A reason why advertisers don't target 55+ audiences

[fybush]

It's one thing to keep a long-running brand and business alive. It's another thing entirely to try to build something similar from scratch today.

(Looks out the window at Kodak world HQ up the street...)

 

[AMRadioGuy]

I have a different perspective. Although I did my college economics in the 70's, I've tried to keep up with my reading (at least when the content is not too theoretical).

The biggest change starting slowly even in the 60's with the first Japanese cars that offered higher quality at competitive prices. This move of heavy industry from the US to other nations advanced through the 70's and became a full-bore process by the mid to later 80's.

In our field, brands like RCA died. Appliances like washers and refrigerators and vacuums either came from American companies using "maquiladoras" in Mexico or Japanese... and a growing number of Taiwanese, Korean and Thai manufacturers and brands.

Environmental issues caused whole industries to move. A case in point is the aluminum industry, where last month one of the few remaining producers closed permanently. What has been done is to move potentially polluting industries from the U.S. where they can be properly regulated to places where there is no regulation at all. The effect is increased world-wide pollution and the loss of millions of American jobs.

I've been in nations where the lost American production now resides. Black rivers where plants will not grow for 5 or 6 meters on either side of the banks. Smoking refineries and plants with obviously no abatement of contamination.

And much lower labor costs. In neighboring Mexico, an industrial worker gets in a week less than a union worker in the US makes per day. So industries don't locate in the U.S. unless they can operate with near total automation. I saw an episode of one of those "how is it made?" shows last week and it featured the Tesla plant in Fremont, CA. Huge areas of the factory with no people and dozens of robots. Little labor.

While it was radically politically motivated, I liked the previous administration's placement of tariffs on foreign imports from nations where labor costs were kept low and stolen technology was being used to drive out American business.

I remember a QSL card from the early 60's from WTTM in Trenton, NJ. It had the call letters and then a slogan of "World Takes - Trenton Makes". Now it should be "World Makes, Trenton Takes".

I believe that job losses have come from excessive regulation and labor costs that do not allow the United States to compete in world markets.

One of my daughters was in Chile recently handling a legal case. She went to the largest shopping Center in Santiago (about the size of Mall of the Americas in Minnesota) and they were having one of those new car shows in the open spaces in the mall. Of something like 77 different cars, there were no American models, and only a couple of European and Korean cars. Over 70 models of Chinese brands were on display, and the newer cars on the streets were all Chinese.

I think you've largely hit the nail on the head here, David.

 

[davideduardo]

I've read all your responses with breathless anticipation!
I've had the opportunity to see, first hand, how KAHM, Prescott, AZ
commenced operations and continues to this day, offering Easy Listening
music. The original owner, Lew Silverstein, worked tirelessly, made a modest
living for his family and treated employees fairly. Those former employees,
still insist to this day, they received proper compensation for their work.
It's not rocket science folks. The station, under new management and
ownership, continues to offer the Easy Listening genre. Some of the advertisers
have been with the station for well over 40 years. Now, let the silly responses
commence!

KAHM has been in a suspended state with its stay of execution about to expire as the "new" ownership is the Farm Workers Union and they have been working for several years to make the KAHM into a Phoenix rimshot, abandoning its service to Prescott and converting to Spanish language broadcasting.

The Silverstein estate required some continuation of the Beautiful Music format (it is not "Easy Listening") in some form, and that appears to be done via streaming and a translator or HD channel. But the fact is that the format was most popular in the 1970's, and the listeners were 40 and above then... meaning that they are mostly in their late 70's and 80's today.

There is no way that Beautiful Music can be sustained other than the way KAHM is forced to do. The listeners are not consumers to any great extent, even in retiree-heavy Prescott. It's a dead or dying format and not sustainable in any other way.

 

[AMRadioGuy]

Lemme blow your mind. See, there are these things called radio edits. You can bleep, blank, or (my favorite) reverse the offending word. Been around forever. It's how Pink Floyd's "Money" got on AM Top 40 radio 51 years ago.

