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80s music presence on the radio in the '90s
- Thread starter tall_guy1
- Start date
KMXV used to do 80’s Memorial Day weekends, and there was a station in Omaha that did an all 80’s format around 20 years ago as “The Mall”.
Were those in the '90s or early '00s?
The so-called 80's format wouldn't take hold until the decade of the 2000s. During the 90s, you could hear 80s tracks but not all of the time and not all on the same station. In my hometown of Phoenix, for example, you didn't hear 80s material at all on the local oldies outlet, KOOL-FM, whose focus was the 60s and 70s with some 50s thrown in. KSLX-FM, the classic rock station, threw in something from the 80s every once in a while, but its focus was on the 60s and 70s. Rock outlets KDKB and KUPD did play some mid- and late 80s tunes from time to time, especially Guns n' Roses. During the early 90s, both KOY-FM (now KYOT) and KZZP would play some late 80s pop and you could hear some 80s country on both KMLE and KNIX-FM and later in the decade on classic country outlet KCWW-AM.
The first time I heard a Phoenix radio station doing a (mostly) 80s weekend was around 1997 or 1998 when then-rhythmic top-40 outlet KKFR ran an oldies weekend that primarily consisted of late 80s and early 90s urban fare.
KMXV did their 80’s Memorial Day weekends in the late 90’s for sure, but not sure what year they started doing them. Also KMAJ~FM did an 80’s at 8 show starting sometime in the late 90’s.
I moved back to Dayton, Ohio in 1996 and it seems WMMX Mix 107.7 had their 80s weekends even then. If not then, at least by 1999 or so. A little earlier (but not much) in the 90s, we suddenly had Greatest Hits of the 70s station which were mostly, but not exclusively, the rock side of the decade.
1980s CHR music in the 1990s was still there. Only it was pretty much regulated to the Adult Contemporary stations by 1994 before becoming full blown Oldies (excuse me, "Classic Hits") in the 2000s.
It depends on what part of the '90s you're talking about. In the early '90s, new pop music sucked -- it was pretty much all cheesy rap acts (Vanilla Ice, MC Hammer) and ballads (Whitney Houston, Bryan Adams), but '80s music was burned out, so that led to a revival of '70s Disco music. Then by 1992, Nirvana became huge, and everyone thought alternative rock would be the hot new thing, so they started playing some '80s rock songs again. Then by 1996-1997 pop music was coming back, so that led to a revival of '80s pop music as well.
96.5 WWDB-FM in Philadelphia (now WTDY) was one of the first all-'80s music stations, in November 2000. But by 2003 they switched to Hot AC and then to Rhythmic.
96.5 WWDB-FM in Philadelphia (now WTDY) was one of the first all-'80s music stations, in November 2000. But by 2003 they switched to Hot AC and then to Rhythmic.
In the days before the internet, people in the early 90's would occasionally post on FIDONet and in newsgroups asking about the potential of an all-80's format. A common retort was, "We already have an all-80's format. It's called Hot AC!" Hot AC's tended to replace the rap and hard rock in the Top-40 with 80's gold. KSRR-FM "Star 93" in San Antonio even went back into the 70's playing Latin-friendly artists it called "San Antonio Classic." I don't remember other stations really doing that, at least not that early, but, like I said, we didn't have internet back then and couldn't just listen to stations from anywhere. KYIS in Oklahoma City had a brief spell doing the "7 70's at 7:00," but that was a mid-90's stunt that tried to take advantage of the increasing popularity of 70's centric stations. OKC was unlikely to get a 70's centric station as it had fewer stations than most cities of its size, and both 98.9 Kiss FM and Magic 104.1 tried to include the audience that was too old for their normal playlists but too young for KOMA.
