Cruisin' 92.1 WVLT selling to The Voice Radio Network

[lanceventa]

Radio fans/nerds (of which I amn one) who havent ever or not in a while... worked in broadcasting... cant think like the normal average every day person. and ive got proof of that. And furthger, I've got proof that even when some listeners know you arent live or arent local, they don't care.

It's about knowing your listeners and connecting with them.

Paul is 100% correct here. It doesn't matter how or where the content is produced but how it resonates with the audience.

Why do people sit through nearly 20 minutes of commercials/promos on many iHeart stations? Because they care about the programming.

And nobody who posts on a radio discussion board or social media group can be considered an ordinary listener. It doesn't matter if you know about 1% of how the cake is made or 100%. We're all a special niche that looks for different things in the product than they do.

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

Paul is 100% correct here. It doesn't matter how or where the content is produced but how it resonates with the audience.

Why do people sit through nearly 20 minutes of commercials/promos on many iHeart stations? Because they care about the programming.

And nobody who posts on a radio discussion board or social media group can be considered an ordinary listener. It doesn't matter if you know about 1% of how the cake is made or 100%. We're all a special niche that looks for different things in the product than they do.

When i did national overnights on a classic country format, i made friends with a few listeners in various places through the course of life.... still friends with a few even though i dont do the show anymore and some have told me how much they enjoyed me and how i brought a ersonal touch to an otherwise boring overnight (one is a state police dispatcher n KS)

Some of Hits 106's more ardent fans, and many exist... knew i was no longer in wyoming for 5 years but still listened and occasionally asked about me and hwo i was doing in alaska.

I've had to realign my thinking over nearly 25 years in broadcasting

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

Maybe it's just being more philosophical in discussing things with no single truth. What works in "A" doesn't work in "B." Or what DID work stopped working. I'm just not seeing how it's a fundamentally bad thing that audiences can get what they want with fewer limitations. That's not trying to be an a..... just thinking about trends and technology as they evolve.

i think this fits into another thing i stand by... peoples tastes and wants/likes/dislikes change over time and many arent taking into account what people wanted 40 years ago isnt what they want today.

Hld by standards from the 80s? Id be an awful jock and never get a job.

Held by standards of today? Im relatable... and listeners want that mroe than a balls deep voice

 

[Miguelito]

I'll be the big a-hole then

When we were just a stand alone and had no other stations, our stations TSL was the biggest in the county.... 2x that of our competitor, 3-4x that of everyone lse in the market.

Darn near zero would change by being live, it doesnt make the message more effective.

We have a syndicated morning show on all 4 stations
a voicetracker from CA for middays and me for afternoons on the AC station

ill be middays on the country station soon
with a syndicated afternoon show on the country station

and just mornings on the country station, syndicated.

There is someone in the building 645am or so till 5pm... and neither me nor the owner are ever very far from the studio or our own set ups at home.

We are incredibly well connected in this community.. he's lived here his entire life, ive been involved 8 hours. EVeryone has our cell numbers... i have the cell numbers of county and city officials. We are on top of things like well.....local radio should be.. no tv stations, 1 newspaper

If its important but not earth shattering we record updates from Studio A (KLMI's main studio) and distribute it across all 4. If its a grab your ankles and potentially kiss you know what goodbye, we go over to studio B and are live on all 3 station.

Live is nice, but not necessary. Voicetracked allows me to work 7 hour days 5 days a week, take weekends off... i get the week between christmas and new years off.

I have recorded a voicetrack on my phone from the park when something happens when I'm not near a microphone in my home or the work studio.

Please tell me how live would make this better and what we can do better that the station owner of 15 plus years hasnt already done or tried.

Better yet, come up here for a week... spend some time with us and see how voicetracking doesnt hurt/harm what we do.

Radio fans/nerds (of which I amn one) who havent ever or not in a while... worked in broadcasting... cant think like the normal average every day person. and ive got proof of that. And furthger, I've got proof that even when some listeners know you arent live or arent local, they don't care.

It's about knowing your listeners and connecting with them.

Jesus, calm down. I was saying that I don't consider what you're doing to be problematic. Glad it's working out for you and your stations. But, also, (I dare say at the risk being on the receiving end of another 14-paragraph diatribe), so much of this doesn't freakin' translate elsewhere. But I'll say for a third time: Good for you.

 

[Miguelito]

I grew up with personality radio forming my earlier memories of the medium, 610 WIP. Plenty of chit chat between songs. Then the high energy, albeit less chit chat of Hot Hits 98 then Eagle 106. So I'm not discounting personality radio, though recognize plenty of people want the music, not the personality and their tastes are just as valid. I don't think anyone is the a....