As someone who is 22... I attended a couple "dances" during high school. They played radio edits. Almost half of the words on some songs were silenced.

I don't think it's very enjoyable to listen to music that way. Granted, I don't find that kind of music enjoyable, period, but that's another discussion.

 

[michael hagerty]

I've read all your responses with breathless anticipation!
I've had the opportunity to see, first hand, how KAHM, Prescott, AZ
commenced operations and continues to this day, offering Easy Listening
music. The original owner, Lew Silverstein, worked tirelessly, made a modest
living for his family and treated employees fairly. Those former employees,
still insist to this day, they received proper compensation for their work.
It's not rocket science folks. The station, under new management and
ownership, continues to offer the Easy Listening genre. Some of the advertisers
have been with the station for well over 40 years. Now, let the silly responses
commence!

I don't know how many responses will be silly, but I'm gonna call you out on a bad faith argument.

You go through multiple posts seemingly accusing all broadcast property owners of being greedy and underpaying their employees, then pull Lew Silverstein in Prescott, Arizona out of your hat.

Look, Lew was a great guy. But there are two problems with your approach---one, he's not alone in the "great guys who own broadcast properties" category, and two, you give no specifics other than "former employees" say they were compensated fairly and your disdain for other broadcast owners who you say don't.

Zillow says the average price for a home in Prescott is $590,000. Let's say 20% down---that's $118,000---and finance the rest---$472,000. To qualify for a standard loan, you need to be making a third of that, so $157,000 a year. Anybody working for KAHM making that?

And yet, there are people in towns and cities all over this country working for radio owners small and large, who are paid enough to buy a home. And there are those who are not.

Before I retired in January, I had worked for bad mom-and-pops in Bishop, a good mom-and-pop in San Luis Obispo, a wonderful mom-and-pop in Phoenix (Del and Jewell Lewis), some of the larger chains in the business (Journal, Belo, Bonneville, Hearst-Argyle, Emmis, Scripps) and the biggest, period---Clear Channel/iHeart. I have a pretty good overview via experience. There are angels and a**holes in every sector.

 

[Larry]

The Silverstein estate required some continuation of the Beautiful Music format (it is not "Easy Listening") in some form, and that appears to be done via streaming and a translator or HD channel. But the fact is that the format was most popular in the 1970's, and the listeners were 40 and above then... meaning that they are mostly in their late 70's and 80's today.

During the hour we lost early this morning (when we turned the clocks back) I realized as I am sad there is no local over the air station playing pop hits of the 1960s and 70s, back in the 1970s I don’t think there were any formats (except maybe jazz and classical) playing music that was 50 years old (from the 1920s).

 

[michael hagerty]

During the hour we lost early this morning (when we turned the clocks back) I realized as I am sad there is no local over the air station playing pop hits of the 1960s and 70s, back in the 1970s I don’t think there were any formats (except maybe jazz and classical) playing music that was 50 years old (from the 1920s).

In the late 70s, we started to see the earliest deep nostalgia-based stations for 50+ adults. That music generally went back to the 30s.

Fact is, though, my parents' generation (dad born in 1917 and mom in 1922) were far less hidebound in their music than my generation (born 1956) turned out to be. MOR stations of the 1960s usually played two non-current songs an hour---and they rarely went back more than ten years.

Nostalgia is a powerful drug, and it can be weaponized.

 

[AMRadioGuy]

During the hour we lost early this morning (when we turned the clocks back) I realized as I am sad there is no local over the air station playing pop hits of the 1960s and 70s, back in the 1970s I don’t think there were any formats (except maybe jazz and classical) playing music that was 50 years old (from the 1920s).

I think this is somewhat of a false comparison, and one that's bandied around here quite a bit. If a station in the 70s had wanted to play music from the 20s, how would they have done that? Put 78s on the air?

I can walk into Walmart today and buy brand new albums with music from the 60s and 70s. CDs, too. Did your local record store stock Paul Whiteman records in the 70s?

