Slight correction. ‘NEW shifted to more of a harder current approach by the start of ‘98 (Opie & Anthony arrived that June), and then flipped to hot talk in September ‘99.
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Good old 94.7
- Thread starter Tom Decouttere
- Start date
Well KTWV had to move on to R&B when it noticed that Smooth Jazz was fading or was dead in other parts of the USA.
Actually, I find the KTWV story to be rather amazing. They were one of the first "New Age" stations in America, completely breaking away from the heritage station that preceded it and taking a real gamble on the format, while providing something completely different any of the formats they were speculated to flip to at the time. Then, when the new age format began to stall, they transitioned to the similar, "Smooth Jazz" format which was very successful, and then when that ship had finally sailed they again transitioned from "Smooth Jazz" to sort of KUTE style R&B, first only including classics and then slowly more modern stuff. They did all of this over many years without significantly changing air staff, logo, and call letters, as if no change had ever really been made. A truly evolved, but not really changed station.
They have always been a bit of a niche station, but the managers and programmers have always seemed to get the most out of whatever the niche had to offer. Over the years one of the most consistently well-run stations I have heard.
-- But I do have to admit I haven't listened in quite some time, do the still spin "Midnight Train to Georgia" three times a day?
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It was a very slow transition, not a format switch or abandonment of smooth jazz. Just as the “new age” faded in the earlier years, the saxophone solos got tiring and the stations moved onwards.
This is no different from Top 40 moving from Paul Anka to the Beatles to Donna Summer to Pet Shop Boys and onwards.
Other than the name, the transition to Smooth Jazz was just a new positioning statement because the operator of the new station in Chicago did not want to pay to use the original licensing. There was no format shift, just the normal research-based changes in library over time.
Similarly, if you look at KTWV it never changed format. Simply, tired songs were replaced with others that fit the target audience tastes… something that happens with every format. It was absolutely the same format, with music researched against a constant target demographic group.
The concept was developed by Frank Cody and Owen Leach, and the core values are the same today, but nearly 100% of the original core has aged out, so we have different music and artist, but using the same model of style and presentation.
Less…
I would say this statement is pretty accurate. I generally don’t listen to urban formatted stations, but I will listen to KTWV on occasion. The change was done as gently as possible.
Aside from the airport, I've never been to LA. I never listened to KMET. Growing up in Texas and Oklahoma, though, I do remember the demise of KZEW 98. I was the kid in junior high who had a KZEW sticker on the inside of my locker, but spent at least 90% of my time listening to the two big top-40 stations. I was shocked and saddened when my mom took me to pick an item up from a garage sale as a high school freshman, and, as she was negotiating the deal, I sat in the car and flipped the radio. When 97.9 lit up, it was playing a soft AC format that bored me to tears. I found out about the change on my 15th birthday to boot! When my mom saw I was disappointed, she said, “I didn’t even realize you still listened to that station, but I like this one.” Maybe, if we knew we were about to lose them, we would’ve listened a little more, but that alone means they weren’t providing as compelling of programming as they once did. If you’re not listening to a station because “it's always going to be here,” you’re not really a fan.
Wow John Mayer's instrumental version for " Sob Rock's-Shot in the Dark" Sounds like it would have been in the early 1990's version of 94.7 The Wave. It's amazing how throwback 90's is now coming up to the surface.
But if you were to listen to the song with John Mayer's Voice included one could easily guess that it was made for Soft Rock Radio in the early 1990's too.
Back to the Los Angeles Times article on the end of KMET, provided by Michael Haggerty. Great article!
But Frank Cody clearly didn't want to disclose what the new station would be. He says a new staff of DJs would be hired. No. When The Wave debuted, it made a selling point of "No DJs." A group of actors would do a brief sketch at the beginning of each hour to give us a bit of personality and somehow work in a time check. (Anyone remember that?) The new age artists themselves would record a brief mention of their new song and new album. Cheryl Bentyne of Manhattan Transfer was hired to do "Lady Sings The News," a musical summery of a few news stories. The Wave was really inventive, and not just by playing New Age music. So rare that a new format and presentation would be invented for a major market station and not hatched in a smaller market (like Jack-FM started in Regina, Canada).
I'll never forget the first time I heard it. I was driving toward Los Angeles from Phoenix and tuned to 94.7 just after Palm Springs. Wow, I was totally amazed! I couldn't get over how much I loved KTWV! I had read in the trades that this Metromedia station had switched to something called "New Age Music." But I had no real understanding of the term.
The music was mostly instrumental but sounded nothing like Easy Listening. It was intelligent, sensitive, sometimes jazzy, sometimes almost classical. And a few vocals each hour came from artists I admired, such as Sting, Genesis, Fleetwood Mac and Lenny Kravitz.
And now that it's The Soul of Southern California, I'm still a fan. It continues to sound like no other station, mixing soft soul hits, new and old, with pop artists and even an occasional 60s hit from Aretha, Al Green and The Temptations. No one else does that!