It feels, at time, like there's a clinging to what something was, even though the world changes. Understandable? Sure. The familiar is comfort food for the soul. On any average day, though, as SomeRadioGuy describes, would it matter to any meaningful percentage of listeners where someone is sitting, or when they sat there? So they can talk about how the Phillies got the snot beat out of them to prove someone is doing something close to live and is paying attention to this town? I mean....I kind of already know the team got embarrassed, so does that add anything to my day if I'm even paying that much attention between the songs I prefer as background while working?

I do understand the idea that amidst a sea of curated, automated playlists, the space that remains for a broadcast, single-stream linear medium is generally going to be how it's packaged - with hosts in many cases, without them in some others, but still with a certain station-ality to it. Could every city have had a Stern? Yeah, and lots of them did/do. But there was only one genuine article, and for however many morning shows he ultimately replaced, the people voted by listening to him for his content, not his location.

Maybe it's just being more philosophical in discussing things with no single truth. What works in "A" doesn't work in "B." Or what DID work stopped working. I'm just not seeing how it's a fundamentally bad thing that audiences can get what they want with fewer limitations. That's not trying to be an a..... just thinking about trends and technology as they evolve.

I feel like I need to clarify something. What I was writing about in this thread was not hope for a return to what radio used to be (which I'll still argue was better than what it is). I was simply lamenting what is gone forever. And (to offer an additional grain of salt to reactions to what I wrote), I couldn't care less what happens in the future of terrestrial radio. At varying paces for the past several decades, it's been headed the proverbial "way of the dodo," and I have moved on from it, except for following what it's become as a hobbyist. Nothing more; nothing less.

Disclaimer: These are the opinions of me, myself, and I, and for christ's sake, don't take them so seriously.

 

[DelmarvaDX]

I'd like to say, it wouldn't bother me if, say, Lew wasn't broadcasting live. That's really not the component that does it for me. But I do want the personality, the knowledge, and the variety of music. The truth is, I spend my workday listening not to any station over the air or online, but unscoped airchecks on YouTube. As I type this I'm listening to KSFX from 1982.

My wife mostly listens to the local classic country station which is all off a network and voice tracked. One of the current personalities is very, very good (Rick Morgan) and could hold his own anywhere. At least one of the present crop is rather hard to listen to. Rick, in particular, does a great job of connecting with the audience with the things he says and it doesn't matter to me if he can't comment about something that happened an hour ago.

 

[fybush]

A few brief thoughts:

"Local" matters, but only when you're making a genuine connection with your community. Just reading the school lunch menus or mentioning that it's snowing outside isn't enough when your listeners can get that stuff quicker on their phones. The quality that matters more these days is "relevant." If you're telling me something that's unique and interesting, you're giving me a reason to keep listening. Being local is certainly one way to be relevant, but it's far from the only one.

And instead of "live," what I think really matters to the listener is "timely." Unless you're delivering play by play of a game or covering election night returns, nobody in your listening audience knows, or needs to know, whether the audio they're hearing is reaching them just as it's coming out of your mouth. They're not in the studio with you, if you're even in "a studio" at all. (And there are so many points where audio gets delayed between mic and transmitter these days that nothing is truly "live" anyway.)

Today's listeners are very much accustomed to asynchronous media. They send texts and voice memos more than they make "live" phone calls. They consume podcasts that might have been recorded hours or days ago. If you're telling them something that's valuable to them when they're listening, what does it matter exactly when it was created?

I have some biases here, because these days I'm in the business of trying to sell you a software suite that makes it really easy (and inexpensive!) to produce great-sounding radio whether it's live-live or tracked, and whether it's in a studio or anywhere on earth. But I also spent 20 years being frustrated that the station where I was working as air talent wouldn't (or couldn't) do any tracking, forcing me to spend a lot of time standing in a room waiting for network segments to end, when I could have been so much more productive actually creating timely, relevant content.

 

[Radio Wreck]

Looks like the station will continue as Cruisin92.com after the format switch, boasting entertainment and music from the 50’s thru 80’s. This could be interesting if done correctly. I don’t know of any other stations online or on air that cover all four of those decades. (There’s probably something online, I’m just not aware of it.)

