Any Standards or Easy Listening Stations Doing Well?

[Chuck]

Amen. I stopped when Westwood One "updated" their playlist and started playing 70s AC. ABC pretty much did the same. MOYL has changed the least but somehow I never warmed up to them. Since KABL is gone, I can't think of any commercial standards stations that are still local-live (except for volunteer efforts that also have advertisers).

Yep. KABL was one of the best. Somehow 70's AC just doesn't work for me on a "standards" station. I have no problem with 70's soft rock. In fact, in my pervious life, I helped many of those groups with their live sound. Between radio "careers" that is what I did for a living. It is just that Bread, James Taylor and The Carpenters all sound odd to me when segued with some great Billy May arrangements. I'm sure other people will have different opinions.

 

[vchimpanzee]

It says on their web site, "Due to the continuing costs of maintaining our Web Radio feature, WMUU regrets to announce that beginning September 1st we will discontinue the Web Radio. WMUU is currently spending nearly $25,000 annually to maintain our website."

What a shame. I asked XM and Sirius to consider adding them since some AM and FM stations can be heard on satellite.

 

[nipper1234]

KMMZ 101.3 FM Crane/Odessa TX seems to be doing well with Westwood One standards. Don't know what the ratings are but they seem to do well keeping sponsors and getting new ones. This is a 100,000 watt FM station so the signal is clear over a large area.
The format sounds more like a light AC rather than "old standards" and I think this has more appeal to a modern audience. I find it real nice to listen to in the office at work.

 

[vchimpanzee]

KMMZ 101.3 FM Crane/Odessa TX seems to be doing well with Westwood One standards. Don't know what the ratings are but they seem to do well keeping sponsors and getting new ones. This is a 100,000 watt FM station so the signal is clear over a large area.
The format sounds more like a light AC rather than "old standards" and I think this has more appeal to a modern audience. I find it real nice to listen to in the office at work.

Yeah, it still sounds good on the station I listen to. There are a few songs that make me change stations, but there are enough "standards" to make me happy.

I only wish this station played music more of the time.

And afternoon drive time is still straight oldies.

 

[vchimpanzee]

Yep. KABL was one of the best. Somehow 70's AC just doesn't work for me on a "standards" station. I have no problem with 70's soft rock. In fact, in my pervious life, I helped many of those groups with their live sound. Between radio "careers" that is what I did for a living. It is just that Bread, James Taylor and The Carpenters all sound odd to me when segued with some great Billy May arrangements. I'm sure other people will have different opinions.

I can't deal with soft rock and standards together, so the latest development at Timeless Classics is bad news. But Bread, James Taylor and The Carpenters have always been a part of standards radio for me. Except possibly when I listened to Stardust in the late 80s. I don't even remember whether they were part of it.

 

[Chuck]

Yep. KABL was one of the best. Somehow 70's AC just doesn't work for me on a "standards" station. I have no problem with 70's soft rock. In fact, in my pervious life, I helped many of those groups with their live sound. Between radio "careers" that is what I did for a living. It is just that Bread, James Taylor and The Carpenters all sound odd to me when segued with some great Billy May arrangements. I'm sure other people will have different opinions.

I can't deal with soft rock and standards together, so the latest development at Timeless Classics is bad news. But Bread, James Taylor and The Carpenters have always been a part of standards radio for me. Except possibly when I listened to Stardust in the late 80s. I don't even remember whether they were part of it.

I'm a little unclear about your response. You say you can't deal with Soft Rock mixed with Standards, but go on to say it has always been a part of it for you? Perhaps you mean that you don’t like it, but that is the way it is usually presented?

I know some people like the mix of soft rock and traditional standards, like Sinatra, Dean Martin, Benny Goodman, and Nat Cole, etc. I’m definitely not one of them. In fact, I think that is one of the things that has turned Standards a loser format. I guess it is an attempt to be all things to all people. That approach seldom works. There isn't any quicker way to get me to tune out than when I hear an Abba song on a standards station.

It's not that soft rock of the 1970's hasn't any appeal. Lots of people like it. As I mentioned, I made a very good living working with some of those artists way back when it was new. Even back when it was popular, you never heard James Taylor or Bread on a MOR station. For the same reasons why they didn't mix the two formats back then, I don't believe soft rock really belongs on a Standards station. To me, Standards is really a "MOR Oldies" format. Soft Rock is a separate format, and best left to Delilah and her fans.

 

[tjthedj]

Chuck, with respect, I would suggest that YOUR way of doing the format would have zoomed the demographics older even faster that it actually happened.

The "more contemporary" music in the mix added hits, dropped the demographics 10 years or so, so people in their 50's could listen, and lengthened the time between songs (though they seemed to "rotate" some songs through "daily" play). I can see where it may be "offensive" to a particular age group, but "thats show biz."

I thought they needed MORE "crooners" and late 40's early 50's. That would have also "aged" the music faster, but I LOVE that era. Also, You gotta play Frank and Dean. Back then, it seems that they played Sinatra nearly hourly.