Even from a sound quality perspective, music recorded in the 20s was not up to snuff in the 70s. Stuff recorded in the 60s/70s? A lot of it sounds better than most of what comes out today.

So while in some ways this is a valid comparison, in many others it's not. Different worlds.

 

[AMRadioGuy]

In the late 70s, we started to see the earliest deep nostalgia-based stations for 50+ adults. That music generally went back to the 30s.

Fact is, though, my parents' generation (dad born in 1917 and mom in 1922) were far less hidebound in their music than my generation (born 1956) turned out to be. MOR stations of the 1960s usually played two non-current songs an hour---and they rarely went back more than ten years.

Nostalgia is a powerful drug, and it can be weaponized.

I just spun Steve Lawrence covering "Groovin'" on my show a few weeks ago, from an original promo 45 delivered to the station I work for back in '70. You're absolutely right, Michael - MOR stations then were playing lots of current music, and quite a bit of it from the likes of Lawrence, Andy Williams, Tony Bennett, Johnny Mathis, etc. covering pop tunes.

Some of those covers are quite good, too!

 

[tbolt909]

Fact is, though, my parents' generation (dad born in 1917 and mom in 1922) were far less hidebound in their music than my generation (born 1956) turned out to be. MOR stations of the 1960s usually played two non-current songs an hour---and they rarely went back more than ten years.

Nostalgia is a powerful drug, and it can be weaponized.

The Beatles broke up in 1970. Led Zeppelin was at their peak over 50 years ago. Classic Rock stations are still playing songs that are over 50 years old. I'm not sure how many stations in 1970 were playing music from 1925.

Classic Rock formats weaponize nostalgia on a daily basis. Even new material by the Rolling Stones can't get on the playlist. The format exists for people who are firmly locked in that Nostalgia Vacuum.

Personally, I never need to hear over 90 percent of what is on Classic Rock Radio. I've played and heard those songs so many times, it's like hearing the same bad joke over and over. I get it that some people want to remain locked to when they were seniors in High School and be reminded of "Remember back when..."

 

[michael hagerty]

I think this is somewhat of a false comparison, and one that's bandied around here quite a bit. If a station in the 70s had wanted to play music from the 20s, how would they have done that? Put 78s on the air?

There were guys who did that---Chuck Cecil at KFI in Los Angeles, for example. Started a show called "The Swingin' Years" in 1956. KFI was so old-school up until 1969 that Chuck did afternoon drive with most of his stuff coming off 78s.

And in '69, they moved him to evenings, where he continued. It wasn't until 1973 that they told him he had to play current music, allowed him one swing tune per hour on weeknights and gave him a weekend show for The Swingin' Years.

I can walk into Walmart today and buy brand new albums with music from the 60s and 70s. CDs, too. Did your local record store stock Paul Whiteman records in the 70s?

Yeah, but they were usually reissues and compilations on vinyl LPs, filed under "Big Band", and it was a smallish section compared to pop and rock.

Even from a sound quality perspective, music recorded in the 20s was not up to snuff in the 70s. Stuff recorded in the 60s/70s? A lot of it sounds better than most of what comes out today.

So while in some ways this is a valid comparison, in many others it's not. Different worlds.

The point, though, isn't really about the tech---it's that beginning with early Baby Boomers who insisted that everything recorded after the Beatles broke up sounded like someone tipped over the china cabinet, there's been a cutoff for openess to new music that falls somewhere in peoples' 30s. Older for women, who are more interested in staying current, earlier for men.

 

[vchimpanzee]

I get it that some people want to remain locked to when they were seniors in High School and be reminded of "Remember back when..."

That's not it for most songs. Many of the songs I like on either conventional radio or online stations (online only or AM or FM but streaming also) I had never even heard until the 90s. Some songs I hear for the first time online. And they sound good.

Most of what I heard in the 70s I didn't like either though some of it I like better now.

