J
Jul
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98.1 FM (formerly WCAU-FM) launches its current oldies/classic hits format and drops the top-40 format . It got the WOGL calls on 11/12/1987 and it has been a mainstay in Philly radio ever since.
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Nah. No reason to give extra fodder to those who whine about not playing the ancient songs any longer. 
What’s fun is that they’re now basically playing the same music as WCAU, more or less.
What’s fun is that they’re now basically playing the same music as WCAU, more or less.
It was my 14th birthday. WCAU-FM was the only station I listened to. The next day, we all wandered around school wondering 'What are we supposed to do now?' No one told us that Eagle 106 had signed on eight months earlier. I ended up loving Eagle more than I ever liked WCAU-FM. Six years later, of course, I lost my Eagle as well! Ironically, I ended up loving Smooth Jazz WJJZ and nowadays when I hear WOGL, I find it very listenable!
'Nah. No reason to give extra fodder to those who whine about not playing the ancient songs any longer.
What’s fun is that they’re now basically playing the same music as WCAU, more or less.
I figured that would be happening. There's a cost-saving measure in using your own station's 30 year old playlist.
But they wouldn’t be. Sure the songs are duplicative but some wouldn’t test well to be played...they don’t play them every hour (more or less) and there was no oldies to speak of with WCAU at that time. So I don’t see where there’s a cost benefit.
I was donating blood the other evening at my church and the Red Cross had WOGL on and I couldn’t help but think that they’re now playing the same songs that WCAU-FM used to play. I’ve refused to listen to 98.1 for 30 years because I’m still angry at CBS for taking away Hot Hits. It was the first semester of my freshman year at college and I can still remember getting back from a class and turning on the radio in my dorm room. I guess I moved on to Eagle 106 and WMMR. I don’t remember being as angry at Eagle 106 going away because we had Z100 very soon to be Y100 the next day. Still angry about Y100 going away too but at least WMMR kept the best part of it still on air, P&S because they are the rock guys of everybody.
I guess the main age of the posters here is young, not 67 lol. When someone mentions WCAU-FM I remember them as Stereo Solid Gold Radio, 70-75. They were the test station CBS used to see if oldies would work under the guidance of the best PD on the planet, Diamond Jim. We all know the tremendous success of Golden 98, which launched all CBS owned FM outlets in major cities to flip to oldies. The new formatted stations used different versions, some had future gold, some just stuck with pre 64 oldies, some had doo wop and country classics thrown in. What a great time to have a Pioneer SX1000 receiver and two advent speakers to hear oldies in full stereo. I haven't tuned them in since Keating and his disco flop lol.
I was trying to make a funny. Seems like I failed
Anyway, I would like a stunt programming day or week, where they do play the exact playlist from 30 years ago. If they still have a show taped, run that.
Realistically, the audience (by and large) would not share your interest. There’s no point in breaking format.
Supposedly. the reason for those holiday countdown shows is because of an alleged drop in audience, so they stunt. What's the harm in doing a true flashback of your stations previous playlist. Seems that if those songs were truly popular, they should hold up. If they played so many songs that don't stand the test of time, maybe they need to stop formatting based on research, since, according to you, their research was faulty. If one song per hour or show is enough to kill your long term success, maybe they weren't formatting properly. Which goes back to an earlier point I had, which is to list the playlist from 30 years ago and what they play now, for comparison. I am truly interested in what they claim is no longer listenable. For crying out loud, I read, probably here on radio discussions, that they played Debby Boone in a recent countdown, If they can do that and keep their ratings, there may be other songs that can get played a once a month, week, day or hour.
How is playing basically the same songs FROM WOGL'S OWN RESEARCH, breaking format? I really don't get it, and I will blame my strokes on not understanding. It's not like WDAS-FM, that plays a mixture of old and new music. WOGL claims to play oldies, and now they are at a point where they can use their old research and compare what they said was popular then, with what their current research says hasn't burned yet.
It’s breaking format because they don’t play 50s and 60s. Delving into that is not helpful and is quite possibly harmful, holiday or no holiday.
While it's not going to happen because the anniversary has passed, I think they could totally have gotten with doing a special and calling it a flashback stunt where they play the songs they were playing when the station debuted: They could just leave in a tiny amount of "oh wow" tracks while ignoring anything from 30 years ago that tests horribly in 2017. But as I said, seems moot since the anniversary has passed.
What you played 30 years ago may have all burnt to a crisp by now, and in any case, appeals mostly to an audience that is three decades older than today's target. The 25-54 crowd of 30 years ago is now 55 to 84.
Yes, among people in their 60's and 70's. Stations don't stay true to their music; they stay true to the target age group.
One, research is a snapshot. A picture of people's tastes at a given moment for a particular age group. 30 years later, we don't care what that age group wants to hear. They may or may not still like those 50's and 60's songs, but we are not gonna' play 'em because we can't sell a dime's worth of advertising if our average listener age is way over 55.
Specialty shows are an excuse to play off the playlist, but once and only once on a holiday weekend when radio listening plummets in PPM markets. It's novelty value, and we know that such songs played regularly will do nothing but create tune-out.
And Amerikka without slavery doesn't work. What does that have to do with radio formats, that are constantly tweeked? Also, I never said to switch to the same songs, but to compare what they played then compared to what is played now, and to do it as a stunt, like the various countdowns they run throughout the year. Why do so many people dislike learning from the past. Not doing so is part of what is wrong with this society.
So it's okay to break format yearly when the ratings go up. What if the switch to Christmas had failed, they wouldn't have kept doing it yearly. Periodically, you need to try something different. One countdown stunt shouldn't kill a station, and if it does, music is way more powerful than I realized.
It’s a rather large leap to move from learning about history to suggesting a radio stunt is a bad business idea. Not all stunts are good.WOGL made plenty of noise about being 30, so they acknowledged the history, but unearthing the 50s and early 60s music again as a “comparison” even for a few days would have been counterproductive.
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