And yet that's not a problem for other formats. But rock has become very individual, so it's hard to program a radio station to suit individual taste.
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San Francisco Radio in 2022
- Thread starter CassChopper96
- Start date
And yet that's not a problem for other formats. But rock has become very individual, so it's hard to program a radio station to suit individual taste.
KTCT has a really weird pattern that makes it unlistenable in much of the South Bay. In fact, it doesn't even make it to Fremont at night. It's really a North-Peninsula-to-San Francisco station. So there's that too.
Dave B.
I agree. Being gay myself, I have never had an interest in listening to "gay radio". It has nothing for me. But, of course, commercial radio is ad-driven, and if a "gay format" can pull in clothing, cruise ship, and dance party advertisers it'll work. The "White parties" used to have very big ad budgets, though I'm not sure if they do now, post-pandemic.
Well, the Palm Springs White Party this summer seems to have met attendance levels of pre-pandemic times, but I don't know if expenditures were the same.
However, KGAY here has lept into the top 10 stations in audience, and is adding a second translator for the East Valley... indicating that there is enough commonality among a segment of the community to support its own voice. Of course, the playlist for music is not extreme... it is really a sort of rhythmic AC and is quite well done.
KCTC is just sports overflow from KNBR & KGO.
Did you mean KTCT
I know what you mean though.
But KGO was getting killed off by NPR affiliate KQED-FM News/Talk in the ratings. Here is San Francisco's top two radio stations as of September 2022 before Cumulus flipped KGO-AM to Sports Bet talk.
On KGO (as long as we’re fantasizing 😁)
What would be lovely is if the following were to happen:
AM radio is pretty much dying, and commercial stations don't have any interest in it because people aren't listening, but I think it could still be viable on a local, community-oriented, non-profit level. There is some local precedent for this: Radio Sausalito, KHMB Radio out of Half Moon Bay, and each seem to be moderately successful, so I think my idea is valid, if perhaps ambitious.
c
- Bring back either KFRC (preferably on 610) or KYA with a nice oldies format (KYNO 940 out of Fresno did this last summer and it seems to be doing okay so far). Both would be ideal, but probably overkill.
- Bring back KABL (KABL is quintessential San Francisco, and would be perfect as an adult standards station in my opinion)
AM radio is pretty much dying, and commercial stations don't have any interest in it because people aren't listening, but I think it could still be viable on a local, community-oriented, non-profit level. There is some local precedent for this: Radio Sausalito, KHMB Radio out of Half Moon Bay, and each seem to be moderately successful, so I think my idea is valid, if perhaps ambitious.
c
Maybe KLOK Radio should make a comeback, this time on an FM frequency with an MOR format!
There is still Alice
It's not just the AM part of your idea, cc, it's the formats. David posted somewhere KYNO's current ratings---not sure it's doing okay.
Oldies morphed into Classic Hits 15 years ago specifically to stay within the target demo advertisers want. Oldies is a 65+ format, and the heart of a 1955-72 Oldies station's audience would be more like 75+.
As far as Adult Standards, as I've mentioned several times over the couple of decades we've been on this board, I was a weird kid. I was raised with and like that music. Most of my friends didn't and still don't---at least not enough to listen to a radio station playing it. And I'm 66.
Adult standards is my mom and dad's music. If they were alive, they'd be 100 and 107 respectively. Attempts to tailor a standards format for a younger audience and put it on FM were a thing about 15 years ago. Every last one of 'em failed.
Time has done what time does. A 50-year-old today (with only four years remaining as desirable to ad agencies) was born in 1972, and graduated high school in 1990. Here are the top ten songs from their graduation year:
- Hold On-Wilson Phillips.
- It Must Have Been Love-Roxette.
- Nothing Compares 2 U-Sinead O'Connor.
- Poison-Bell Biv Devoe.
- Vogue-Madonna.
- Vision of Love-Mariah Carey.
- Another Day in Paradise-Phil Collins.