 

[vchimpanzee]

The point, though, isn't really about the tech---it's that beginning with early Baby Boomers who insisted that everything recorded after the Beatles broke up sounded like someone tipped over the china cabinet, there's been a cutoff for openess to new music that falls somewhere in peoples' 30s. Older for women, who are more interested in staying current, earlier for men.

Most of the newer music just doesn't sound good. Country still sounded good for the most part in the 90s but most of it is bad now. I have no reason to be open to new music.

A lot of people have recorded new versions of old songs since the 80s.

 

[vchimpanzee]

I suppose nobody ever did. I also worked at a station that would not play "edited" versions of songs. We only played full length album versions. In the case of "Who Are You", we simply did not play it. We had 15 other Who songs that were equally good without the F word. We just played those instead.

Considering how decorum has disappeared in society, it seems absurd that anyone would be offended by profanities in music...

"Longview" by Green Day (I think that's the title) was played uncensored when an alternative station was new in the 90s. I called and was told "We're a private business".

 

[Bongwater]

The voice of Christian broadcaster Bob Larson, warning about backward masking and having demons call his 800 number continue to echo from the dark past of the 80s.

Before Rush Limbaugh and the right wing talk era, Bob Larson was the epitome of what the kids call "rage farmers" today. And he had a daily radio show called "Bob Larson Live" (it was actually on tape.) where "callers" would call in, concerned if their KC & The Sunshine Band records could open a portal to the underworld.

A lot of bad script writing and even worse voice-acting went into this show. In high school at lunch time, my friends and I would go out to my car for a smoke and a laugh listening to this show. Our favorite parts of the show was when a caller was possessed. My then-girlfriend Chrissy asked "Why does everybody possessed by W.A.S.P. records always call him?! How come they don't call Jim French?!" (Jim French was the KIRO radio morning talk show host)

The rest of us were busting out laughing. But it was a good question. It really wasn't hard for high school kids in the 1980s to see the fakeness of Bob Larson's act. And who it was for.

One of Larson's most asinine features was a neo-nazi punk band called Skrewdriver. This was a band that would NEVER be heard on terrestrial radio, on a label sold only through neo-nazi mail-order catalogs. basically unavailable anywhere outside of that. But from the way Bob Larson went on about it, you'd think they were #1 on your local CHR station. It also made us wonder if he was aware that he could be giving this band a legitimacy they would never have found if he never even mentioned them.

When the Satanic Panic cow ran dry. Larson followed the money and went straight into right wing politics.

 

[Prescott Joe]

Lovin it!!!!!!

 

[TheBigA]

Country still sounded good for the most part in the 90s

You were still in the demo in the 90s.

 

[davideduardo]

And, for every listener who thinks that the music of their teen years is "the best ever made" there are people who enjoy much of new music and, occasionally, like to listen to much older stuff.

I grew up on Chuck Berry and Little Richard and Buddy Holly and the rest, and love Motown and The British Invasion. I even liked Manilow and Disco and REO Speedwagon. And I enjoyed wayback country such as Tompall & the Glaser Brothers, Ferlin Husky and Faron Young that I learned to love as a DXer.

But today I like the current pop and country songs (as well as genres in Spanish ranging from pop to tropical types such as vallenato and cumbia villera and "rock en español"). I like Beyoncé and Morgan Wallen and can get into so rap and hip-hop that has at least a semblance of a melody.

I check my tires at 20,000, 30,000 miles and if they are worn, I don't use them. Same with lots of old music.

 

[Bongwater]

During the hour we lost early this morning (when we turned the clocks back) I realized as I am sad there is no local over the air station playing pop hits of the 1960s and 70s, back in the 1970s I don’t think there were any formats (except maybe jazz and classical) playing music that was 50 years old (from the 1920s).

On commercial radio, the oldest song I've ever heard was "I'll Never Smile Again" Tommy Dorsey Feat. Frank Sinatra (1939) on KIXI-AM Seattle sometime in the late 1970s

On non-commercial radio in Seattle around then, KRAB 107.7 (Freeform) was apt to play Berliner gramophone records from the 1890s on any given Sunday morning.