Part, or even most of what makes WVLT so charming is its quirkiness. Said quirkiness comes from the variety of people playing whatever they want whenever they want. I’ll be curious to see if the new online station will retain any of those jocks or if it’ll be an automated jukebox. It’s highly doubtful that the daytime jocks would receive a paycheck to be online only. Will they continue in volunteer positions? And as far as the brokers are concerned, I doubt that anyone would pay money to play music on their website. Also, since the station is changing formats and ownership, who is running the site?

I have mixed feelings about this. With the right imaging and playlist it could be an amazing listen. But if it continues as the train wreck that it is, it could be an even more amazing listen, especially once the talk shows are kicked to the dustbin of history. Either way, I’ll be anxious to hear what happens.

 

[Joey Anthony]

Looks like the station will continue as Cruisin92.com after the format switch, boasting entertainment and music from the 50’s thru 80’s. This could be interesting if done correctly. I don’t know of any other stations online or on air that cover all four of those decades. (There’s probably something online, I’m just not aware of it.)

Part, or even most of what makes WVLT so charming is its quirkiness. Said quirkiness comes from the variety of people playing whatever they want whenever they want. I’ll be curious to see if the new online station will retain any of those jocks or if it’ll be an automated jukebox. It’s highly doubtful that the daytime jocks would receive a paycheck to be online only. Will they continue in volunteer positions? And as far as the brokers are concerned, I doubt that anyone would pay money to play music on their website. Also, since the station is changing formats and ownership, who is running the site?

I have mixed feelings about this. With the right imaging and playlist it could be an amazing listen. But if it continues as the train wreck that it is, it could be an even more amazing listen, especially once the talk shows are kicked to the dustbin of history. Either way, I’ll be anxious to hear what happens.

I saw the new website. The original one they have now still has Johnny Midnight on the front page of dj's. Does he even still work for the station anymore? This new website has an AI chatbot that DOES answer some questions.

 

[Radio Wreck]

I saw the new website. The original one they have now still has Johnny Midnight on the front page of dj's. Does he even still work for the station anymore? This new website has an AI chatbot that DOES answer some questions.

Johnny Midnight retired a year or two ago but I’ve heard him do fill-ins from time to time. As far as weekday afternoons go, they have a revolving door of hosts including Crazy Bob, The Phantom, and Matt Doggy Dog. It doesn’t get any more WVLT than that. I don’t think anybody could write this stuff.

 

[Miguelito]

The new site also refers to Blavat as a "living legend." So, yeah, some updating seems necessary.

 

[KilowattKat]

I'm under the impression from viewing the new website that there will be no DJ's. No mention at all of any hosts. This will most likely be an automated jukebox.

 

[Joey Anthony]

I'm under the impression from viewing the new website that there will be no DJ's. No mention at all of any hosts. This will most likely be an automated jukebox.

Yes...I just got my info from the chatbot AI on the site. It isn't tied to WVLT but they just put the new link on the WVLT.com website so when the sale goes through and the format changes people know where to go so they can at least hear the familiar music that was played on 92.1. It will basically be like Philly Gold Radio PGR. A tribute to the original station.

 

[lanceventa]

Yes...I just got my info from the chatbot AI on the site. It isn't tied to WVLT but they just put the new link on the WVLT.com website so when the sale goes through and the format changes people know where to go so they can at least hear the familiar music that was played on 92.1. It will basically be like Philly Gold Radio PGR. A tribute to the original station.

I would not base anything off of what the Cruisin92.com chat bot says. All AI chatbots only parse the data it has in front of them, but now you're not dealing with anything that has full data behind it, but rather a website using a default template from GoDaddy.

 

[John1]

Maybe WRDV can pick up the slack, like adding Lou Costello and the Doowop Diner to weekends They already play alot of Oldies.

The air staff at RDV are volunteers so would anyone drive from south Jersey to Hatboro to do a show and not get paid? The only dj I remember going from commercial radio to RDV was Aarmond from WPGR when they went off the air in 1995, with his Street Beat show. I could see some of the WVLT people doing shows on King Arthur’s Crown Sounds Radio internet station just for a place to plug live personal appearances.

 

[KilowattKat]

The air staff at RDV are volunteers so would anyone drive from south Jersey to Hatboro to do a show and not get paid? The only dj I remember going from commercial radio to RDV was Aarmond from WPGR when they went off the air in 1995, with his Street Beat show. I could see some of the WVLT people doing shows on King Arthur’s Crown Sounds Radio internet station just for a place to plug live personal appearances.

I know I brought this up before. But a paid gig on AM/FM radio playing Oldies has pretty much dried up. It really should be viewed now as a fun non paid hobby. Lou and the gang, when they have time or looking for something to do, could possibly host a show on the Internet stream. From listening, I'm willing to bet their love of playing music as a DJ outweighs getting paid. Unless, they have no other source of income!

