RIP True Oldies Channel

[Nostalgia]

The switch has been pulled on Scott Shannons True Oldies Channels all along the Nature Coast (and everywhere else by now). WJQB Spring Hill picked up Westwood One's Good Time Oldies unbranded format, changed their call to WGHR (Greatest Hits Radio) and rebranded themselves as Hits 106. The WLQH/W227AV/WZCC Chiefland/Cross City trimulcast chose Westwood One's Chassic Hits format and rebranded themselves as Classic Hits 933.

Last week Scott was doing teasers about "the rumors that the TOC was shutting down" and that he would address those rumors over the past weekend. I never heard anything, WGHR flipped a couple of weeks ago and WLQH et al flipped Saturday just before midnight after the NASCAR race. Did anyone hear any tearful good-byes from Scott before midnight Sunday?

 

[John FL]

As I mentioned in another post, the internet is becoming home to displaced formats but there has to be a willingness to do it. Such is the case here, Scott Shannon is keeping True Oldies Channel alive on the internet http://www.trueoldieschannel.com/

It has been reported that Scott has talked of the possible return of the format via another distributor. He offers some hope in his FB page https://www.facebook.com/TrueOldiesChannel/posts/10154381703780624

Perhaps Scott's new employer - CBS Radio - that most agree has tremendous expertise with the format will be a distributor. We'll have to see how this unfolds.
Happy 4th!

 

[FredLeonard]

Shannon is a progressive rock jock. He was not an AM top 40 jock. He was on WPLJ, not Musicradio 77. He never had any business anywhere near a "true oldies" format.

 

[JeffM]

Shannon is a progressive rock jock. He was not an AM top 40 jock. He was on WPLJ, not Musicradio 77. He never had any business anywhere near a "true oldies" format.

Geez, you'd think the poor guy was Barbara Walters...

 

[FredLeonard]

Baba Wawa's True Oldies Channel makes as little sense.

No, it would be...

Baba and Who's Music of Your Life - Original Hits Channel
Meredith's Viera's AC Channel
Joy Behar's True Oldies Channel
Sheri Shephard's Jammin' Oldies Channel
Whoopi's Hip Hop Channel
Jenny McCarthy's County Channel

 

[TheBigA]

Perhaps Scott's new employer - CBS Radio - that most agree has tremendous expertise with the format will be a distributor. We'll have to see how this unfolds.
Happy 4th!

CBS Radio doesn't distribute radio formats. It's strictly a radio station owner. So that's very unlikely.

From what I'm reading here, at least one of the stations is still playing an oldies format...has anyone heard it?

 

[davideduardo]

Shannon is a progressive rock jock. He was not an AM top 40 jock. He was on WPLJ, not Musicradio 77. He never had any business anywhere near a "true oldies" format.

That is just not true at all.

Shannon began with some smaller market Top 40's in the South in the late 50's, moving up around 1970 to mornings at WMAK in Nashville under PD Joe Sullivan. He later became PD at that market-dominant Top 40 himself, and was national Top 40 PD for group owner Mooney Broadcasting. He moved on to WQXI in Atlanta, and then to Top 40 WRBQ in Tampa / St. Petersburg where he created the Morning Zoo concept. His next step was the the launch of Z-100, one of the nation's most successful CHR ever in terms of longevity and billings. After a brief an unsuccessful try at Hair Band music at Pirate Radio in LA, he returned to New York to do modified CHR / Hot AC at WPLJ.

Shannon is perhaps the most successful Top 40 jock alive with a nearly non-stop Top 40 career going back 50 years.

Why in the world would you think he was not a Top 40 jock?

He never had any business anywhere near a "true oldies" format.

That's a horrible thing to say about someone with a vast history of success with Top 40.

 

[davideduardo]

Shannon began with some smaller market Top 40's in the South in the late 50's, moving up around 1970 to mornings at WMAK in Nashville under PD Joe Sullivan.

Adding to Shannon's Top 40 legacy prior to WMAK: In the 60's he worked at high-rated Top 40 WCLS in Columbus, GA, moving to Bernie Ditman's legendary WABB in Mobile... a truly great Top 40 of the era. After a brief stint at Top 40 WMPS (680) in Memphis (one of the Plough Top 40's like WCAO and WCOP) he moved to WMAK.

Even at his first radio job while in the army was at an off-base station in Spring Lake, NC.

All of these, plus WQXI in Atlanta, were AM's.

Oh, and in Scott's one departure from radio, a brief stint as promotion director of Neil Bogart's Casablanca Records, he was pushing artists like Donna Summer, Village People, Kiss and Lipps, Inc.

