive, generic dance beats thrown to just about every song, etc.
I just find it interesting that dance music has become the thing all of a sudden over the last few years. Basically it’s the same thing that happened to disco. You have a unique and fun sub-​genre, with a cult following that gains popularity, attracts the corporate sharks, gets diluted and dumbed down to appeal to the masses, then seemingly overnight you have this decades old thing that’s all of a sudden «discovered.» Then it gets engineered, overdone and quality falls big time. Generic, repetitive, but very popular and lucrative for all involved. And the cycle perpetuates itself.
It’s unfortunate, but popular music is popular for a reason… People like it.
So who am I to complain?
I’m not terribly a fan of KTU anymore. Usually it’s just background noise for me like just about every other radio station during the day. Its a consequence of a hand full of major corporations owning nearly every radio station in the country. Its just business, and to that end it’s very lucrative.
To be fair, I’m not singling out KTU, it’s really almost ALL radio nowadays and for the better part of 2 decades now.
As for me, thank goodness I had the foresight as a teen and in my early 20s to tape hours of the Dance Factory on those rare Saturday nights I wasn’t out dancing with the devil, LOL.
Now there’s a relic… Cassette tapes… I’m getting old.
Happy listening!

The worst radio I’ve ever heard and I can’t believe it is still around considering that much better ones were removed years ago.
I have no idea who selects the music but they could not be more disconnected from what the listeners want. I have never heard anyone saying that they truly like this station. After many years I just heard it again today in a Mexican takeaway place and its still bad !!!

Thanks KTU for ripping US ALL off tonight — I am DONE !!! as a LISTENER — The station promoted its KTU concert tonight at Jones beach with headliner PITBULL ! SPENT $ 600 on 4 seats to see PITBULL — drove 2 hrs in traffic and sat thru 4 + HRS of the show and then at 10:45 PM they come on and say SORRY PITBULL is NOT COMING Good night show over — Horrible Thieves !!! GOOD RIDDANCE /​I hope your station and T master and your twitter and facebook get BOMBARDED with angry pissed off fans and ticket buyers !

Still love ‘em.

I feel like over the yers this station has gotten worse over the years it does not hold my intreast and the music they play is way behind other stations

When I was a litty itty bitty teenager with no common sense (not that I claim to have all that much of it these days) and thought cheesy europoppy techno was cool, I listened to this station. I really do think it was better about 10 years ago (yay dating myself). But seriously, like Kimberly F said, they absolutely kill songs. If you need something played to death in the shortest period of time, send it to these guys. They’ll know what to do.

This station is the killer of songs, they take any and every song and add a doo dum doo dum doo dum beat to it. Making every song sound the same.
Plus there morning show sucks, the people are boring and not fun. They used to be really good years ok, old school with Rupaul, lol. But yea i miss those days.

yuck.
«Goomba Johnnie» — need I say more? OK, I will, «Whoopie Goldberg». There, I’m done.
Here’s another resounding, yuck.