I’m Officially Done With WCBS-FM - My Thoughts and Memories of the Station.

[rparky54]

Shocker. KRTH just played Tommy James and the Shondells "Mony Mony" from 1968. 8:34 PM PST 12-18-22. They're really getting retro tonight. I'm tracking these songs and times that they played. 🙂

Actually it was the Billy Idol cover not Tommy James.

The Greatest Hits on Earth! KRTH-FM is spinning the best Classic Hits, live from Los Angeles.

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Sunday

• 
  
• 
  
  Played at 8:52 pm PST
  Livin' On A Prayer
  Bon Jovi
• 
  
  Played at 8:49 pm PST
  Should I Stay Or Should I Go?
  CLASH
• 
  
  Played at 8:38 pm PST
  Dreams
  Fleetwood Mac
• 
  
  Played at 8:34 pm PST
  Girls Just Want To Have Fun
  Cyndi Lauper
• 
  
  Played at 8:30 pm PST
  Mony Mony
  Billy Idol

LATEST FROM K-EARTH 101​

https://www.audacy.com/kearth101/news/ad-tells-parents-to-drop-the-f-bomb-with-their-kids

 

[Daryl Lynn L.A.]

On Sunday night 12-18-22, KRTH played "I Love Rock n' Roll" by Joan Jett at both 9:33 pm & again at 11:35 pm. I checked to make sure that it was the same version of the song & same artist by holding up the smart phone to the laptop speaker and asking it to identify the artist & song.

The app I listen to, radiostationusa.com, appears to be approximately 60 seconds ahead of the Audacy website. They don't print a list of the exact song title or artist on their website. So, being a 60's person, when I hear Mony Mony, it sounds to me just like Tommy James & the Shondells. I'll check the artist on these songs more closely by learning how to find the play list on the actual Audacy site.

I looked at the Mediabase website, but that appears to be a subscription service. In order to subscribe to that service, it appears that it's necessary to contact their representative in L.A. It is possible that they offer that service only to stations or to broadcast personnel in the business. So, I'm not sure if they are reporting the duplication. -- Daryl

 

[davideduardo]

I looked at the Mediabase website, but that appears to be a subscription service. In order to subscribe to that service, it appears that it's necessary to contact their representative in L.A. It is possible that they offer that service only to stations or to broadcast personnel in the business. So, I'm not sure if they are reporting the duplication. -- Daryl

Every once in a while, I have spotted a mistaken detection on the one of the (formerly) two electronic playlist measuring services. Those are likely failures of the algorithm that creates a unique ID for each song, and they usually get spotted (or reported) and fixed,

That's a handful in about 25 years.

Otherwise, the system is quite accurate. It's paid for by stations and record labels and even by folks like artist representatives and the like. It's expensive.

 

[Daryl Lynn L.A.]

Every once in a while, I have spotted a mistaken detection on the one of the (formerly) two electronic playlist measuring services. Those are likely failures of the algorithm that creates a unique ID for each song, and they usually get spotted (or reported) and fixed,

That's a handful in about 25 years.

Otherwise, the system is quite accurate. It's paid for by stations and record labels and even by folks like artist representatives and the like. It's expensive.

Thanks, David !

 

[Daryl Lynn L.A.]

As I am recording the last show with my favorite pal, Scott Shannon from the Blythedale Children’s Hospital, I’m going to talk about why I am done with WCBS-FM along with my thoughts and memories about the station.

After 4 decades of listening to the station, CBS-FM is not going to be the same anymore, everything is different. Now they are playing all 80’s with less 70’s, and then the 90’s, and of course, some from the 2000’s which were not my cup of tea. I’m not a fan of artists that played on the station like OutKast where they played “Hey Ya”, the Black Eyed Peas called “I Got A Feeling” and of course, Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off” where they played during Scott Shannon’s final week on the show.

I was a CBS-FM loyal listener for a very long time, and now, after Scott Shannon leaves the airwaves today, I’m moving on to another radio station. I will be removing WCBS-FM from my favorites on my Audacy app, and I will be listening to a different radio station instead of CBS-FM.

My parents used to listened to CBS-FM back in the 1980’s and 1990’s, and we used to drive around when Bob Shannon was on at the time. That was my favorite memory for me.

I love the oldies, and I love the music from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s and I love doo-wop music a lot, and I’m going to listen to “Doo-Wop Drive” with Allan David Stein on WMTR later tonight where they’re playing doo-wop the way that Don K Reed used to played them on CBS-FM every Sunday where he hosted the “Doo-Wop Shop” for 27 years, and I was a fan of Don K Reed.

