Stern left WCCC for being denied a raise in salary. He began a new morning shift at WWWW, a struggling rock outlet in Detroit, Michigan on April 21, 1980. He learned to become more open on the air and "decided to cut down the barriers...strip down all the ego...and be totally honest...I still sounded like an FM announcer". Stern held a bra-burning event and wrestled women outside the studios, and invited listeners to confess the most outrageous places where they had sex, and record their calls for the air. A stunt in which listeners paid $1.06 (the station's FM frequency) to hit a Japanese car with a sledgehammer earned Stern national mention. For his performance, Stern won a "Billboard" award for "Best Album-Oriented Rock Disc Jockey" and was featured in the Drake-Chenault "Top Five Talent Search" contest in the AOR category. Published in January 1981, the fall Arbitron ratings showed that Stern trailed his three rock competitors with a 1.6% market share of the listening audience during an average quarter-hour. It was the final straw for management, which turned WWWW into a more successful country music format on January 18. Stern made a brief, half-hearted attempt to be a country radio DJ but realized it wasn't to his liking. Stern left the station soon after and declined offers to work at CHUM in Toronto, WXRT in Chicago and WPLJ in New York City.