A "test" program - Soft and Easy Favorites

[radioboy]

Hello all,

A local radio station recently approached me about creating some type of local program for them. The
station had been leased out to a third party that aired EWTN and the plug was pulled August 1.
Therefore, the station is temporarily silent.

They were considering some type of nostalgia format. So over the past couple of weeks, I came up
with a format that is a mix of adult standards, country/cross-country, Top 40 hits of the 50s and 60s
that lean to the softer side, and soft AC.

It's been 28 years since I last worked this format, and at that time, without the standards. It pulled
a 4.1 share on an AM station.

This program is local to Tallahassee, Fla. However, I've also decided to stream it, from 3 to 6 pm EST,
over my country station.

I've looked at vchimpanzee's music lists on the other websites and have a lot of those songs here already. I've also
looked at some other lists under this topic here on radio-info.

The station has no studio anymore and no music, so I'll be providing both - for free, basically, except for
any advertising I can sell in the program.

Here is the website:

http://www.softandeasyfavorites.com

It's still a work in progress. I've had to develop this concept/format within a matter of days.

If you have any suggestions for making the show/website the best they can be, please feel free to let me know.

For better or worse, it will hit the air (or at least the stream) next Monday, August 24. The local station may or may not be ready by then.

It is real radio - from a studio in real time, with records, CDs, etc. It won't be voice tracked, at least for a while.

 

[Prais]

vchimp is your music list source (no ffense but LOL!

Why not get a Joel Whitburn book. Or GOOGLE - there are a million sites with that kind of music.

 

[radioboy]

Prais,

Guess I should have been more clear. Kyle's list was just one of a lot of lists that I looked at. I just look at other lists to spark ideas.

The Tallahassee playlist will include some songs I haven't seen mentioned much on anyone's list. It is a local-to-Tallahassee show but is also being streamed. The station itself will be using a stream to feed audio to the transmitter site.

This silent AM has been off the air now for 18 days and no one has mentioned it on the North Florida board. I could probably play a tape of dogs barking over the air and no one would notice!

 

[Silkie]

Oldies have made a pretty big comeback. Hope you do well with it.

 

[davideduardo]

Oldies have made a pretty big comeback. Hope you do well with it.

Oldies have not made any kind of comeback; that format is pretty much dead. What has happened is that dying oldies stations have transformed into 70's based classic hits stations, with salable demos.

 

[Chuck]

They were considering some type of nostalgia format. So over the past couple of weeks, I came up
with a format that is a mix of adult standards, country/cross-country, Top 40 hits of the 50s and 60s
that lean to the softer side, and soft AC.

It's been 28 years since I last worked this format, and at that time, without the standards. It pulled
a 4.1 share on an AM station.

I won't kid you that a Standards/Nostalgia station will get huge numbers, but you still can get a substantial and loyal audience. I'm wondering when traditional broadcasters will figure that out. My guess is it might happen after some of the underperforming stations are set free from their clusters and returned to local management and operation.

I can only speak from my own experience, but as most of you know, I operate such a station. Obviously, it is geared to a more mature audience. Until you get to age 45 or so, listenership is more or less evenly split between men and women. It is not huge numbers, but it does better than you might think with 12+. It really becomes popular with the over 45 crowd, where the listenership starts to skew heavily toward women. Perhaps there are more little old ladies than little old men?

If you can find sponsors who want to reach these people, it can be a viable format, despite what the pundits say. One man's version of "success" may be quite different from another's. If feeding your stockholders a quarterly dividend is your goal, then this may not be the best plan of action. On the other hand if making a decent living doing something you enjoy is what you are looking for, it might work out for you.

 

[davideduardo]

I won't kid you that a Standards/Nostalgia station will get huge numbers, but you still can get a substantial and loyal audience. I'm wondering when traditional broadcasters will figure that out.

Standards/nostalgia will get you primarily a 65+ audience. It will get no one under 55, and not too many 55-64's. Those groups grew up on Top 40, not the bands and the crooners. In fairness, I have to ask if you are using the "standard" definition of "standards" as meaning "songs that sound like Frank Sinatra" as opposed to early oldies and such.

For a station in a rated market, and where ad agency business is critical, you can't even give away 55+, let alone 65+. The ad agency accounts essentially never specify a target over 55 unless the product is senior targeted. Radio can deliver a 55+ audience if there is revenue in the demo. But there is not.

My guess is it might happen after some of the underperforming stations are set free from their clusters and returned to local management and operation.

It won't even happen in retirement places. For example, the Beautiful Music / Standards format on FM in the Palm Springs market is moving to a useless AM (despite being top 5 in 12+ ratings) because there is just no revenue, with the exception being in very small markets where the advertisers are looking at different opportunities. Obviously, for a facility that is AM or an uncompetitive FM, this might be barely viable today... but not for long.

Until you get to age 45 or so, listenership is more or less evenly split between men and women. It is not huge numbers, but it does better than you might think with 12+. It really becomes popular with the over 45 crowd, where the listenership starts to skew heavily toward women. Perhaps there are more little old ladies than little old men?

Are you saying standards skews towards women, or radio listening does so? Because in the new reality of the PPM, even in 55+, the AQH listener levels for men exceeds that of women, although not significantly.

 

[Chuck]

Are you saying standards skews towards women, or radio listening does so? Because in the new reality of the PPM, even in 55+, the AQH listener levels for men exceeds that of women, although not significantly.