This is just my opinion, but feel free to leave it in the post below. I’m not going to offend by this, and I am recording Scott Shannon’s last show on CBS-FM right now. After his final show, I’m going to post his last show later today, and that would be it for me. I’m not going to listen to CBS-FM ever again.

HI MTN, I found your message to be very relatable ! I was touched that you referred to Scott Shannon as your pal, because I feel exactly the same way about a number of air personalities. They do become our pals and a part of our lives. I'm sorry that he did his last show and that he will not be around as much. I have listened to good-bye shows that made me cry, because I felt as if I were losing a friend. I agree with you that so many things are different about radio now. Thank you for posting this tribute to Scott and his work. 🙂 -- Daryl

 

[TheBigA]

I looked at the Mediabase website, but that appears to be a subscription service. In order to subscribe to that service, it appears that it's necessary to contact their representative in L.A. It is possible that they offer that service only to stations or to broadcast personnel in the business. So, I'm not sure if they are reporting the duplication. -- Daryl

Yes, Mediabase is by subscription. It is the system used by Billboard and other charts to track music on radio.

The Joan Jett song gets 11 spins a week, mostly in evenings and overnights. What do you mean by "duplication?"

 

[Daryl Lynn L.A.]

Hi Big A. By chance, do you work for Audacy corporate or for an Audacy station? If so, please understand that this is just my viewpoint as a listener; and my impression may be very different from industry professionals. So, JMO ( just my opinion).

By duplication, I mean that they play the same songs sooner than their stated policy of playing songs 6 hours apart. You were saying above that they have a group of about 25 songs that are supposed to be played 6 hours apart. Two nights in a row now, they have played songs closer than 6 hours apart. So to my ear, their playlist seems small.

This is going to make me sound old, but in the old days, this wouldn't happen with DJ's live in studio working in shifts of 3 or 4 hours. It wouldn't happen because of the way they stored and color-coded their vinyl records. I don't know what happened when they went to carts.

I think it is a symptom of radio becoming very impersonal, detached, apathetic, and lackadaisical. Audacy is a giant conglomerate. I see their "air talent" ( if you can call it that) as sitting at home, reading a script with a series of lines, one after the other, which are supposed to be inserted in between songs. Then, they send that sound file off to someplace where another person inserts those lines into a computer generated list of songs. I think it is why voice-tracking sounds completely impersonal, disembodies, robotic.

The voice you hear on KRTH -- or any other station -- doesn't have any connection to the song. The voice USUALLY does not identify the song, unless they are doing some kind of Top 40 countdown. If they could use a computer voice, they would. ( Maybe they do). The voice sounds distant, remote, apathetic. So I imagine them at home, multi-tasking, distracted, apathetic, robotic. I imagine them as Gen Z interns, paid very little, ( or nothing) to read lines off a script. JMO as a "boomer". - Daryl

 

[Daryl Lynn L.A.]

I'll listen again tonight and write down the songs. I'll see if they do the song duplication again. They LOVE to play Bon Jovi. - Daryl

 

[gr8oldies]

I'll listen again tonight and write down the songs. I'll see if they do the song duplication again. They LOVE to play Bon Jovi. - Daryl

Bear in mind if you're listening to the overnight shift, they may be using a log from earlier in the day and all of the format rules may not apply. We, as listeners or even enthusiasts, have no idea what the actual music policy is.

No one is sitting in a studio playing vinyl, unless it's a very small station in the boondocks. Even live stations are still using the Selector or whatever program with digital storage.

 

[TheBigA]

Hi Big A. By chance, do you work for Audacy corporate or for an Audacy station?

No

By duplication, I mean that they play the same songs sooner than their stated policy of playing songs 6 hours apart.

The only explanation I can think of is they were scheduled in different dayparts that happened to be close together. From what I can see, there's a better chance for this to happen at night than during the day.

 

[Daryl Lynn L.A.]

Bear in mind if you're listening to the overnight shift, they may be using a log from earlier in the day and all of the format rules may not apply. We, as listeners or even enthusiasts, have no idea what the actual music policy is.

No one is sitting in a studio playing vinyl, unless it's a very small station in the boondocks. Even live stations are still using the Selector or whatever program with digital storage.

Yes, agreed. For sure, no one is sitting in a studio playing vinyl.

Big A has access to Mediabase, a subscription service that tracks radio stations. He says that KRTH policy is to play a song every about every 6 hours. There's a list of 25 basic songs, among others, which are rotated in and out from their library. That's where I got the 6 hour rule.

 

[TheBigA]

Big A has access to Mediabase, a subscription service that tracks radio stations. He says that KRTH policy is to play a song every about every 6 hours.

