It's not just KRTH, and not just Los Angeles.

[jt99]

The vast bulk of the format is still 80's. There is a scattered later 70's batch and some 90's, but it is still mostly 80's.

There were thirty-some songs from the later 70's in the last 7 days, and about 85 from the 90's (and beyond) out of 476 total songs.

They could easily just play 80's, but that's not the image they are obviously looking to create. They play just enough post-80's to sound fresher and more current. Almost all of the higher rotation songs are from the 80's.

Based on what's been said about KRTH in the past, it seems like there's been an expansion to the playlist, with the new songs from the '90s and beyond being a key part of the expansion. While I'm a huge fan of the later '70s and '80s tracks that have propelled the format to success for the past several years, I enjoy '90s music as well, so I don't find this to be a negative at all. But that's just my two cents on the main topic.

KRTH’s sister station in DC, WIAD/94.7 The Drive plays “Uptown Funk” regularly - yet that doesn’t seem to have generated any kind of outcry like when KRTH did. Odd.

I think it's because WIAD doesn't have the success or the heritage of a station like KRTH to garner a huge amount of discussion from out of market posters like KRTH does.

 

[tall_guy1]

My concern is what the definition of “classic hits” will look like 20 years from now. I’ll be about 47-48 by then, and I’m guessing that even the 90’s will be too old by then. That’s the natural evolution of the format (and music) of course, but it’s unfortunate when the content you like is aging out. My guess is that “classic hits” will be a collection of music made between the year 2000 and 2020.

The unfortunate part is that older demographics are harder to sell to. If that weren’t the case, an older skewing format could just move to an inferior frequency. It seems like this was a common practice in decades past. Music by Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin was too old, but it moved to AM and people could still hear it. Same with true oldies, it moved to AM. It doesn’t seem very likely that classic hits of the 80’s will get similar treatment. Instead, we’re seeing these songs linger in the format longer than any other decade of music, only to be sunsetted entirely at some point. It can’t happen now, obviously, but it looks like the stage is being set for the new “classic hits” to become a commonplace.

Radio might not be around then though.

 

[victorres43]

Based on what's been said about KRTH in the past, it seems like there's been an expansion to the playlist, with the new songs from the '90s and beyond being a key part of the expansion. While I'm a huge fan of the later '70s and '80s tracks that have propelled the format to success for the past several years, I enjoy '90s music as well, so I don't find this to be a negative at all. But that's just my two cents on the main topic.

I think it's because WIAD doesn't have the success or the heritage of a station like KRTH to garner a huge amount of discussion from out of market posters like KRTH does.

KRTH and KOLA do not seem to like boybands as much as WCBS-FM does. Even WEAT in Palm Beach is playing plenty of late-90s/early-00s teen pop, and they are an older leaning market.

 

[TomásEstefan]

My concern is what the definition of “classic hits” will look like 20 years from now. I’ll be about 47-48 by then, and I’m guessing that even the 90’s will be too old by then. That’s the natural evolution of the format (and music) of course, but it’s unfortunate when the content you like is aging out. My guess is that “classic hits” will be a collection of music made between the year 2000 and 2020.

The unfortunate part is that older demographics are harder to sell to. If that weren’t the case, an older skewing format could just move to an inferior frequency. It seems like this was a common practice in decades past. Music by Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin was too old, but it moved to AM and people could still hear it. Same with true oldies, it moved to AM. It doesn’t seem very likely that classic hits of the 80’s will get similar treatment. Instead, we’re seeing these songs linger in the format longer than any other decade of music, only to be sunsetted entirely at some point. It can’t happen now, obviously, but it looks like the stage is being set for the new “classic hits” to become a commonplace.

The tunes you're talking about did not move to AM, they were always on AM and were never really on FM except very briefly. Top 40 oldies did make it to FM for a long time but are now heard mostly on AM stations here and there. Although here in Los Angeles you can hear Top 40 oldies from the 50s, 60s, and 70s on FM 105.1 HD-4. The station calls itself K-SURF.

 

[chrocket87]

Based on what's been said about KRTH in the past, it seems like there's been an expansion to the playlist, with the new songs from the '90s and beyond being a key part of the expansion. While I'm a huge fan of the later '70s and '80s tracks that have propelled the format to success for the past several years, I enjoy '90s music as well, so I don't find this to be a negative at all. But that's just my two cents on the main topic.

I think it's because WIAD doesn't have the success or the heritage of a station like KRTH to garner a huge amount of discussion from out of market posters like KRTH does.

Plus, the DC boards are very quiet, especially compared to the LA board.

 

[fordranger797]

The tunes you're talking about did not move to AM, they were always on AM and were never really on FM except very briefly. Top 40 oldies did make it to FM for a long time but are now heard mostly on AM stations here and there. Although here in Los Angeles you can hear Top 40 oldies from the 50s, 60s, and 70s on FM 105.1 HD-4. The station calls itself K-SURF.

I’ve never had the chance to try out HD radio, but if HD could be a landing point for some of the music formats that are going to go away, I say we should embrace it (since it’s much better than not having it at all).