CHR's had evolving philosophies on 80's music, but 80's gold as a regular part of the playlist was more common, as you might expect, in the early 90's when there was less 90's gold available. I remember Hot AC's playing 80's gold as recently as 20 years ago. I never thought it worked very well because Hot AC friendly artists like Vanessa Carlton and Michelle Branch didn't really sound like Madonna's early music or other music from 20 years earlier and had little in common with those artists, but station research apparently showed differently. Hot AC always tended to have middle of the pack ratings, especially when competing against CHR's. CHR, though, had problems with sales in the early 90's. The 80's was the decade when the big box retaliers pushed out the smaller operators, and those smaller retailers were some of CHR's better customers. The default audience for CHR has always been younger, and CHR was a format that didn't appeal to very many people over 25 in the early 90's. The led to the sales crunch and stations wanting CHR without being CHR.
By the end of the decade, a handful of stations tried their hands at all-80's formats. Most of them did quite well for a book or two only to quickly burn out. Entercom launched KFBZ 105.3 in Wichita around 2000, and, in its first full book, it became the first station to beat KFDI-FM in the 12+ ratings in years only to quickly level off. That was probably the best result, but the pattern seemed to happen everywhere. As a few other posters mention, 80's music started to gain traction 15-20 years ago as the new classic hits. From what I remember, PPM really helped those classic hits stations and happened to be introduced around the same time the 60's oldies had completely aged out of the money demos.
I don't know when Mix started doing 80's Memorial and Labor Day Weekends, though I know it was doing them in 1997. It also did an 80's lunch. I seem to remember both of those went away around the time e.FM launched in the summer of 2001, but I was already on my way out of KC by that time. I remember, however, that I stopped paying much attention to Mix after e signed on. When I worked at KTXY in Mid-MO, we were still doing a retro lunch in 2005. I remember that going on at least a couple more years, but I don't remember when it stopped. I was at Q106.1 first, and we were going to do the "90's at Noon" as a way to counterprogram to Y107's Retro Lunch, but that was Steve and Dede's baby. Dede was middays at Q106.1 (and its predecessor, Q104) as "Kristie Kelly," but she and Steve moved to Pennsylvania a few weeks after the format change at 106.1. Cosmo and the new operations manager decided the best way to compete against Y107 was to be more, not less, current focused (and to focus on Y107's reputation under Brill Media for a heavy commercial load).
I don't remember KMAJ-FM doing an 80's show, but I know it was airing Delilah by the summer of '98. That summer, I could hear Delilah on 98.1, 97.7 (Omaha), and 107.7. Plus, if I went about 20 miles east, I could hear her on 101.5 KPLA, which replaced a smooth jazz evening show hosted by Lana Trezise with her. Not sure when KMAJ-FM dumped Delilah, but it was one of the last of the Cumulus stations to get rid of her after most of the company's stations signed with Tesh. Seems like Majic 107.7 added Tesh when Rose Diehl volunteered for the company's mass layoffs in '09 and ran him in middays.
I forgot Mix 93 did 90's at noon, but I generally just listened to them in mornings and Kelly Urich in the afternoons. Do you remember if Z95.7 did any 80's weekends? I don't remember eFM doing any 80's weekends or generally having any 80's songs at all.
You will find that the popular of music from one era tends to take a rest before nostalgia brings it back. In the early 90s, you wouldn't have heard much 80s music on CHR, and only the most adult-leaning titles survived on AC (and the then new "Hot AC" format). By the mid-to-late 90s, special "80s lunches" and "80s weekends" started to pop up, especially on AC/Hot AC as the music had been rested and was fresh again. By the early 00s, some stations launched all-80s formats. Some of those evolved into Classic Hits, some fizzled. But eventually 80s material aged into the Oldies format and it evolved into what we now call "Classic Hits."
FYI - the same thing happened in the late 80s/early 90s, when Oldies stations had previously focused on 50s/60s - all-70s features, then all-70s stations popped up, before 70s material started to age into Oldies libraries.
The same thing happened when "The Big Chill" factor helped bring 60s music to the forefront in the 80s (titles like Stand By Me and Twist And Shout even made it back to CHR thanks to movie exposure.)
The same thing happened when American Graffiti and Happy Days helped bring 50s nostalgia back in the 70s.
This is all oversimplified, but you get the point.
FYI - the same thing happened in the late 80s/early 90s, when Oldies stations had previously focused on 50s/60s - all-70s features, then all-70s stations popped up, before 70s material started to age into Oldies libraries.
