An online return of the original KNX-FM!

[michael hagerty]

I'm very much enjoying this on-line version of Classic KNX-FM. Someone asked if NYC had a similar station. Yes and yes. 92.3 WKTU was the original Mellow Rock station. And later, when NBC's News & Information Service ended on all-news 97.1 WNWS, that station became Movin' Easy 97.1 WYNY. So for a year or two, we had competing Soft Rock stations. It is interesting to note that KTWV used many of these same songs as the vocals between jazz cuts on the original Wave. A few of these songs have survived to this day on KTWV's current playlist, such as "Sweet Baby" by Stanley Clarke & George Duke.

I have one quibble. The end cues are a bit too tight. One song hasn't faded much and the next song starts. Or a jingle begins. If a song ends with a mellow outcue, maybe a single piano note, we hear the next event very quickly. Again, I remember the cues being looser on WKTU and WYNY. Unless the producer thinks in today's world, we don't want a brief pause between events, even if that's the way Mellow Rock stations used to sound.

'KTU and 'YNY may have been looser. KNX-FM wasn't. This is a pretty faithful re-creation. The only real difference I'm hearing is that it's a bit more hit-oriented than the original and that the jingles and image songs are getting played a bit more often.

 

[erwin33]

I thought there were 100 jingles? I hear the same jingles every time. Also a couple repeats of tracks.

 

[LKellerIII]

I thought there were 100 jingles? I hear the same jingles every time. Also a couple repeats of tracks.

100? The only stations I can recall that had anywhere near that number were the Drake "Boss" stations in the 60's and 70's. Even in the heyday of radio jingles, most stations got by on a dozen or less.

 

[erwin33]

Yes I thought I read elsewhere that over 100 jingles were available.

 

[ChannelFlipper]

Yes I thought I read elsewhere that over 100 jingles were available.

Jingles isn't really the right word for them either. This is not the Johnny Mann singers we're talking about here. They are smooth production pieces that can last up to 30 seconds or maybe even a minute long and often remind me of Sade's music - very smooooooth. The vocals are very well done (clearly by professional session singers and musicians) that actually begin to sound like a real song before the last lyric is, of course, KNX-FM. Many a time I have been sucked in thinking I was hearing a new song on the playlist, pay close attention to it and then realize it's just another jingle...for lack of a better word.

 

[LKellerIII]

Jingles isn't really the right word for them either. This is not the Johnny Mann singers we're talking about here. They are smooth production pieces that can last up to 30 seconds or maybe even a minute long and often remind me of Sade's music - very smooooooth. The vocals are very well done (clearly by professional session singers and musicians) that actually begin to sound like a real song before the last lyric is, of course, KNX-FM. Many a time I have been sucked in thinking I was hearing a new song on the playlist, pay close attention to it and then realize it's just another jingle...for lack of a better word.

Trivia I have read: In Bill Drake parlance, they were never 'jingles' either - they were "logos."

 

[michael hagerty]

100? The only stations I can recall that had anywhere near that number were the Drake "Boss" stations in the 60's and 70's. Even in the heyday of radio jingles, most stations got by on a dozen or less.

My Gosh, Llew---I don't even think the Drake stations had 100. You had the call letters fast, slow, frequency fast into call letters slow, frequency slow into call letters fast, "golden", "double golden", weather and "Million dollar weekend". Maybe if you add up every jingle between 1965 and 1986 you might have 100 cuts. Over the 10-year first run of KNX-FM, I'm thinking there might have been a dozen or so "image songs" that sometimes had short "KNX-FM" jingles pulled from them.

 

[TheBigA]

My Gosh, Llew---I don't even think the Drake stations had 100.

Hard for me to compare jingle packages now with then, but today it's not hard to come up with 100 jingles, when we're talking various mix-outs, tempos, and shotguns.

 

[Woody985fm]

There were 100 jingles. These are in groups. The groups contain about 4 to 5 jingles. I also removed the instrumental jingles.

 

[davideduardo]

Hard for me to compare jingle packages now with then, but today it's not hard to come up with 100 jingles, when we're talking various mix-outs, tempos, and shotguns.

But generally, these are all remixes of about 10 to 12 basic tracks.

You can get a half dozen or more jingles out of each track, with an acapella, shotgun, with and without sting at end, with and without ramp at open, with and without part of the sing, and different mixes of the sing. And that is before going into different versions of the various instrumental mixes of the music track itself.

I remember one custom session I did with JAM in LA where out of 8 tracks we bought, there were two reels and over 120 different derivatives.

 

[LKellerIII]

My Gosh, Llew---I don't even think the Drake stations had 100. You had the call letters fast, slow, frequency fast into call letters slow, frequency slow into call letters fast, "golden", "double golden", weather and "Million dollar weekend". Maybe if you add up every jingle between 1965 and 1986 you might have 100 cuts. Over the 10-year first run of KNX-FM, I'm thinking there might have been a dozen or so "image songs" that sometimes had short "KNX-FM" jingles pulled from them.