 

[michael hagerty]

I’ve never had the chance to try out HD radio, but if HD could be a landing point for some of the music formats that are going to go away, I say we should embrace it (since it’s much better than not having it at all).

That's pretty much what HD radio has been used for the past 15-20 years.

KRTH HD2 spent nine years (2007-2016) playing the kind of oldies KRTH used to play before it evolved to Classic Hits. KROQ does "The Original Roq of the 80s" on its HD2. Saul Levine has used his HDs for KKGO and KKJZ to keep Standards, Oldies, Cool Jazz, Smooth Jazz and other niche formats alive at various points in time.

When KFRC-FM became a simulcast of KCBS-AM in 2008, the station continued, jockless, on HD2 until just this year.

 

[TomásEstefan]

Wish someone would program an HD channel Bossa Nova 24/7 now that really would be "Cool Jazz" !

 

[oldies76]

Because in addition to KIIS and Power 106, KROQ was one of the most influential stations when today’s KRTH listeners were in their teens and 20s.

Frankly there are many, many songs that KIIS-FM played as currents back in the day, that are not played on KRTH today. The Real McCoy "Run Away" would be a great example, huge L.A. hit back in the mid 90's on KIIS, but seems absent today. Sophie B Hawkins "As I Lay Me Down" is another, but instead they are focusing on non mainstream CHR songs, that I had no interest in back then. What about that club music scene from the 1992-1994 period that KIIS played a ton back in the day? "Hey Mr. DJ" by Zhane or Stereo MC's "Connected" from 1993. Huge songs on 102.7, absent from KRTH. Seems puzzling in the direction they are going in of late with the music choices.

btw, ever visited Norwalk Records on Firestone back in the early-mid 1990's? The in-house DJ was jamming those records daily in his shop back then. Fun times!

 

[michael hagerty]

Frankly there are many, many songs that KIIS-FM played as currents back in the day, that are not played on KRTH today. The Real McCoy "Run Away" would be a great example, huge L.A. hit back in the mid 90's on KIIS, but seems absent today. Sophie B Hawkins "As I Lay Me Down" is another, but instead they are focusing on non mainstream CHR songs, that I had no interest in back then. What about that club music scene from the 1992-1994 period that KIIS played a ton back in the day? "Hey Mr. DJ" by Zhane or Stereo MC's "Connected" from 1993. Huge songs on 102.7, absent from KRTH. Seems puzzling in the direction they are going in of late with the music choices.

You know the answer to this. KIIS, Power 106 and KROQ were among the most influential stations when today's /KRTH listeners were in their teens and 20s. Not all of the songs they played at the time test well today.

 

[powers]

I just heard Christina Perri, a 12-year old song, on "Classic Hits" KOLA. I wonder if the term "Classic Hits" can be redefined to mean "anything that was a hit from a few years ago, to 40 years ago?"

 

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

The 90s were 30+ years ago. 2001 was 22 years ago... A lifetime in the internet age. Older Millennials were kids during the 1990s. it only figures that with them being in their 30's and early 40s now, they'd want to hear 90s hits, and early 00s tracks on Classic Hits.

Yes and also Older Millennials is the last group to see music videos on MTV and VH1 when a lot of the pop songs from the 1990's to early 2000's came out.

 

[michael hagerty]

I just heard Christina Perri, a 12-year old song, on "Classic Hits" KOLA. I wonder if the term "Classic Hits" can be redefined to mean "anything that was a hit from a few years ago, to 40 years ago?"

You don't need to do that. As I said in post #12 in this thread:

Classic Hits…is not an arbitrary number of years but whatever 35-45 year olds want to hear right now.

 

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

You know, there was a time back on this message board's predecessor (radio-info.com) with a commonly similar discussion. Except it was the great tragedy of the demise of "adult standards." And how oldies stations playing 70s music would ruin the format.

Oldies get "less old" the older you live. Any song from the 90s is CLEARLY an oldies song now.

Disagree? Consider this lesson from The Simpsons...

Yes I remember when I heard about Oldies it was in the context of WABC-AM having to play an oldies station but it would have to be from the era when WABC-AM was a top 40 station in New York. But I mentioned that it won't fly because of demographic shift one has to consider such as the money demos. Also if one wants classic hits today it would have to shift to the 1990's to early 2000's to pull that off.

It was related to wanting the Beatles and Elvis in Radio but it's less likely to fly today.

 

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

Heres an idea for a classic hits station that wants to be more early 1990's leaning and not ready to run with the early 2000's just yet. Its from KIOI-FM now known as Iheart's Star 101.3 FM in San Francisco. Its an aircheck from 1992. Yes this playlist won't fly in today's San Francisco Radio Market on the AC side due to demographics reasons.

 

[TomásEstefan]

Moderately. It bills about 35% of what the leading biller does, and ranks 5th in gross revenues. Santa Barbara is a really small market, ranked 205th in population and about 190th in revenue.

Point Broadcasting has approximately 75% of market revenues, so little remains for the others. The whole market does just $6.6 million in revenue, and over 50% of listening is to out of market stations.

