still being able to claim that they played a large number of songs per hour. Berger repeatedly denied that this practice was in use at WPLJ. In the September 20, 1999, episode of Crap from the Past, host Ron "Boogiemonster" Gerber suggested that music was sped up on WPLJ to make the same music sound less dynamic on other stations. Another Sunday night show began in 1973, then-Father Bill Ayres' long-running show, at first called On This Rock and later (after Ayres left the priesthood in the 1980s) titled The Bill Ayres Show. Known on-air as Father Bill Ayres, the show mixed spirituality and social consciousness together with the music of Harry Chapin, Bob Seger, and others. The show also aired on its sister station WABC on Sunday mornings within the last years of its top 40 music format. Ayres continued to host the show until the transfer of control of WPLJ to Educational Media Foundation in May 2019. By the late 1970s, WPLJ tended to emphasize harder rock artists such as Led Zeppelin (there was a nightly "Get the Led Out" segment), Kansas, Boston, and Queen, which all happened to get less airplay than on competing station WNEW-FM. At this point, the station reduced its play of softer pop songs, and their ratings remained competitive. Mark Goodman came to WPLJ from Philadelphia in 1980 and was on the air as word broke out of John Lennon's murder the evening of December 8. Goodman departed the station a few months later to become one of the original VJs for the MTV cable channel. In 1981, Berger hired Marc Coppola, a rock-oriented disc jockey from suburban rival WBAB on Long Island, to do the 10 p.m.-2 a.m. shift Monday through Saturday. During its AOR phase, the station was noted for its promotional montages consisting of snippets of classic rock songs spliced together by St. John, emphasizing a subject or theme, such as gasoline (during the gas shortages of the 1970s). From the time of Berger's arrival, WPLJ beat main rock rival WNEW-FM in virtually every Arbitron ratings period. In 1982, WPLJ received a direct competitor in WAPP, which adopted a near-identical AOR format to WPLJ (WAPP launched its rock format commercial-free and remained so for the summer of 1982). WAPP beat WPLJ in the ratings in the fall of 1982, and WPLJ reacted by adding more new wave such as A