Are there any live overnight jocks left in 2020?

[davideduardo]

I was once told the #2 station in LA made no money on overnights. It had someone working there because it was a better lead in for the morning show than dead air, and, in the off chance something went wrong, the station could probably be brought back on-air before the morning show had to deal with it and potentially lose revenue on spots.

Having been involved with what was usually the #1 station in LA in the last half of the 90's and well into the next decade, I can say that overnights never made any money... not even enough to pay the overnight jock.

I also programmed what was the #1 station in overnights in the late 90's...beating even KFI. No revenue except for a few PI home remedy accounts.

I managed, programmed, consulted and for some time was sales manager of #1 stations in Puerto Rico for about 35 years. Never saw any significant revenue from overnights, even when I tried to do packages aimed at very specific revenue categories like career schools.

Same experience with leading stations in a handful of countries in Latin America.

You are correct. Being on 24/7 was much better back when equipment was less reliable. It was that "it won't go on the air" call at 6 AM that scared us all into staying on overnight.

 

[davideduardo]

I bet that's true, and I'd love to know what percentage of the stations were 24/7 in the 50s and 60s.

Most stations in larger markets were 24/6 even in the last half of the 50's.

Sunday night at midnight, most stations were off. There were AM frequencies that had no station at all on them after 3 AM EST when the last West Coast station went off. Those of us who were DXers back then could log Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand or the AST sign-ons in in Puerto Rico, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay on absolutely clear frequencies.

But Tuesday to Saturday, stations in markets as small as Kalamazoo and Muskegon or El Paso and Albuquerque were on all night. Even the directional ones that had to have a First Ticket person on duty.

The Storz and McLendon stations all began as 24 hour stations, and imitators did the same. (KOWH, a daytimer, of course, did not).

24/7 became more prevalent in the later 70's and going into the 80's when equipment became much more reliable. It was also in the 70's that directionals and higher power stations on AM did not need a First Ticket operator on duty, which saved costs and made 24/7 far less expensive.

 

[TheBigA]

It was that "it won't go on the air" call at 6 AM that scared us all into staying on overnight.

Not only that...it became apparent that morning drive commute time in most places began earlier than 6AM. If we expected an audience to be there when our high priced morning time signed on with their high priced spots, we actually needed the transmitter on and some kind of programming there at least one hour earlier. They weren't just going to wake up at 6AM to meet our schedule.

 

[davideduardo]

Not only that...it became apparent that morning drive commute time in most places began earlier than 6AM. If we expected an audience to be there when our high priced morning time signed on with their high priced spots, we actually needed the transmitter on and some kind of programming there at least one hour earlier. They weren't just going to wake up at 6AM to meet our schedule.

That is a good point, too.

When I was consulting KENO in Las Vegas in the early 70's, we recognized that there was a drive time at around 2 AM created by the casino shift changes. That also meant that all-night stores had a peak period during the drive home by that crew. So there was a great need to be live at that time.

 

[Kelly A]

Of course back in the day; overnights used also to be the farm team for grooming future talent, or parking ones nearing retirement. Since there is no longer the need to bring new talent up to the major leagues, one more reason why not to staff overnights.

 

[TheBigA]

Of course back in the day; overnights used also to be the farm team for grooming future talent

As I said earlier in this thread, I know of no examples where stations used overnights as a "farm team." They were more likely to train people on weekends. Certainly didn't work for me. I quit after a month and got hired as OM of a larger station, making more money and with a better schedule. The real "farm ream" back in the day was in minor markets. That's still used today, but most people working in minor markets are less likely to leave a town where they're comfortable and have kids in school. There were a lot of stations in suburban New York that groomed a lot of top NYC talent. Dan Ingram hot his start in Long Island, Howard Stern first worked in Westchester County.

 

[davideduardo]

Of course back in the day; overnights used also to be the farm team for grooming future talent, or parking ones nearing retirement. Since there is no longer the need to bring new talent up to the major leagues, one more reason why not to staff overnights.

Like BigA, I never ran into a case where an overnight person was in training. Usually, the main criteria for overnights involved showing up on time, not rocking the boat, following the format and not drinking or mystery weed smoking.

Once such a person was found, they were pretty much left alone as they did not bother. When they did, they were let go.

I went through only one significant exception. The overnight guy I had at KWIZ in Santa Ana (southern LA market sub-market) got me constant complaints from one of the two owners that "he talks too much and says stupid things".

A while after those complaints began, the morning guy had to be let go for "messing with" an under-age girl, for which he got a vacation at the Graybar Hotel. So I needed a morning guy, fast, when the cops came to get him.

I took the talkative overnight guy and told him to be himself. He was Eddie "Piolin" Sotelo, who went on to become the most listened to Spanish-language radio morning talent in the US for more than a decade.

 

[TriangleTriadMediaNews]

I want to say WQDR in Raleigh is still live overnight and up until recently, live & local almost 24/7 outside of the Saturday morning best-of for their morning show and Lon Helton's Sunday night countdown.

 

[gr8oldies]

A couple of examples. CKLW. Frank Brodie (Mike Marshall) went from overnights to mid-days, eventually to PD.
Also at CKLW, "Cosmic" Bob Moody was on overnights, but when morning mouth Gary Burbank had a day off, he filled mornings, eventually getting the morning show. He went on to a lucrative career.

As far as people I know, I knew promotion from overnight to 7-12midnight and eventually midday and PD.