 

[JeffM]

Baba Wawa's True Oldies Channel makes as little sense.

No, it would be...

Baba and Who's Music of Your Life - Original Hits Channel
Meredith's Viera's AC Channel
Joy Behar's True Oldies Channel
Sheri Shephard's Jammin' Oldies Channel
Whoopi's Hip Hop Channel
Jenny McCarthy's County Channel

Welcome back to the sausage fest, Freddie.

 

[JPlainJohn]

JohnJax is right on-the Internet is an excellent relocation for True Oldies and I would be surprised if WW1 Good Time Oldies lives past 2016 or 2017 as not only is the Oldies Format Demographics getting too old...Classic Hits and Classic Rock as Formats are facing the same dilemma of Demographics getting too old. McDonald's & Pizza Hut Don't buy many stations targeting 70 year olds.Bottom line is Broadcast Radio needs that Ad Revenue from National and Local Sponsors to pay the bills-internet can afford to do it Ad-Free. Not having to sell to sponsors they can play "At The Hop","Rock Around The Clock","Splish Splash" etc,etc,etc.

 

[FredLeonard]

Adding to Shannon's Top 40 legacy prior to WMAK: In the 60's he worked at high-rated Top 40 WCLS in Columbus, GA, moving to Bernie Ditman's legendary WABB in Mobile... a truly great Top 40 of the era. After a brief stint at Top 40 WMPS (680) in Memphis (one of the Plough Top 40's like WCAO and WCOP) he moved to WMAK.

Even at his first radio job while in the army was at an off-base station in Spring Lake, NC.

All of these, plus WQXI in Atlanta, were AM's.

Oh, and in Scott's one departure from radio, a brief stint as promotion director of Neil Bogart's Casablanca Records, he was pushing artists like Donna Summer, Village People, Kiss and Lipps, Inc.
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He came to the party too late. And didn't stay long. He was at Qixie about the same time Musicradio77 flipped. And then he started playing CHR. Thank you for pointing out his experience was in the CSA. He should go back where he came from.

 

[Kmagrill]

JohnJax is right on-the Internet is an excellent relocation for True Oldies and I would be surprised if WW1 Good Time Oldies lives past 2016 or 2017 as not only is the Oldies Format Demographics getting too old....

I am not a programming consultant, but I have to disagree for two reasons:

1. I'm in my 50s and I remember the hits of the 60s and onward pretty well. Also, since oldies from the late 50s were still being played on CHR radio from time to time throughout the broadcast day, I was exposed to them, too. So, the oldies format appeals to a segment that reaches down to people in their 50s. For sure, a format heavy in 1950s and early 1960s isn't going to be my cup of tea, but a format that plays some of the more popular songs from that era combined with newer tracks would be something that I would listen to.

2. Rock and roll is a continuum that starts in the 1950s and still exists today. As the audience ages and dies out, oldies stations will play more newer tracks. The 50s will be retired, then the 60s and so forth. Songs that are at least 20 years old (some will argue 10 years old) can be considered oldies so an oldies format could play tracks as new as 1994 without raising any eyebrows. Some try to differentiate songs from the 80s and later as classic hits rather than oldies, but I'm not sure that I agree. The differences seem pretty sublime with the main difference being that classic hits doesn't go back as far, but this is still a flavor of oldies, IMHO. So, oldies are adaptable. It may be true that songs from older decades will fade away, but newer decades are also always being adeded. As long as there are old CHR songs to be played, there will be an audience that listened to them and like to hear them again.

 

[JPlainJohn]

YES we usually say someone was 10 when songs were Current so 1955 would be around 70 yrs,1965 around 60 yrs. Classic Hits usually goes 1975-close to 1990 (35-50). Eventually that goes 1980-1990 the problem as I see 1990 & Beyond with CHR is Heavy RAP and AOR is this was around the time Alternative came into being. This very well could end up being Light Adult Contemporary's Saviour...will Light A/C end up replacing Classic Hits. The other question-is there enough fans of Early Alternative Rock to Form a Classic Alt Rock format to eventually replace Classic Rock as we know it as for RAP-That Part of the Classic Hits format (at least as I see it) becomes part of the Old School R& B Format. Going to be interesting. Also for years radio folks have been predicting a New Classic Country Format-I think you will see that in a few years-starting with Garth Brooks & Going to around 2002 as Current Country Formats keep chasing the 18-34 CHR Audience.

 

[davideduardo]

He came to the party too late. And didn't stay long.