The same thing happened when "The Big Chill" factor helped bring 60s music to the forefront in the 80s (titles like Stand By Me and Twist And Shout even made it back to CHR thanks to movie exposure.)
The same thing happened when American Graffiti and Happy Days helped bring 50s nostalgia back in the 70s.
This is all oversimplified, but you get the point.
I don't remember Z95.7 ever dipping back into the 80's. If anything, it dipped into alternative and modern AC more than it did older cuts.
Sounds like you weren't a regular listener to e 105-1. Its playlist was almost totally 80's.
Also by 1987-1988 a lot of new music started to suck (Milli Vanilli, "We Built This City", etc.), so that led to radio stations and record companies reaching back to older music to fill in the gap, including a lot of songs from the early '80s that were overlooked when first released but still sounded fresh enough to get another shot.
I remember Grand Funk's "Some Kind of Wonderful" getting a lot of airplay because even though it was from 1974, it "sounds like an '80s song".
I listened to a bunch of different stations, so I don't remember what music specifically was on E 105-1. I listened to Mix, Z, 102.1 when it was the Zone, 105.1 EFM, KJO-105, The Lazer, The Buzz, a bunch of different stations.
While you are correct as far as you go, the replaying of hits basically 20 years (or more) after they were hits started during the 1970s. In fact, during the 1960s, there was no mass desire to play 1940s hits again; nor did that desire come into play during the 1950s to replay the hits of the 1930s. The fact that the 20-year nostalgia boom began in the 1970s suggests to me that the nostalgia booms from that decade on were, at least in part, manufactured by the music industry to encourage people to purchase more of its older products.
E 105-1's positioner was "Retro to Right Now," though, at least early in its run, it was almost all-80's. It could've evolved during the last part of its run, but it only lasted about three years. I don't remember it changing much, and I did listen occasionally since a couple of my former co-workers ended up taking weekend jobs there. I don't remember it ever setting the ratings on fire, but the audience it had was fiercely loyal. Several years after it had left the air, I was driving to Springfield to visit my dad when I saw someone in Lebanon, MO crossing the street in an e1051.fm t-shirt. I'm hard-pressed to think of another time I've seen anyone other than myself wearing a radio station t-shirt in the Lake area!
Cool! I don't remember anyone on that station, other than Bryan Truta (who now does mornings on KTBG) and Nycki Pace. I think they were teamed up in mornings at one point but I don't remember.
My partner is a KC lady, and she went to high school at Miege with Truta. She and the people I know who have worked with him say he's a really good guy. I think Jesse and Joey Tack also worked at E. Jesse is doing mornings on B105 in Cincinnati and recently added mornings on WIL. I think Joey is still in Knoxville. Danni Drake also worked at E. I found myself driving into town one afternoon and hearing he was at a remote near I-70. So, I stopped and got a t-shirt and bottle of E water. I was told Danni left the station for a job at 97.3 The Planet that didn't end up happening.
I think you're right about Nycki working there for a brief time. She's worked almost everywhere in town it seems.
Will Sterrett, who currently does KC's Morning News with Amy Anderson on 98.1 KMBZ, worked weekends there for roughly its last year on-air. He and I worked together in Mid-MO for about a year. He's a good guy. Blake Barrett, who also worked weekends at E, worked at Zimmer in Mid-MO. He ultimately left for KTYS in Dallas.
In my sixty-some years in radio, I've never seen a record promoter push "older products". While record companies liked to milk big hits and big artists by issuing "greatest hits" collections in the past, they did not promote those songs or compilations to radio, at least in my experience.
In fact, one of my bigger complaints about record ducks was their insistence in dropping what might be a huge hit to start playing the next "single".
The rock era, and mass commercialization and formatting of music as we know it, didn't begin until the mid-50s, so there really wasn't a solid history for nostalgia to draw upon until those first rock-n-rollers started feeling out of touch with the music of the 70s.
Nostalgia has always had its place though - the Grand Ole Opry began with fiddler Uncle Jimmy Thompson, who would play "old time music" - the old standards and folk tunes from the 19th century - that the older folks of the 1920s gravitated toward.
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