 

[boombox4]

I think this is somewhat of a false comparison, and one that's bandied around here quite a bit. If a station in the 70s had wanted to play music from the 20s, how would they have done that? Put 78s on the air?

I can walk into Walmart today and buy brand new albums with music from the 60s and 70s. CDs, too. Did your local record store stock Paul Whiteman records in the 70s?

Even from a sound quality perspective, music recorded in the 20s was not up to snuff in the 70s. Stuff recorded in the 60s/70s? A lot of it sounds better than most of what comes out today.

So while in some ways this is a valid comparison, in many others it's not. Different worlds.

Stations played a lot of music from the 30's, 40's, and later. It was on tape, or LP. I worked at a company that still had a format that included some music that originally was on 78's. By then it was on CD. But tape was around long before them. The company I worked for had a library with such tapes. By the time they realized they had it all covered on CD, the tapes were junked.

Before Rush Limbaugh and the right wing talk era, Bob Larson was the epitome of what the kids call "rage farmers" today. And he had a daily radio show called "Bob Larson Live" (it was actually on tape.) where "callers" would call in, concerned if their KC & The Sunshine Band records could open a portal to the underworld.

A lot of bad script writing and even worse voice-acting went into this show. In high school at lunch time, my friends and I would go out to my car for a smoke and a laugh listening to this show. Our favorite parts of the show was when a caller was possessed. My then-girlfriend Chrissy asked "Why does everybody possessed by W.A.S.P. records always call him?! How come they don't call Jim French?!" (Jim French was the KIRO radio morning talk show host)

The rest of us were busting out laughing. But it was a good question. It really wasn't hard for high school kids in the 1980s to see the fakeness of Bob Larson's act. And who it was for.

One of Larson's most asinine features was a neo-nazi punk band called Skrewdriver. This was a band that would NEVER be heard on terrestrial radio, on a label sold only through neo-nazi mail-order catalogs. basically unavailable anywhere outside of that. But from the way Bob Larson went on about it, you'd think they were #1 on your local CHR station. It also made us wonder if he was aware that he could be giving this band a legitimacy they would never have found if he never even mentioned them.

When the Satanic Panic cow ran dry. Larson followed the money and went straight into right wing politics.

A lot of misconceptions need correcting here.

Larson didn't go into politics after leaving radio. He went ministry of a church in the Phoenix area (Scottsdale, I think), and he also apparently had a deliverance / exorcism ministry, FWIW.

As for Skrewdriver, I remember hearing his show when he talked about the neo-Nazi movement, and when he brought up Skrewdriver, and perhaps you should have paid a little closer attention, because he did not present the neo-Nazi music as being on your local CHR station. He mentioned it as an underground movement that was reaching out to young people, and probably it was a danger in many areas of the country where his show was on the airwaves.

As for the validity of Larson's bringing up Skrewdriver to begin with, he was not alone in breaching such subjects. Left wing magazines and feature articles during that time also mentioned such groups as an indicator of the dangers of neo-Nazis to the youth of America. I remember reading an article in the 1980's about the Klan recruiting people in the military. The neo-Nazi / Aryan threat was a very big deal back then, as much as it is now, and Larson was not the only media figure talking about it.

If you recall, during the mid to late 1980's when Larson was on the air, the Christian Identity movement and the neo-Nazi / Aryan Nations movements were growing problem, and a very big deal. One such Christian Identity leader had a shootout with the FBI on Whidbey in the late 1980s. Neo Nazis also killed KOA talk host Allan Berg. A few years later they gave us the OKC bombing. So that issue overall did have some merit being covered by a guy on the radio, religious or otherwise. No one else on Christian radio was talking about the dangers of skinheads and neo-Nazis. Maybe more of them should have.

So although Larson may have been a little over the top for a religious talk show host, many of the issues he covered, like the dangers of neo-Nazis, and the appeal of such movements to alienated young men, were valid.