I don't know if it's a policy, but if you do the math, and divide 34 by 7 you get 5, which is the number of dayparts they have.

 

[MTNProductions]

Thanks for the kind words about Scott Shannon and WCBS-FM. I’ve been a Scott Shannon fan since the “Z100” days back when it was the “Morning Zoo” and the whole sh-bang. I have the “Z100 Morning Zoo’s Greatest Hits” albums which I do have in my collection, and it has some great moments from the days of “Z100” when Scott Shannon, Ross Brittain, Mr. Leonard and the rest.

For now, I did listened to WBPM this morning, and Bob Miller is back to reality to take over Scott Shannon’s place in mornings following his departure and I enjoyed them, but it has 70’s, 80’s, a few 90’s, but with some 60’s songs the one that CBS-FM used to played them all the time. Remember “White Cream” by Cream, that was the song that CBS-FM played in its rotation back in the day. They played “Dance To The Music” by Sly & The Family Stone, and that was the song that played on CBS-FM when it was an oldies.

Other stations like WGNY-FM’s “Fox Oldies” where they are playing 50’s and 60’s music the way that CBS-FM usually played during its existence. BTW, Sunny Joe Allen came back on Saturdays after a few months from hiatus since he was about to do evenings out on Long Island, but it didn’t work since his evening show was cancelled during the last minute, and Sunny Joe’s name was removed from WPTY-HD2’s website since he wasn’t on the air at all back when it was “Oldes 98.1” until it was rebranded to “Big 98.1” which is now a classic hits station. This past weekend, “Fox Oldies” played “Just A Little But Better” by Herman’s Hermits, “Tossin’ and Turnin” by Bobby Lewis, “Good Golly Miss Molly” by Little Richard, “Ain’t No Way” by Aretha Franklin and more, plus some Christmas songs thrown in. It was a great show. But I might dig through some airchecks later on.

 

[jt99]

BigA - can you tell if WCBS-FM is doing similar things with its rotation? There’s a handful of songs that I find almost always play at the top of the hour, the aforementioned “Livin On A Prayer” being one, another being “Don’t You Want Me” by the Human League.

As far as I can tell, Audacy uses the same strategy for the rotations on all their Classic Hits stations aside from WCBS-FM and WOMC. Perhaps the pair of smaller market stations they own in the format (KEYN and WOLX-FM) avoid the strategy as well. I find it very interesting how it seems only Audacy is using this strategy on their Classic Hits stations, but not anyone else.

 

[AceBiscuits]

As far as I can tell, Audacy uses the same strategy for the rotations on all their Classic Hits stations aside from WCBS-FM and WOMC. Perhaps the pair of smaller market stations they own in the format (KEYN and WOLX-FM) avoid the strategy as well. I find it very interesting how it seems only Audacy is using this strategy on their Classic Hits stations, but not anyone else.

If KRTH was the originator of this, what may be the rationale as to why they are doing this across the board is that KRTH's PD Chris Ebbott is Audacy's Format Captain for Classic Hits. It's another reason why WOGL and KOOL now sound like carbon-copies of KRTH imaging-wise, and the majority of the stations now feature the same/similar presentation.

 

[RStacey1990]

Thanks for the kind words about Scott Shannon and WCBS-FM. I’ve been a Scott Shannon fan since the “Z100” days back when it was the “Morning Zoo” and the whole sh-bang. I have the “Z100 Morning Zoo’s Greatest Hits” albums which I do have in my collection, and it has some great moments from the days of “Z100” when Scott Shannon, Ross Brittain, Mr. Leonard and the rest.

For now, I did listened to WBPM this morning, and Bob Miller is back to reality to take over Scott Shannon’s place in mornings following his departure and I enjoyed them, but it has 70’s, 80’s, a few 90’s, but with some 60’s songs the one that CBS-FM used to played them all the time. Remember “White Cream” by Cream, that was the song that CBS-FM played in its rotation back in the day. They played “Dance To The Music” by Sly & The Family Stone, and that was the song that played on CBS-FM when it was an oldies.

Other stations like WGNY-FM’s “Fox Oldies” where they are playing 50’s and 60’s music the way that CBS-FM usually played during its existence. BTW, Sunny Joe Allen came back on Saturdays after a few months from hiatus since he was about to do evenings out on Long Island, but it didn’t work since his evening show was cancelled during the last minute, and Sunny Joe’s name was removed from WPTY-HD2’s website since he wasn’t on the air at all back when it was “Oldes 98.1” until it was rebranded to “Big 98.1” which is now a classic hits station. This past weekend, “Fox Oldies” played “Just A Little But Better” by Herman’s Hermits, “Tossin’ and Turnin” by Bobby Lewis, “Good Golly Miss Molly” by Little Richard, “Ain’t No Way” by Aretha Franklin and more, plus some Christmas songs thrown in. It was a great show. But I might dig through some airchecks later on.

