ANY HOPE FOR CLASSIC HITS IN BUFFALO

[BUFFALOFLYGUY]

I was just wondering if a FM radio station in Buffalo would bring back the "Classic Hit" or the "Oldies" format? I am getting very board of Buffalo radio lately because WJYE, WTSS, AND WHTT are basically the same with a tiny bit of tweaking.

 

[alw]

I was just wondering if a FM radio station in Buffalo would bring back the "Classic Hit" or the "Oldies" format?

I suspect that if any radio station owner were to consider "Oldies", it would not include many of the "Oldies" you have in mind.
Also, a younger generation, which is more to the liking of ad buyers, has a very different view of what qualifies as a "Classic"

 

[Bob1370]

It's not unlikely that WHTT will re-reposition itself as a classic hits station, maybe even reclaim its old slogan of "Buffalo's Greatest Hits" to reclaim some of the audience that's drifted away over the last year or so. What happened in New York, where WCBS-FM resurrected itself and reclaimed a top-5 position in the Arbitrons 12+ and 25-54, hasn't been lost on programmers anywhere.

WHTT would have to do the least retooling of any Buffalo station in order to make it happen and reclaim some lost turf--they'd just have to rebuild a local, somewhat more uptempo night show, and tweak the music mix the rest of the day while fielding the same personality lineup that has served them very well for quite some time now.

 

[SirRoxalot]

Ask Corporate

It's pretty obvious that Citadel has big male numbers with 97-Rock and The Edge. The have reworked WHTT to go after female numbers, concentrating in the 25-54 demo. Neither Classic Hits, nor Oldies is going to get that demographic.

There are differences in the music. WTSS is skewing toward the lower end of the 25-54 demo, while WHTT and WJYE appear to be skewing toward the upper end. WJYE is softer in its approach than either WTSS or WHTT.

WHTT will be considered a success if they can get into the top 4 in Women 25-54. They'll have to beat WJYE to do that, considering the numbers that WTSS, WYRK, and WBLK have been posting lately.

 

[Yeziknoradio]

Outside of Jack FM doing something close to "classic hits" I doubt any of the main players in Buffalo will show interest in oldies.

The better question may be wether or not there is any room on the FM or AM dial for a brand new radio station to sign on and maintain the oldies format...unless that classic country station wants to go back to standards.
Even then, there's still alot of classics oldies/hits missing from the market, unfortunantly.

 

[AndrewLawson]

Of all the FM stations in Buffalo, WHTT probably has the easist path to transition to classic hits if the situation demanded it. Jack might be able to do it, but that might hurt stablemate WJYE. In reality, WJYE might be tempted to make the move if the Fall book doesn't look good. The problem is, with the exception of WHTT, any other station moving to classic hits would be flushing its present brand which took years to build. It's hard to see or hear anybody jumping back on that format, but people probably said the same thing about CBS-FM a few years ago.

This leads me to suggest that Peggy Sue, Shiela, Wake Up Little Suzie and songs from 1955 through 1975 would best be heard on WECK. It's unlikely that an FM station would touch those songs, leaving the market to an AM station with a reasonably good signal day and night. Why go with a news talk format in the face of an established market leader when a music format featuring the greatest hits of the 50s, 60s and 70s would be more productive and economically feasible? Hire a good morning and afternoon jock, a respected news person for morning drive and voice track middays and nights. With today's computer technology, the news person could report from home and he might even be able to provide updates in afternoon drive. News-talk Lockport style seems to be a tough sell in Buffalo.

 

[ThePickleReport]

This leads me to suggest that Peggy Sue, Shiela, Wake Up Little Suzie and songs from 1955 through 1975 would best be heard on WECK. Hire a good morning and afternoon jock, a respected news person for morning drive and voice track middays and nights.

I think some sort of "full-service" type format involving oldies or standards on WECK would be ideal and welcomed. If it's turned into a jukebox it won't fly, and neither will syndicated talk without much local content.

 

[SirRoxalot]

Outside the Box

I still think that the idea of running WECK as a news/talk station in the daytime, and a standards/oldies station nights/weekends might work. It would require a commitment to live/local news/talk in both drive times, with syndication likely in at least a portion of mid-days.

From 7P-6A, they could go to a music format that incorporates standards and '55 - '70 pop oldies. Live and local would be ideal, but even satellite would serve an available audience. Yes, it would skew the station older, but we're talking about AM radio here. It's automatically skewed older.

 

[alw]

Gang:

I guess all this WECK speculation is fine, in spirit, but Dick Green knows exactly what he'll be doing when he takes over.....and I can tell you that it has little to do with Oldies or MOR or music at all, except tunes that will be running under what he hopes will be countless spots.

 

[Kal]

Gang:

I guess all this WECK speculation is fine, in spirit, but Dick Green knows exactly what he'll be doing when he takes over.....and I can tell you that it has little to do with Oldies or MOR or music at all, except tunes that will be running under what he hopes will be countless spots.

Al,

Sounds like the new AM 1230 format will be the old reliable standby... 'ALL SPOTS, ALL THE TIME!' A favorite of all owners and GM's! (Didn't we work at one of those? LOL)

Kal