 

[lisaannello]

It is all oldies during the day but evenings are play for pay where you can buy time for any type of show, music or talk. Some fit the oldies format but some others unlistenable. The daytime is locally known oldies dj’s with good knowledge of Philadelphia oldies. This is the only station rimshotting the Philadelphia market with oldies anymore. There are several internet oldies stations geared to Philadelphia oldies, including Crown Sounds Radio run by dj ‘King Arthur’ who until recently was also live Sunday nights on WVLT.

This is very helpful. It's a moot point now since they sold the station, but this station and its daytime DJs played incredible Philly centered oldies but I couldn't stomach the politics all the other times. Now that I find it was pay to play that explains the wild difference in content from hour to hour. I will truly miss the music.

 

[lisaannello]

Additional thoughts on Cruisin'. When I was a little kid, I was tuning around the dial and stumbled onto them by pure chance, and even when I was seven or eight, I knew it sounded different than everything else on the radio. Later on, I got to meet Ron Joseph at some live broadcast at a diner in south jersey (where else?) but I never got to see the studios.

WVLT is truly special. No, it's far from a sleek and modern outfit. The Spanish AM bleeds into their FM signal, the audio varies from clear stereo, to a 45 that was seemingly used as a frisbee. Their DJ at noon sings over the songs he's playing. But damned if I don't find it charming as all get out. This is local radio at its most local and care-free, and clearly their audience loved it long enough to keep them on for multiple decades. I can argue that Cruisin' is part of the reason I got into radio myself. It'll be a much less interesting and entertaining dial in Jersey when they flip the switch.

The jocks on WVLT were actually there during the 60s, and they brought that history to their shows, and told the stories from that era. The fact that we got to hear that history on the air is actually quite a blessing. Compare that to the voicetracked nonsense you get on "Big 98.1" where the hosts usually give me secondhand embarrassment with how faux-happy they sound, it just reeks of cringe. And the hosts there are usually told to NOT talk about the music that they are....playing?!

WVLT broke all the rules we learned in school - and they stayed the same format, with the same advertisers, for close to forty years, all while all the other stations around them flipped multiple formats. Maybe we oughta take a page out of their book. I don't think they just got lucky - I think people respected and recognized the authenticity, the fact that they weren't trying to be sleek or hip at all. They bucked every single trend in modern radio and they outlived plenty of other stations with vastly larger budgets. They might be flipping soon, but I think you can argue they won, they succeeded.

Side note - the DJ on air just gave a shoutout to a local listener who just got word he is cancer-free. And they went into Celebration by K.C and the Sunshine Band. Not planned, totally on the fly. Can Big 98.1 be that in the moment, could they even GO LIVE? THIS is why Cruisin' is still on the air. People like how live they are and how interactive they are with the audience/community.

Radio for the future should be this live and authentic as WVLT, regardless of the music they're playing.

great points. i am just a 70 year old listener who happened to discover the station a couple years ago. I feel like I'm in the twilight zone. DJs who are real people, local people, real local advertisers. I cannot disagree with Lou Costello's Trump stumping more, but he is one of the best DJs I ever heard--and I'm black and have heard the best at WDAS and WHAT back in the day. He plays whatever the hell he feels like--and it's always gold. He talks like a normal human having a conversation with you and is completely in the moment. I will miss him and the station's oldies format beyond words. Hope he and all the other wacky DJs turn up someplace and play the same music. Keep us posted.

 

[csp1csp1]

I saw the new website. The original one they have now still has Johnny Midnight on the front page of dj's. Does he even still work for the station anymore? This new website has an AI chatbot that DOES answer some questions.

Johnny was not removed from the website after he left , but a few weeks ago he came back for just a few Thursday 2 to 5 p.m. gigs and just said good bye again on May 28th . Going back some years , the late Dave Fleetwood held the every weekday 2 to 5 p.m. slot , way before John Lerro { Johnny Midnight } had it . Dave left years before his passing . As far as the new website's AI chatbot goes , those "chatboxes" simply "scrape previous data" and presume it as factual , which it not always is .

 

[csp1csp1]

To the best of my knowledge , WVLT 92.1 and its' two associated stations are not actually SOLD , quite yet , instead it is going through the "process" , so let's call it "under contract" . I'm truly hoping that some legal technicality occurs , so that the actual settlement does not go through . Mum is the word coming from the Clear Communications' owner as well as the station's manager .