But Frank Cody clearly didn't want to disclose what the new station would be. He says a new staff of DJs would be hired. No. When The Wave debuted, it made a selling point of "No DJs." A group of actors would do a brief sketch at the beginning of each hour to give us a bit of personality and somehow work in a time check. (Anyone remember that?) The new age artists themselves would record a brief mention of their new song and new album. Cheryl Bentyne of Manhattan Transfer was hired to do "Lady Sings The News," a musical summery of a few news stories. The Wave was really inventive, and not just by playing New Age music. So rare that a new format and presentation would be invented for a major market station and not hatched in a smaller market (like Jack-FM started in Regina, Canada).
I'll never forget the first time I heard it. I was driving toward Los Angeles from Phoenix and tuned to 94.7 just after Palm Springs. Wow, I was totally amazed! I couldn't get over how much I loved KTWV! I had read in the trades that this Metromedia station had switched to something called "New Age Music." But I had no real understanding of the term.
The music was mostly instrumental but sounded nothing like Easy Listening. It was intelligent, sensitive, sometimes jazzy, sometimes almost classical. And a few vocals each hour came from artists I admired, such as Sting, Genesis, Fleetwood Mac and Lenny Kravitz.
And now that it's The Soul of Southern California, I'm still a fan. It continues to sound like no other station, mixing soft soul hits, new and old, with pop artists and even an occasional 60s hit from Aretha, Al Green and The Temptations. No one else does that!
The problem is that its demos are getting very, very old. It still has a few years of life "as is" but will need to figure out how to modernize very soon.
Gregg:
Sure! Here's one from the early days, and 58 minutes worth of unscoped Wave to go with:
That's because he was not the only "author" of the new format. The leaders were Owen Leach and Frank Cody, but also included John Sebastian and several others who did the implementation of Leach's research.
Gregg: I had a similar experience...though I think I waited until I was in L.A. proper before tuning in. I caught the end of a track I couldn't identify, then this, and I was hooked:
Didn't hurt that they followed this with the ocean sound sweeper (a wave or two rolling in and a voice saying "Ninety-four-seven, The Wave") followed by something from Joni Mitchell (I think it was "Coyote").
I read that, even though The Wave had no DJs, it had board ops 24/7 to mix the elements properly. Management didn't want to leave it to automation. I suppose Jack-FM in LA has live board ops, at least in the daytime, even though it has no DJs. I know that WCBS-FM, when it was New York's Jack-FM, had board ops at all times.
I remember it commissioned some noted jazz and pop performers to sing "94-Seven, The Waaaaaaaave." Al Jarreau and Michael Franks were among those singing the jingle.
Eventually, The Wave became one of CBS's most profitable stations. Its ratings weren't top 10 in its New Age/Smooth Jazz days. But I suppose its audience was so upper income that it was filled with ads for airlines, spas and expensive cars. These days, it has the best ratings in its history, always top 5, even though David says its demos are getting older.
I remember it commissioned some noted jazz and pop performers to sing "94-Seven, The Waaaaaaaave." Al Jarreau and Michael Franks were among those singing the jingle.
Eventually, The Wave became one of CBS's most profitable stations. Its ratings weren't top 10 in its New Age/Smooth Jazz days. But I suppose its audience was so upper income that it was filled with ads for airlines, spas and expensive cars. These days, it has the best ratings in its history, always top 5, even though David says its demos are getting older.
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Few ad buys are based on income, and from early on (after they moved away from the windchime music) The Wave was sustained by the fact that a high percentage of listeners were Black.
Today, in 25-54 it is averaging, in the two post-Holiday weeks, 11th in 25-54. In the last few books it has had a bounce in 18-34, but with all the trouble with the panel and the meters, that may be a methodology issue. We will have to wait and see.
I listened to the switchover live from KMET to KTWV at high noon on February 14, 1987 (oh wow, look here, the 35th Anniversary is actually coming up on Monday!).
Anyway, I remember well that in the eight days since the change to some new format was announced, there was much rumor as to what the new format would be, but the execs did a very good job of keeping the secret, so everyone's predictions turned out to be way off the mark, nobody had even conceived of the "New Wave" format before.
In any case, I remember the first song to be "If You Love Somebody, Set them Free" by Sting. Well that just kind of kept the suspense going because that song fits on several formats. It has been too many years and I don't remember what the second and third songs were (I am sure the changeover is on YouTube somewhere) but it seemed that they played a few more songs that didn't easily give it away, and you had to listen for at least 15-20 minutes to start to get an idea where they were going.
One of the reasons they kept me roped in at the beginning was they played a lot of Steely Dan (a lot!), and a few other rock artists that could fit the format, so it was interesting to see how they weaved them together with the Kenny G, Sade, Double ("Captain of Her Heart") and John Tesh.
All these years later I still think that old format is much more interesting than the modern slow R&B they have become.
Automation today is far more advanced than it was in 1983. Today pretty much all studio operations are handled by the automation system, even when there is a live DJ. So a board op would only be necessary if the union requires it.
I meant "New Age" of course. Too late to edit and I need to post a correction before KMR does it for me.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
I knew what you meant, Flipper, and I wasn't going to correct you because I have made the same typo myself lots of times. (Not to mention, that typo was especially easy to make since we are talking about The Wave ... unless there has also been some station called "The Age" that we missed.)
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