I can only speak about my own station and what Arbitron has constantly reported to us. We skew well over 60% toward women. We are a in smaller market and do not have PPM, at least not yet. We show a (relatively) significant number of women age 35 and up, but it is true that the over 60 crowd is the biggest percentage. Even so, it seems we have a lot of women in their mid to late 40's listening. Maybe that is an aberration in our particular market, considering that several obvious formats are missing. For instance, there are no "Oldies," "Smooth Jazz" or "Classical" stations.

It may also have something to do with the fact that we are not your typical “Standards” station, since we play lots of music by current artists that happen to have been written by songwriters of a previous era. There is no shortage of that, a lot of which is quite popular and seems to be selling well. As I travel around the country, most Standards stations I hear tend to put me to sleep. I think that being boring is a big problem for the format. We try not to do that.

My over-all observation is whenever a station once again becomes "local,” i.e. owned and operated by someone who actually lives in the community the station serves, then it tends to do fairly well, regardless of format. That assumes they are not strapped by a huge amount of unserviceable debt.

 

[vchimpanzee]

Prais,

Guess I should have been more clear. Kyle's list was just one of a lot of lists that I looked at. I just look at other lists to spark ideas.

The Tallahassee playlist will include some songs I haven't seen mentioned much on anyone's list. It is a local-to-Tallahassee show but is also being streamed. The station itself will be using a stream to feed audio to the transmitter site.

This silent AM has been off the air now for 18 days and no one has mentioned it on the North Florida board. I could probably play a tape of dogs barking over the air and no one would notice!

There are a lot of songs I haven't put in my fantasy iPod. Some I just haven't heard. WAVO in Charlotte plays a lot of unfamiliar songs and even less familiar versions of the well-known songs. Thye just fired their one DJ, so it's not easy to figure out who does what or what the names of songs are. With instrumentals it's even worse.

But I do appreciate hearing that my lists were used. I should mention my country list is a lot more accepting of music that isn't soft.

One song not on my list is "It Was a Very Good Year" by Sinatra. It's an obvious choice for any standards format but not one I care for. I just find it depressing.

 

[elchupacabras]

One song not on my list is "It Was a Very Good Year" by Sinatra. It's an obvious choice for any standards format but not one I care for. I just find it depressing.

Ditto. A downer. Not my favorite either!

 

[klutch00]

Hello all,

A local radio station recently approached me about creating some type of local program for them. The
station had been leased out to a third party that aired EWTN and the plug was pulled August 1.
Therefore, the station is temporarily silent.

They were considering some type of nostalgia format. So over the past couple of weeks, I came up
with a format that is a mix of adult standards, country/cross-country, Top 40 hits of the 50s and 60s
that lean to the softer side, and soft AC.

Another Genre of music to ad could include modern light favorites by artists such as Diana Krall, Josh Groban, Harry Connick Jr., Monica Mancini, Antonia Bennett and the like.

It's been 28 years since I last worked this format, and at that time, without the standards. It pulled
a 4.1 share on an AM station.

This program is local to Tallahassee, Fla. However, I've also decided to stream it, from 3 to 6 pm EST,
over my country station.

I hope you can 'pull it off'. Trying to get people listen to AM once again will be quite difficult as you already know. Much has changed from 28 years ago.

I've looked at vchimpanzee's music lists on the other websites and have a lot of those songs here already. I've also
looked at some other lists under this topic here on radio-info.

The station has no studio anymore and no music, so I'll be providing both - for free, basically, except for
any advertising I can sell in the program.

Here is the website:

http://www.softandeasyfavorites.com

It's still a work in progress. I've had to develop this concept/format within a matter of days.

If you have any suggestions for making the show/website the best they can be, please feel free to let me know.

For better or worse, it will hit the air (or at least the stream) next Monday, August 24. The local station may or may not be ready by then.

It is real radio - from a studio in real time, with records, CDs, etc. It won't be voice tracked, at least for a while.

You may want to consider alternative forms of fund raising to keep the station afloat. I would consider sponsoring concerts; maybe even holding dances.

 

[vchimpanzee]

One song not on my list is "It Was a Very Good Year" by Sinatra. It's an obvious choice for any standards format but not one I care for. I just find it depressing.

Ditto. A downer. Not my favorite either!

It's a great song for standards, but just not my preference. I heard Barry Manilow's new version of "Copacabana" this morning, which in my opinion is not as good either. Jeff Rollins told about why Manilow decided to record it differently, but I don't remember just what he said now.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

In choosing songs like these, there probably needs to be a small committee or a panel involved. Depending on where you were when the song "was in it's prime" and what your own life circumstances were at the time can make you overly fond of a given song, or overly negative.

I make no claim to being a "radio musicologist" but I like to think I have a reasonable ear for evergreens and songs that will be future evergreens. However, my evergreen may turn out to be your thornbush.

 

[vchimpanzee]

I've added several songs to my various iPods.

Pop vocals http://lounge.cwtv.com/showthread.php?p=4537688
Instrumentals http://lounge.cwtv.com/showthread.php?p=4537686
Country vocals http://lounge.cwtv.com/showthread.php?p=4592503
Christmas http://lounge.cwtv.com/showthread.php?p=5418064

And this is a new one. I started a thread listing adult contemporary songs that standards fans liked. I just listed the ones that weren't in the original iPods, though I've moved some to there to make room. Notice I have a different name. "Ralph" and "Kyle" make fun of each other's musical tastes. I did this because these are not songs I would consider essential on my favorite radio station, but I wouldn't object to them if I was listening to another format, such as in a store.

http://lounge.cwtv.com/showthread.php?p=13008191

 

[oldtimeradio]

Although, I'm just restarting my music stream I am having trouble finding listeners:
http://www.mormemories.com mid-fifties to 1972-ish. MOR only.

Mike