You said he had no AM Top 40 experience. In fact, he began in AM radio doing Top 40 around 1965 and moved to FM in 1973. That's all the experience you need... nearly a decade as on-air and PD and then group PD. It's debatable, of course, whether t is necessary to have AM Top 40 experience for today's Classic Hits formatted stations which play mostly music from the mid to late 70's onwards.

He was at Qixie about the same time Musicradio77 flipped.

So? WQXI was a station that transitioned from AM to FM. It was enormously successful as an FM when Scott was there.

And then he started playing CHR.

About when Scott got to Tampa in 1973, R&R started publishing. One of its first moves was to diminish the importance ot the Billboard Hot 100 by renaming its airply-only pop chart as Contemporary Hit Radio, or CHR. CHR and Top 40 are interchangeable terms. Nobody changed format from Top 40 to CHR as they are the same format... one has a trade magazine's given name, and the other dates back to KOWH and the Storz and McLendon stations.

At WPGC (which I forgot to include), WQXI, WRBQ and then at WHTZ, Scott instituted his flavor of Top 40 / CHR with his Morning Zoo team show approach.

Based on his success with Top 40, his overwhelming success with WHTZ, and his consistent high adult ratings at WPLJ , I can't think of anyone better suited to do mornings at CBS-FM. He has been in New York pretty consistently for most of the last 35 years, in fact.

And, going back to your original post, Shannon was never an AOR jock (although he did try an LA "rock 40" CHR without the pop stuff). He is as Top 40 as they come. (WPLJ had not been album rock for years when he got there)

Thank you for pointing out his experience was in the CSA. He should go back where he came from.

He's from the Heartland. St Louis, to be exact. He got his radio start in the South due to his military career, and in the tradition of Top 40 got hired several times over for larger and larger markets in the same area.

Tampa is not the South. Washington DC is not the South. New York City is not the South.

And your reference to the "CSA" is repugnant.

 

[JeffM]

Whaddya expect? Freddie is still longing for the days when newsmen were men and women were "weather girls"...

 

[jmtillery]

Scott Shannon was with WRBQ Tampa "Q 105" between 1978 and 1983, replacing Bill Garcia as PD. WABC 770 New York changed format from CHR to News-Talk in 1982, so Scott Shannon WAS NOT with WQXI Atlanta anywhere near the same time WABC changed format. Shannon was with WQXI before relocating to Tampa, years before WABC made the big switch to talk. Furthermore, Shannon was never a progressive rock jock. He has always been directly involved with Top 40, CHR, Adult Contemporary or some variation thereof. The one slight exception is Pirate Radio 100.3 L. A., as David Eduardo pointed out was Rock 40 which is hit based rock, a variation of CHR.

 

[FredLeonard]

Whaddya expect? Freddie is still longing for the days when newsmen were men and women were "weather girls"...

Jeff is still obsessing about old posts. Say something he doesn't like and he'll stalk you forever. To hell with the TOS.

I don't long for it but that's what they were. They were hired for looks, no more - no less. They pointed at smiley suns and nasty cloud faces and told you if it would rain tomorrow. Now they take a quickie online course and get to call themselves meteorologists - and insult to any one with a real graduate degree in meteorology, or any physical scientist.

Besides a few notable exceptions, women are hired for looks. Broadcasting executives, incapable of original or creative thought, get Ken and Barbie to read news - nothing wrong with that. What's wrong is they insist on the pretense that these people hired to be presentable are no more - no less than presenters - news readers - announcers - personalities. But because we have to pretend they are real journalists, they get propped up by underpaid writers and producers hired to make seem like the over-paid blow-dried airheads have an IQ in triple digits. What's different today is they'd pair Ted Baxter with an equally vacuous female, 20 years his junior (no, not Sue Ann - she was too close to Ted's age).

The ones who really lose out are those women who show up, work hard, don't ask for favors or special treatment, don't flirt, don't whine, don't take off early to "have it all." If they make a movie about this they should call it "Revenge of the Cheerleaders."

 

[JeffM]

You forgot to insinuate that anyone who disagrees with you is lacking in testosterone. You're slipping, Freddie...

 

[FredLeonard]

You forgot to insinuate that anyone who disagrees with you is lacking in testosterone. You're slipping, Freddie...

No, but guys who oppose their own self-interest are just highly gullible, sensitive, new age guys. So PC and so proud of it. Too bad the ERA didn't pass so guys could have equal rights.

 

[JeffM]

Thank you, Mister Insecure. Now put on your big-girl panties and find another topic to troll. (How's that for a dose of your own poison?)