It's also entirely possible that, for those who haven't heard it, Conway's first hour would be a better, more energetic hour than a fourth live hour would have been.
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Tim Conway Fudge...
- Thread starter sdwulfdawg
- Start date
As if there's only one reason....
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
And by the late 1970s, it was a three-hour show instead, with Whittinghill ending at 9:00am, followed by three hours each of Geoff Edwards, Wink Martindale, and Gary Owens. Which had to be easier on Whitt.
The three-hour show began in 1968, when they hired Geoff from KFI for 9:00 a.m.-12:00 noon. Ira Cook went from 10:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m. to Noon-1:00.
At that point, with the half-hour Harris & Frank news at 8:00, Whit was only doing 2 and a half hours. Whittinghill used that half-hour to have breakfast down the street since 1953---four years after he arrived at KMPC. A hamburger patty and sliced tomatoes would be waiting for him at the counter when he walked in at 8:05.
He'd still recycle bits from the 6:00 a.m. hour into the 8:30-9:00 half-hour---so he still just needed two hours of material.
Roger Carroll continued his split shift (1:00-3:00 p.m. and 6:30-9:00 p.m.) until April of 1970, when Jim Lange came down from KSFO for Noon-3:00 p.m., and Ira Cook shuffled off to KVFM.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
You remember it better than I, Mike, and I defer to your memory. I didn't listen to KMPC until Gary Owens came aboard.
I don't even defer to my own memory anymore---I looked it all up.
Gary arrived at KMPC in October of 1962, and did weekends for a few months before replacing Johnny Grant in afternoons in spring of 1963. The only guys whose names we remember today who pre-dated Gary (besides Johnny Grant) were Dick Whittinghill (1949), Ira Cook (1947) and Roger Carroll (1959).
Johnny Magnus arrived in 1963, Geoff Edwards and Jack Angel in 1968, Jim Lange in 1970, Clark Race and Wink Martindale in 1971, Kathy Gori and Sonny Melendrez in 1972, and Robert W. Morgan in 1975.
.....aaaaaaaaaaaand all the speculation we've done here is WRONG.
Timmy said on the show today he had a family emergency and had to bail on the fourth hour. Listeners on the "talk back" function and social media were reaming him pretty good. And he apologized. And, sure enough, hour #4 tonight was live.
Tim has talked A LOT about it being a four hour show. How he's got more time to fill. How he can slow down and do more casual conversations and bits. That does not sound like the type of attention Tim or KFI would give a show that would have a crappy re-run hour at the end of it.
Timmy said on the show today he had a family emergency and had to bail on the fourth hour. Listeners on the "talk back" function and social media were reaming him pretty good. And he apologized. And, sure enough, hour #4 tonight was live.
Tim has talked A LOT about it being a four hour show. How he's got more time to fill. How he can slow down and do more casual conversations and bits. That does not sound like the type of attention Tim or KFI would give a show that would have a crappy re-run hour at the end of it.
Yes, there is no indication that 9-10 pm is a repeat...
OK, fine...back to griping about KRTH's playlist!
It would be more productive to gripe about KFI's playlist.
Y'know, it's been like-----FIFTY YEARS since I heard Steve & Eydie on KFI. What the hell?
Songs (oldies and now current songs too) tend to be shorter than they were in the 70s-90s - I remember most songs were between 3 and 4 1/2 minutes long. Now they are almost all on the short end of 3 minutes or less than that. I remember without ads, most stations could get through 14 or 15 songs per hour, so I usually base that on 15 songs per hour (might be even more now) - so if a station playlist is based on a week between rotations, that station would have over 2,500 songs in their playlist. Most stations have an A rotation of top songs, a B rotation of lesser played but still familiar songs and maybe a C rotation of rarities that are nonetheless still remembered fondly or not so fondly. So I think most stations want to showcase their A and B songs more than anything else. I personally love wider varieties, but even looking at the 80s decade, I'm sure there are only about 200 or 300 "Top songs" - maybe less. These are the songs that you are most likely to hear on any particular station every day, peppered with a good variety of B songs (maybe another 200-400) and then the rarities, which probably number less than 200. Even with that, you're looking at maybe 900-1000 songs tops.
I've always heard that wider playlists are not favored by programmers because if you have too many unfamilar titles in the rotations, your listener will tune out because they don't know the songs. Internet radio and some satellite stations and streaming playlists are able to do this because people are looking to them for the niche programming, but their actual audience numbers may be small. Even on these niche services, an "80s on 8" probably has MUCH larger numbers than the Phish channel. In the world of terrestrial radio, the 80s channel (or Classic Hits centered on the 80s) would thrive better than a Phish channel or a AAA Music station. I worked for a AAA station with a wider than usual playlist in the 90s which hovered between #22 and #25 in a 27-station market. They had an audience but never rose above maybe #17 in almost 20 years of being on the air. On Sirius XM, I listened to the Yacht Rock channel for 2 or 3 days straight and heard some songs repeated in a 4-5 hour window. THAT in my opinion is too quick of a rotation on a Gold based format.
Once again, check the avatar. 🤯
I am not quite as old as you guys, but yes, I will take Lohman and Barkley over Handel's marginal legal advice and even more marginal humor in the mornings.
Bill Handel is best when he is serious and intelligently discussing a topic. The self deprecating curmudgeon jokes between him and Neil Saavedra are tiresome.
We know each other, remember? I wasn't being serious, either.
I was also wrong.
It's been more like 55 years since I heard Steve & Eydie on KFI.
It seems like 55 years since Steve and/or Eydie have been relevant in any way. (Except maybe as a Vegas nostalgia act.)
(Hoping to see you again soon at the museum.)
Oh wow. ANOTHER example of how radio used to be both fun and entertaining. These days, it may be entertaining, but they took the fun out a long time ago.