Do you have any old unscoped air checks of WOGL from the early 2000’s and before when it was still Oldies 98?

 

[gr8oldies]

As far as I can tell, Audacy uses the same strategy for the rotations on all their Classic Hits stations aside from WCBS-FM and WOMC. Perhaps the pair of smaller market stations they own in the format (KEYN and WOLX-FM) avoid the strategy as well. I find it very interesting how it seems only Audacy is using this strategy on their Classic Hits stations, but not anyone else.

One would have to study several days or weeks of music logs to begin to get the rotations and music rules inputted into Selector.

 

[MTNProductions]

I am now listening to Bob O on WGNY-FM “Fox Oldies” as of now, because I stopped listening to Bob Miller on WBPM last week and it was the last time I listened to for the time being. As of now and all of this week, Bob O is still sounds great on “Fox Oldies” where he is now returning as a fill-in host for whoever is going to take over starting on Monday which is the second day of 2023 will be Allan David Stein on WMTR to take over Scott Shannon’s place on WCBS-FM.

Bob O does a great job in mornings since he returned a few weeks ago and still plays the oldies the way it sounded on WCBS-FM back in the good old days of the “Golden 101”. I hope Allan David Stein from “Doo-Wop Drive” will do an excellent job to do mornings.

And speaking of which, Sunny Joe Allen is back on “Fox Oldies” after a few months, and I will be listening to it only on Saturdays following the “Classic Country Hall of Fame” with Kevin Richards on WKBE’s “Big Country 107.1” since he is returning from my vacation.

I was in Florida over the last holiday weekend and I can’t get “Big Country 107.1” down there due to a web stream being geoblocked. So I flipped to “Fox Oldies” and Bob O does a fantastic job with his Christmas Eve show where he did filled in for Kevin Richards where he played straight oldies instead of playing country oldies like Dolly Parton, Kenny Rogers, Willie Nelson, etc. the way it used to sounded back in the WHN and WYNY days.

 

[CTListener]

And speaking of which, Sunny Joe Allen is back on “Fox Oldies” after a few months, and I will be listening to it only on Saturdays following the “Classic Country Hall of Fame” with Kevin Richards on WKBE’s “Big Country 107.1” since he is returning from my vacation.

I was in Florida over the last holiday weekend and I can’t get “Big Country 107.1” down there due to a web stream being geoblocked.

I didn't realize WKBE geoblocks. I've been listening to it online occasionally here in eastern Vermont since discovering it during my Saratoga vacation last summer. We're well out of range of the station's signal and blocked by the Green Mountains, but FM reception is possible toward the state's western border, I suppose that excluding all of Vermont from geoblocking is an easier way to limit streaming access than trying to determine which specific Vermont counties should be blocked.

 

[semoochie]

Thanks for the kind words about Scott Shannon and WCBS-FM. I’ve been a Scott Shannon fan since the “Z100” days back when it was the “Morning Zoo” and the whole sh-bang. I have the “Z100 Morning Zoo’s Greatest Hits” albums which I do have in my collection, and it has some great moments from the days of “Z100” when Scott Shannon, Ross Brittain, Mr. Leonard and the rest.

For now, I did listened to WBPM this morning, and Bob Miller is back to reality to take over Scott Shannon’s place in mornings following his departure and I enjoyed them, but it has 70’s, 80’s, a few 90’s, but with some 60’s songs the one that CBS-FM used to played them all the time. Remember “White Cream” by Cream, that was the song that CBS-FM played in its rotation back in the day. They played “Dance To The Music” by Sly & The Family Stone, and that was the song that played on CBS-FM when it was an oldies.

Other stations like WGNY-FM’s “Fox Oldies” where they are playing 50’s and 60’s music the way that CBS-FM usually played during its existence. BTW, Sunny Joe Allen came back on Saturdays after a few months from hiatus since he was about to do evenings out on Long Island, but it didn’t work since his evening show was cancelled during the last minute, and Sunny Joe’s name was removed from WPTY-HD2’s website since he wasn’t on the air at all back when it was “Oldes 98.1” until it was rebranded to “Big 98.1” which is now a classic hits station. This past weekend, “Fox Oldies” played “Just A Little But Better” by Herman’s Hermits, “Tossin’ and Turnin” by Bobby Lewis, “Good Golly Miss Molly” by Little Richard, “Ain’t No Way” by Aretha Franklin and more, plus some Christmas songs thrown in. It was a great show. But I might dig through some airchecks later on.

White Room