See post #11.
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WMJI's winning ways
- Thread starter johnbasalla
- Start date
See post #11.
Vernon With a V, The "Real" Bob James, Phil Gardner were never on WMJI.
WMJI personalities - hate "DJ" - over the years... I'm sure I'll forget someone....
On Air
John Lanigan
Jimmy Malone
John Webster
Chip Kullick
Tony Rizzo
Ravenna Miceli
Daune Robinson
Denny Sanders
Mike Ivers
Scott Howitt
Dan Deely
Gina St John (yes, of E!)
Sandy Bennett
Luther Heggs
Chris "The Mighty" Quinn
Norm N. Nite
Tom Hudson
Jim Shea
John "Records" Landecker
Ken Morgan
Mike Valentine
Bob Friend
Doc Thompson
Chuck Matthews
Jim Kennedy
Tony Havana
Mike Wencho
Sky Douglas
Max Heywood
Billy Bass
Production
JR Nelson - station voice
Mitch Todd - Creative Director
News
Carmen Angelo
Adam Mendoza
Agree to disagree that More Personality = Less Music.
At some point, every one of the legendary stations you can name got beat. What beat them? Usually more music. Even Paul Drake knew that.
Can have personality without stopping down, sacrificing music count. "Crush 'n roll"
Paul Drake may have thought that. Ron Jacobs thought otherwise.
Lanigan's gone and WMJI is #1. I rest my case.
Bob James, Phil Gardner and John Lanigan were all on WGAR 1220 when that was the top personality music station in the '70's.
I recently listened to a YouTube aircheck of DJ Ron Britain on WCFL in 1967. Ron "Tulu Baby" Britain was on WHK in the mid-60's and went to Chicago where he enjoyed a successful career into the 1980's.
Several things struck me. First, how long and elaborate the jingles were. Today people would punch out on that alone. Next, his "bits", were also very long. Even I started to find them a little tedious. And for the music snippets, which I assume were hits in 1967, I didn't recall them. Add in the news on the hour and sports on the half hour, all that would be an instant tune out for today's audience. Yet WCFL was one of the most successful and legendary stations of its day.
It really brought home to me how the eras have changed and how I, unaware and even unwillingly, have changed with them.
I recently listened to a YouTube aircheck of DJ Ron Britain on WCFL in 1967. Ron "Tulu Baby" Britain was on WHK in the mid-60's and went to Chicago where he enjoyed a successful career into the 1980's.
Several things struck me. First, how long and elaborate the jingles were. Today people would punch out on that alone. Next, his "bits", were also very long. Even I started to find them a little tedious. And for the music snippets, which I assume were hits in 1967, I didn't recall them. Add in the news on the hour and sports on the half hour, all that would be an instant tune out for today's audience. Yet WCFL was one of the most successful and legendary stations of its day.
It really brought home to me how the eras have changed and how I, unaware and even unwillingly, have changed with them.
What happened to a lot of the Majic personalities?
One more thing about Lanigan: When he left WMJI, where did he go? Was it to another music station? No. It was to a talk station, where he could do his thing without stopping to play music. If you're a big name personality, and you know people tune in specifically for your personality, why would you want to interrupt your show with music? Especially if we're talking about current music.
Consider WMMS. They have a legendary morning personality. Nobody's going to force him to play more music in his show. That's why I say more personality means less music. And in some formats, like rock, the personality is more of a draw than the music. If you really ARE a personality, that's what you want.
Consider WMMS. They have a legendary morning personality. Nobody's going to force him to play more music in his show. That's why I say more personality means less music. And in some formats, like rock, the personality is more of a draw than the music. If you really ARE a personality, that's what you want.
Lanigan's an interesting case as his WMJI show was essentially all-talk on an oldies station, especially from 1992 onward. That had a lot to do with WNCX debuting Stern at that same time; WMMS's Jeff and Flash, who were market stalwarts, failed to compete against Stern and got buried by him in the ratings, Lanigan publicly feuded with Stern, only lost to him in one rating book, and outlasted him by eight years.
When he retired the first time, Mike Trivisonno invited him to be on WTAM's The Spew debate program, and they got along fairly well. A panel debate program on a talk station didn't really appeal to Lanigan long-term, and he quit mid-show.
Cleveland radio legend John Lanigan ups and quits in the middle of his show on WTAM
"Today I'm announcing: this is my last show. I won't be doing 'The Spew' ever again. I'm quitting today. I've done it before - my one son said, 'Oh. You're retiring again, huh dad?' Yep, that's it, I'm done," Lanigan began as co-hosts Mike Snyder and Mike Trivisonno sat in stunned silence.
When Nolan succeeded Lanigan, the all-talk format was mostly kept out of inertia. And why not? The ratings were still there to support it at the time. As time went on, the show inevitably added a few songs per hour and then rebooted without Malone and Kullik. By any standard, WMJI succeeded in an otherwise impossible task of having to replace a legend.
Rover's also still syndicated out of WMMS on quite a few stations with different forms of rock. The markets that carry him clearly want him to talk and not play music.
All that changed when "more music" started to belong to streams and internets sources.
And this is when we say that it takes a great PD to bring out the potential of a talent and integrate them with the station.
Brain fart! That's what I get for typing when tired. I meant WGAR but was thinking 'MJI. [I'll also blame old age......]
Back in the day, most of these personalities were given xx-seconds to do their shtick at any given break, and/or an extended break once an hour or shift for a regular segment (i.e. Lanigan's Flex Club, which began over on WGAR). On most stations, this was in addition to listener contests and request calls which were played on the air and brought the music sets to a stop.
Back then it worked because listeners tuned into the station for the personalities first, and what they played "musically" second. Unfortunately, that broadcast format has gone the way of typewriters and fax machines as there is far less local talent on the airwaves and commercial time has taken up more of the space per hour that would have/could have been used for the personalities to do some creative bits.
Back then it worked because listeners tuned into the station for the personalities first, and what they played "musically" second. Unfortunately, that broadcast format has gone the way of typewriters and fax machines as there is far less local talent on the airwaves and commercial time has taken up more of the space per hour that would have/could have been used for the personalities to do some creative bits.
The average amount of commercial time per hour hasn't changed in over 30 years.
What's changed is the availability of commercial free and host free music services. There is no local talent on Spotify.
Not to nitpick but it was Bill Drake. And Paul Drew.
I tend to agree. It is my hunch that in this people meter era a good number of WMJI's entries are from pickups in shops, businesses and even offices who have it on because in the absence of beautiful music and smooth jazz their music is the least controversial and most widely accepted of anything else on the air.
By the same token, many store chains now have their own music services and lots of shops are using music from Spectrum or other internet services rather than the radio.
Longer span listeners are around 50% of a station cume, but about 85% of the TSL. Those little incidental "listens" don't have any impact on share, but they do increase cume a bit.