by a new license on January 4, 1950. By the 1960s, WFIL-FM had been airing separate classical music shows, breaking away from the AM simulcast. 1968-1971: Soft AC On July 10, 1968, WFIL-FM switched away from classical music to an early version of a soft adult contemporary format. Known as "Popular 102," the station featured softer pop music of the day with a mix of currents, oldies and instrumentals. Each hour included a track from a featured album of the week, and voices on the station were pre-recorded announcements and news from the staff at sister station WFIL, including Jay Cook, J.J. Jeffrey, Tommy Tyler and news from Allen Stone and Glenn Barton. The station promoted itself as playing "The Nicest Music for the Nicest People." This format continued through May 1971, when Triangle Publications decided to sell its Philadelphia broadcasting stations. 1971-1975: Easy listening In 1971, Triangle Publications sold WFIL-AM-FM-TV to Capital Cities Broadcasting (later Capital Cities Communications). In turn, WFIL-FM was spun off to Richer Communications in May 1971. The call letters were changed to WIOQ representing the script version of the frequency "102." The familiar jingle of Popular 102 was also changed to "W102." Initially, the familiar PAMS jingles were updated to reflect the new call letters and the station continued as before. By 1972, the station's imaging changed to Stereo Island, which trended even softer than the station had been, but added live DJs while the music rotated on an IGM automation unit. Air staff at this time included Jeff Dean, Lee Meredith, Art Andrews, Alan Drew (Frio), Jere Sullivan, and Jay Mathieu, with Dave Klahr continuing as program director. After a year or so in this format, the station brought back the Popular 102 moniker and started playing a slightly more uptempo mix of pop tunes. When Dave Klahr left, Roy Laurence was hired as program director and the station's mix became Top 40-based with a more adult presentation than co-owned 560 WFIL. 1975-19??: Progressive rock Gradually the music became more rock-oriented, and by about 1975 WIOQ had a progressive rock format. Around this time the station began using an extract from the album Intergalactic Trot by Stardrive as the music bed for hourly station IDs. It would remain WIOQ's audio signature for over a decade. The station also started using the moniker "Q102" during that time. For a time in the mid-'70s, the station