- Hold On-En Vogue.
- Cradle of Love-Billy Idol
- Blaze of Glory-Jon Bon Jovi
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@michael hagerty You and I seem to have in common an interest in music before our time.
My taste in music is highly unusual for a 30-something: I grew up really enjoying the really old swing and big band stuff, playing my grandparent's 78s, and such... in the 90s! And to this day, much of my favorite music dates from the 50s through early 70s.
I'm so far out of touch with most other people my age at this point that I have pretty much nothing to talk about, but with older people (65+), of course, I can talk for hours because it was their music, too.
In an effort to fix this "generational music gap", I've lately been trying to ease myself into liking the 80s and early 90s more, but now that is starting to feel dated. It won't be long before 00's and 10's become "oldies" at this rate, and there's very little I like from that recently. A possible exception is with artists who got their start in the 60s or 70s, but have managed to keep up with the times and remain relevant....
As for KYNO, I think I understand why they can still keep their format on the air despite low ratings: they're privately owned by people who care about their local audience, not a corporation trying to monetize everything (which, for better or worse, is necessary to keep businesses of that scale afloat). I'm not sure if that matters, but it seems like it might at least be a contributing factor, since hardly any stations in any market in California (especially the powerhouse 50 kW stations) are playing a format even remotely resembling KYNO's at this point.
c
My taste in music is highly unusual for a 30-something: I grew up really enjoying the really old swing and big band stuff, playing my grandparent's 78s, and such... in the 90s! And to this day, much of my favorite music dates from the 50s through early 70s.
I'm so far out of touch with most other people my age at this point that I have pretty much nothing to talk about, but with older people (65+), of course, I can talk for hours because it was their music, too.
In an effort to fix this "generational music gap", I've lately been trying to ease myself into liking the 80s and early 90s more, but now that is starting to feel dated. It won't be long before 00's and 10's become "oldies" at this rate, and there's very little I like from that recently. A possible exception is with artists who got their start in the 60s or 70s, but have managed to keep up with the times and remain relevant....
As for KYNO, I think I understand why they can still keep their format on the air despite low ratings: they're privately owned by people who care about their local audience, not a corporation trying to monetize everything (which, for better or worse, is necessary to keep businesses of that scale afloat). I'm not sure if that matters, but it seems like it might at least be a contributing factor, since hardly any stations in any market in California (especially the powerhouse 50 kW stations) are playing a format even remotely resembling KYNO's at this point.
c
Well, I'm 66...and again, both oldies and standards aim older than me.
I have pretty eclectic tastes in music, so I was able to broaden from the standards---started listening to Top 40 at 11, album rock at 13---jazz was always part of the standards for me and I branched out into more adventurous jazz around 13, too---and I managed to keep listening to the hits until I was in my early 40s.
As for KYNO, just because something's on the air doesn't mean it's working. A few months is too soon to tell. Corporations will generally give a format a year before making big changes (sometimes it's the same format, just a new program director). Smaller, privately-owned stations might give it two or three years. One Putt may be willing to subsidize KYNO's operation with profits from the other stations it owns.
You might like the bachelor pad format on SomaFM, "Illinois Street Lounge" SomaFM.com/illstreet
Add one more decade and welcome to the Greatest Music Ever!
"Oldies" was an era not an age. Oldies will always be late 50's thru early 80's. More modern 'music' needs to find its own brand because the average radio listener will almost never call 90's 'music' Oldies. YMMV
My mileage does vary, because (as we discussed in a lengthy thread here ten years ago), use of the term "oldie" to refer to music from years previous pops up as early as the 1910s and was in wide use in the 1940s.
The late Art Laboe, who passed this week at 97, began using the term "Oldies but Goodies" in the mid-late 1950s, largely referring to doo-wop and R&B from the early 50s. He trademarked the term and began repackaging that music in a series of LPs starting in 1958.