Small but incredibly rich! At some point in the early 60's a survey showed that Santa Barbara taken as a "self-contained" TV market had one of the highest, possibly the highest share of Color TV households in the country. Besides wealth, I often wondered whether this might have also been because the only local OTA station KEYT ch 3 was an NBC affliate. NBC of course was the first nationwide color network. (The 7 LA VHF stations and even a couple of SD ones were available along the coast. But a very large antenna mounted on a very tall mast was necessary for any kind of reasonable reception, but there was frequent fading, and even worse, co-channel E-skip interference from stations hundreds of miles away. Even much closer in, I remember trying to watch a show on LA's ch 2 from my wife's parent's place in Oxnard and occasionally the picture would start fluttering and you could plainly see the Televisa logo in the background. Never determined though what station/affiliate it might have been.

 

[michael hagerty]

Besides wealth, I often wondered whether this might have also been because the only local OTA station KEYT ch 3 was an NBC affliate. NBC of course was the first nationwide color network. (The 7 LA VHF stations and even a couple of SD ones were available along the coast.)

Santa Barbara was also one-third of the strangest TV market in California---Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-San Luis Obispo. In the 70s, when I lived in SLO, KEYT was ABC, KCOY in Santa Maria was the CBS station and KSBY, San Luis Obispo was NBC.

Affiliations in the market are a story in themselves, with KEYT running all four networks (ABC, CBS, NBC and Dumont) when it signed on in 1953. Dumont folded in 1956. It lost NBC in 1964 and CBS in 1969.

It's about 70 air miles from Santa Barbara to Santa Maria, and another 30 after that to San Luis Obispo.

 

[Mark Roberts]

Santa Barbara was also one-third of the strangest TV market in California---Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-San Luis Obispo. In the 70s, when I lived in SLO, KEYT was ABC, KCOY in Santa Maria was the CBS station and KSBY, San Luis Obispo was NBC.

Affiliations in the market are a story in themselves, with KEYT running all four networks (ABC, CBS, NBC and Dumont) when it signed on in 1953. Dumont folded in 1956. It lost NBC in 1964 and CBS in 1969.

It's about 70 air miles from Santa Barbara to Santa Maria, and another 30 after that to San Luis Obispo.

Forgettable enough in the 1970s when it was more or less just a farm town, but not forgettable any more, thanks to its wine-country boomlet, Paso Robles is even farther north in the market.

NPG (owned by the newspaper family from St. Joseph, Mo.) owns KEYT and owned KCOY, but has moved the CBS programming onto a subchannel of KEYT. NPG has transmitters on Broadcast Peak near Santa Barbara, on Cuesta Peak just north of SLO, and west of Paso Robles. (reference: How to find News Channel 12 | News Channel 3-12) Edit: What may have happened is that the KKFX (also owned by NPG) Fox programming was swapped with KCOY, giving Fox network programming a beefier signal compared to the lower-powered class A station that KKFX was - or is, which I have to say because the KEYT website is silent on the matter. The KCOY transmitter site is east of Santa Maria.

KSBY, owned by Scripps, has a translator near Santa Barbara in addition to its longstanding home on Cuesta Peak.

 

[Neel]

Forgettable enough in the 1970s when it was more or less just a farm town, but not forgettable any more, thanks to its wine-country boomlet, Paso Robles is even farther north in the market.

NPG (owned by the newspaper family from St. Joseph, Mo.) owns KEYT and owned KCOY, but has moved the CBS programming onto a subchannel of KEYT. NPG has transmitters on Broadcast Peak near Santa Barbara, on Cuesta Peak just north of SLO, and west of Paso Robles. (reference: How to find News Channel 12 | News Channel 3-12) Edit: What may have happened is that the KKFX (also owned by NPG) Fox programming was swapped with KCOY, giving Fox network programming a beefier signal compared to the lower-powered class A station that KKFX was - or is, which I have to say because the KEYT website is silent on the matter. The KCOY transmitter site is east of Santa Maria.

KSBY, owned by Scripps, has a translator near Santa Barbara in addition to its longstanding home on Cuesta Peak.

I grew up in Newbury Park/Thousand Oaks in the 80s and KEYT was available on our cable system as well as KABC although KEYT's signal wasn't that great with an antenna. Not sure if it's still available as a secondary ABC today.

 

[TomásEstefan]

Santa Barbara was also one-third of the strangest TV market in California---Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-San Luis Obispo. In the 70s, when I lived in SLO, KEYT was ABC, KCOY in Santa Maria was the CBS station and KSBY, San Luis Obispo was NBC.

Affiliations in the market are a story in themselves, with KEYT running all four networks (ABC, CBS, NBC and Dumont) when it signed on in 1953. Dumont folded in 1956. It lost NBC in 1964 and CBS in 1969.

It's about 70 air miles from Santa Barbara to Santa Maria, and another 30 after that to San Luis Obispo.

Maybe I blanked out for a few years, but I remember ch 3 switching from NBC to ABC with no recollection of KEYT ever being a CBS affiliate after giving up NBC for ABC.