 

[CTListener]

Robin Young, longtime host of public radio's "Here and Now" -- based at Boston's WBUR -- started as a weekend graveyard shifter at WBZ in the mid-'70s, but her advancement at WBZ wasn't on the radio side. She was chosen to host "Evening Magazine" on WBZ-TV a couple of years after her wee-hours radio show ended and went on to a variety of television jobs over the ensuing decades before returning to radio in the '90s. Still, someone who accomplished much after holding down radio's least appealing shift.

 

[Kelly A]

As I said earlier in this thread, I know of no examples where stations used overnights as a "farm team."

I know of several examples, myself being one, at the age of 17 was hired to do overnights on a 50kW Top 40 station. After about 6 months, I moved to utility. Three years later after graduating from college, decided I would probably never be more than a mediocre on air talent and was moved to other roles in the company. I moved on to become everything from TV news photog, to climbing towers where needed. I'm sort of glad I was mediocre radio talent, because many of the folks who were much more talented bounced-around from place to place and job to job, now out of work entirely.

 

[charlestondxman]

WTCB in Columbia, SC was live overnights into last decade, even on weekends. They were the EAS station for the Columbia market. The only syndicated programming in 2010 was 7-midnight on Saturday nights. By 2012 they had stopped doing that.

You have to go back at least 15 years for any Charleston station to be live in the overnights. WXLY 102.5, the oldies station at the time was doing it in the early 2000s, then Sunny 96.9 WSUY and 95SX had one around 2005.

 

[Kent]

WTCB in Columbia, SC was live overnights into last decade, even on weekends. They were the EAS station for the Columbia market. The only syndicated programming in 2010 was 7-midnight on Saturday nights. By 2012 they had stopped doing that.

Pretty sure WTCB cut its overnight guy shortly after Cumulus took over Citadel. I'm thinking I heard Cumulus cut overnight personalities across the board when the Great Recession hit. Some of their clusters may have a trained monkey on duty during those hours, though.

 

[tapesfromtheradio]

WTCB in Columbia, SC was live overnights into last decade, even on weekends. They were the EAS station for the Columbia market. The only syndicated programming in 2010 was 7-midnight on Saturday nights. By 2012 they had stopped doing that.

You have to go back at least 15 years for any Charleston station to be live in the overnights. WXLY 102.5, the oldies station at the time was doing it in the early 2000s, then Sunny 96.9 WSUY and 95SX had one around 2005.

I have an aircheck of 95SX from 1999, taped just after midnight, and interestingly enough they were jockless on that shift even back then. I've never been to Charleston though- that was recorded on a trip to Beaufort where I could pick up both Charleston & Savannah FMs - so interesting to know that they did indeed have an overnight DJ for a few more years afterwards.

 

[charlestondxman]

I have an aircheck of 95SX from 1999, taped just after midnight, and interestingly enough they were jockless on that shift even back then. I've never been to Charleston though- that was recorded on a trip to Beaufort where I could pick up both Charleston & Savannah FMs - so interesting to know that they did indeed have an overnight DJ for a few more years afterwards.

Yep. The demand was low at the time. But 95SX was doing well in the ratings. 102.5 was near the top of the market in the ratings at that time so they had one too. But 102.5 shed theirs probably in 2002-03.

I don’t think Charleston has more than 3 or 4 night people on any more. 92.5 (a country station) has one, 95.9 has one, 105.5 (small-owner rock) has one, and 107.3 (urban AC). And this is a top 80 market now. Everything else in the evening is either voice tracked or syndicated. iHeart’s stations except for 1-2 people a station are all syndicated/voice tracked.

 

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

Entercom all news stations like WCBS, WINS, KNX, WBBM and KCBS

Hubbard's WTOP all news has to be one of the few that does overnights because of All News Format.

 

[Don CT]

In Hartford hip-hop station Hot 93.7 is live til 2AM. Automated 2AM-6AM.

I think a couple of the i-Heart Music stations in my area are Voice tracked overnight.

WTIC (AM), which runs Hannity until 1AM and Coast to Coast AM til 5AM airs local news at the top and bottom of the hour, but the Top of the hour local news is a quick update as overnights they air a few mins of CBS News.

The last all live and local music station in Hartford went off the air for good in August 2014 when they were sold to K-LOVE and that was 106.9 WCCC. They were live and local 24/7. They were Mainstream Rock until 2013 when they flipped to Classic Rock. After H. Stern went over to Sirius in '06? they didn't air any satellite programming (except for New England Patriots Football). They didn't believe in voice-tracking. They were independently owned by Marlin Broadcasting which also owned Classical 104.9 W-BACH (WBOQ) in the suburbs of Boston which later changed to (Soft AC?) North Shore 104.9.

WCCC stopped over night jocks a few years before the sale.

 

[BigATL]

one such in Georgia i know of is WCON-FM My Country 99.3 they are live and local with someone there 24/7 even on weekends.

 

[Brian Bowers]

Since the original poster didn't specify that the radio station needed to be in the US to qualify, I believe BBC Radio 3 is live 24-7-365. IMO, when a station is live, it seems to have a more engaging type element to it. Voice-tracked dayparts on stations give me a very dry, lack of personal connection, listening experience.

 

[CTListener]

Since the original poster didn't specify that the radio station needed to be in the US to qualify, I believe BBC Radio 3 is live 24-7-365. IMO, when a station is live, it seems to have a more engaging type element to it. Voice-tracked dayparts on stations give me a very dry, lack of personal connection, listening experience.

All depends how skillfully the tracking is done. On SiriusXM, the eclectic rock channel The Loft (now an online-only jukebox) had hosts who really made the broadcast sound live. Of course, a local broadcast would include elements like weather, traffic and local events, none of which are necessary on a satellite channel.

BBC Radio 2 is also live all the time, I believe.