And, to Landtuna's point, the term "oldies" did come to mean early rock and roll (1956-72). In a misguided effort to hold on to Boomers, radio programmers flinched at the resistance they got when they tried to expand the timeline---and the format ended up calcifying. Meantime, the audience aged and eventually aged out of advertiser interest.
In the mid-2000s, more modern oldies (mid-70s onward) did, as Landtuna suggests, find its own brand as "Classic Hits".
But---we're entering a phase now that will only progress where more and more adults at an age wanting to hear music from their younger days who weren't around and don't know or care about all of the above will call it whatever they darn well want to.
And already Milennials are referring to Classic Hits stations as "oldies stations", for the exact same reasons that people in the 1910s through 1940s called songs from past years "oldies"...because it's an easy, descriptive label.
25 Songs Millennials Loved As Kids That Are Now Considered "Oldies"
In the same way "Adult Contemporary" once meant Barry Manilow and Air Supply and now means Justin Bieber (#5 this week on the AC chart) and Lizzo (#14), "oldies" means whatever its audience wants it to mean.
The late Art Laboe, who passed this week at 97, began using the term "Oldies but Goodies" in the mid-late 1950s, largely referring to doo-wop and R&B from the early 50s. He trademarked the term and began repackaging that music in a series of LPs starting in 1958.
And, to Landtuna's point, the term "oldies" did come to mean early rock and roll (1956-72). In a misguided effort to hold on to Boomers, radio programmers flinched at the resistance they got when they tried to expand the timeline---and the format ended up calcifying. Meantime, the audience aged and eventually aged out of advertiser interest.
In the mid-2000s, more modern oldies (mid-70s onward) did, as Landtuna suggests, find its own brand as "Classic Hits".
But---we're entering a phase now that will only progress where more and more adults at an age wanting to hear music from their younger days who weren't around and don't know or care about all of the above will call it whatever they darn well want to.
And already Milennials are referring to Classic Hits stations as "oldies stations", for the exact same reasons that people in the 1910s through 1940s called songs from past years "oldies"...because it's an easy, descriptive label.
25 Songs Millennials Loved As Kids That Are Now Considered "Oldies"
In the same way "Adult Contemporary" once meant Barry Manilow and Air Supply and now means Justin Bieber (#5 this week on the AC chart) and Lizzo (#14), "oldies" means whatever its audience wants it to mean.
I'm referencing what the general public calls the period music, not the marketing suits from the radio industry. I really doubt any average radio listener gives a damn what the industry description is.
You just made my point concerning the labeling of the oldies era.
There are still plenty of oldies outlets in service. The fact that advertisers want to call the era something else is meaningless to people looking for the greatest music of their lives.
I fail to see the difference in these two descriptions and I don't experience any of my peers giving a damn either. To us it is the same music from the same period (even though some stations expand or retract their individual playlists).
Agreed.
I can't comment on this because I was very young in the 40's but I never heard any of my aged grandparents use the term "oldies". They usually referred to music as "orchestral", "jazz", "western (not country)", or "classical". I first heard the term "oldies" in a 1961 song by Little Caesar & The Romans. That defined the era to me (and a whole bunch of my peers).
As for what Millennials are naming I really pay little attention. As a generation they are collective losers and their opinions are worthless. They seem to think a burger flipping job at Burger King with piercings and tattoos are a worthwhile life goal. They are grotesque and abysmally ignorant on most general and specific subjects. A huge reason our country has fallen to 2nd world status.
Agree with your "oldies" means whatever its audience wants it to mean" but hate the examples of the garbage ascribed to the worthless Bieber and the grotesque Lizzo. We had a few of those back in the day but these two take pop music to new basement levels.
And, as an aside, I used to be one of your car culture readers but will admit I know nothing about the new Mini. My experience with the older Mini's proved to me they were a real piece of cr*p. But to buyers who seemingly choose the infotainment systems over all other car features how did the EV Mini come out?
Which was my point. The general public were the ones using the term between 1910 and 1950.
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