Yes...to get anywhere near 100 you'd have to count the peculiar jingles...er...logos, like "Merry Christmas from Boss Ray-deee-ooo,", "God Bless Tiny Tim," (to the tune of '93-KHJ') and the other oddball one-offs.

 

[michael hagerty]

There were 100 jingles. These are in groups. The groups contain about 4 to 5 jingles. I also removed the instrumental jingles.

Woody: So, if I understand you correctly, there were about 20-25 basic cuts, of which there were versions or edits of varying lengths.

For example, a long song that ends with "Movin' easy, 93 FM, movin' easy, KNX-FM". Then a shorter (maybe half-length) version of the same image song. Then maybe a quarter-length, and then two short jingles, one with the ending above and one that takes it down to just "Movin' easy, KNX-FM"....making five jingles in that group. And so on with the next image song ("play a long one, KNX-FM"), through the package(s).

Helps to remember, too, that KNX-FM's existence totaled 13 years (1973-83 and 1986-89), and these weren't all done in one fell swoop, though I do recall a chunk of new ones all at once in the mid-late 70s.

 

[michael hagerty]

Hard for me to compare jingle packages now with then, but today it's not hard to come up with 100 jingles, when we're talking various mix-outs, tempos, and shotguns.

True, but in the Drake era (1965-73), which is what Llew was referring to, unless you're counting jock jingles, "Merry Christmas" and "Happy New Year", the packages were about 12-15 cuts each and there were only three packages---the original Johnny Mann acapellas (1965-69), Series 2, also known as the "rum-pums", which added instrumentation (1969-71), and the "Motown Package" (six months in 1971, apart from KFRC which kept bits and pieces of it, mixed with other jingles, until '76).

"The Motown Package" was bloated with a bunch of instrumental cuts that they tried for about two weeks and abandoned, but all told, the three packages (again not counting jock and holiday jingles) probably totaled 50-60 cuts.

 

[michael hagerty]

KNX-FM played a montage of their jingles and image songs in pretty much chronological order just before changing formats (to CHR as KKHR) in 1983. Here's an aircheck:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzsQhK2c_VI


More that didn't make the montage played in '83 (some of these may have been from the 1986-89 revival):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNlIULoiaSM

And the one that still gets me, the last one played in the regular format in '83, just before the last song (the Eagles' "The Last Resort"), after which the montage above was played:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3lyt2YYYWw

 

[TheBigA]

True, but in the Drake era (1965-73), which is what Llew was referring to,

I'll say this about jingles: Typically they are licensed for a specific period and a specific use. The longer the term, the higher the cost. If someone is using original jingles now, they're likely out of license, and the composers & musicians can sue for royalties due. Especially if they're being used in a digital medium.

 

[davideduardo]

I'll say this about jingles: Typically they are licensed for a specific period and a specific use. The longer the term, the higher the cost. If someone is using original jingles now, they're likely out of license, and the composers & musicians can sue for royalties due. Especially if they're being used in a digital medium.

Every package I have bought, going back to CRC, PAMS and Gwinsound up to most recently has been a market limited, perpetual use license. In other words, good only in Phoenix or San Juan or wherever, but no expiration and no royalties. In other words, buyouts.

 

[TheBigA]

Every package I have bought, going back to CRC, PAMS and Gwinsound up to most recently has been a market limited, perpetual use license. In other words, good only in Phoenix or San Juan or wherever, but no expiration and no royalties. In other words, buyouts.

I bought a package a few years ago and they were extremely unwilling to give me anything more than ten years, citing composer royalties. I ultimately got a 99 year lease, but they refused to use the word "perpetuity." I'm hearing that a lot in other circumstances, mainly due to internet usage.

 

[Kemosabe]

During the "reunion" and "rewound" weekends, formerly broadcast on WCBS-FM and WABC, a lot of old jingles were played. Although most did not own the rights to their eponymous jingles, jocks played them on their live "Radio Greats" reunion shows on 'CBS-FM. Obviously, when WABC "rewound" itself by airing airchecks from the '60s and '70s, jingles were included. Did any of the foregoing violate usage rights?

 

[TheBigA]

Did any of the foregoing violate usage rights?

If the station that originally ordered them uses them, probably not. They can easily get a waiver.

But that's not what's happening here. This is an independent operation with no legal ties to the original station.

 

[Gregg.]

If anyone is interested in the "Movin' Easy Y97" days of WYNY New York, there's a You Tube soundcheck available. While I was a frequent listener, I realize I hadn't remember the jingles, after listening to this air check.

The first two clips are from "The Rock Pile" when the station was WNBC-FM. That's followed by several WYNY clips from that era, all on this video. We hear Y97 playing Jefferson Starship, Bob Seger, Stevie Wonder, Billy Joel, Steve Miller, etc. all followed by WYNY jingles and a couple of brief DJ artist I.D.s So this was similar to KNX-FM.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meTBLdC7MP0