 

[vchimpanzee]

I'm a little unclear about your response. You say you can't deal with Soft Rock mixed with Standards, but go on to say it has always been a part of it for you? Perhaps you mean that you don’t like it, but that is the way it is usually presented?

The Carpenters are no longer accepted as soft rock. Bread might be, but I'm not sure. I guess James Taylor is also accepted as standards. What I really meant was the people regarded as "too wimpy" for soft rock.

But Carole King and Carly Simon don't appeal to me, and they are soft rock. How long they've been played on standards radio I'm not certain.

Kenny Loggins on the other hand ... What's next? The Doobie Brothers? Surely not REO Speedwagon. Or Journey. Unforgettable Favorites played all these.

 

[Chuck]

Chuck, with respect, I would suggest that YOUR way of doing the format would have zoomed the demographics older even faster that it actually happened.

I actually run a standards station. Feel free to tune in at www.kzqx.com My findings do not agree with what you are saying, although I agree that it its contrary to popular belief. The station is programmed for the 50 and up age group. I make no apologies for that. The funny thing is we do OK with 12 and up. We actually get kids calling the station. Go figure. And you won't hear anything from Bread, Abba, The Carpenters, etc.

I thought they needed MORE "crooners" and late 40's early 50's. That would have also "aged" the music faster, but I LOVE that era. Also, You gotta play Frank and Dean. Back then, it seems that they played Sinatra nearly hourly.

No argument about Dean and Frank, but I'd go easy on the crooners. They can be very boring. On our station, Frank and Dean are part of he mortar that holds the whole thing together. We still play Frank every hour. It seems to work. The audience may not be huge, but it is respectable, and VERY loyal.

 

[vchimpanzee]

I actually run a standards station. Feel free to tune in at www.kzqx.com My findings do not agree with what you are saying, although I agree that it its contrary to popular belief. The station is programmed for the 50 and up age group. I make no apologies for that. The funny thing is we do OK with 12 and up. We actually get kids calling the station. Go figure. And you won't hear anything from Bread, Abba, The Carpenters, etc.

I thought they needed MORE "crooners" and late 40's early 50's. That would have also "aged" the music faster, but I LOVE that era. Also, You gotta play Frank and Dean. Back then, it seems that they played Sinatra nearly hourly.

No argument about Dean and Frank, but I'd go easy on the crooners. They can be very boring. On our station, Frank and Dean are part of he mortar that holds the whole thing together. We still play Frank every hour. It seems to work. The audience may not be huge, but it is respectable, and VERY loyal.

Sounds like my kind of station.

I don't object to ABBA because they're a guilty pleasure, but sometimes I'd prefer to do without them because I like my music softer than that. And Karen Carpenter has such a sexy voice. I've always liked pretty much everything she did. "Goodbye To Love", unfortunately, has hard rock instrumentals which really sound out of place.

 

[Nashsound]

I don't object to ABBA because they're a guilty pleasure, but sometimes I'd prefer to do without them because I like my music softer than that. And Karen Carpenter has such a sexy voice. I've always liked pretty much everything she did. "Goodbye To Love", unfortunately, has hard rock instrumentals which really sound out of place.

When I first worked in Radio at an EZ station in the early 70's, "Goodbye to Love" was one of the few Carpenters cuts we weren't allowed to play ( yes, we played LPs, not automated).

 

[ChrisInMI]

Funny you mention "Goodbye To Love." In the liner notes to the Carpenters' "Gold - 35th Anniversary Edition," Richard Carpenter mentions that the guitar solo break in that record provoked a lot of hate mail from fans who thought the Carpenters had "sold out" and "gone hard rock." Granted we're not talking hard rock of the AC/DC caliber, but it still sounds a bit jarring played next to, say, "For All We Know."
Which makes me also wonder how longtime Carpenters fans reacted to "Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft" a few years later... that song is just weird, to say the least. Cool, but weird.

In regard to standards stations doing well, last time I checked, WOKY Milwaukee, WLGZ Rochester NY and WJAS Pittsburgh all had respectable 12+ numbers. Of course I don't know how well they bill, but I do know that WOKY has had favorable response to mixing in more uptempo rock oldies from the station's Top 40 golden era into the playlist lately. I like WJAS's playlist, it reminds me a lot of how ABC Timeless Classics used to sound before they eliminated all the pre-1960 music.

Here in Michigan, WILS 1320 (Timeless Classics) in Lansing had respectable 12+ but must have been lacking in the billing department, because they went Talk and moved the Timeless Classics to WXLA 1180, a daytimer which changed format from Urban AC.
In Grand Rapids, WTRV 100.5 (The River), which is a very soft AC along the lines of WDUV, beats Clear Channel soft-rock competitor and former B/EZ giant WOOD-FM (Star) 105.7 12+ on occasion, and WTRV has only a piddly 3kw signal.
WMBN 1340 (Dial Global Standards) in Petoskey in northern Michigan does fairly well, I never seem to hear a shortage of local advertisers on the station when I'm up there. It makes respectable showings in the Traverse City/Petoskey/NW MI Arbitrons despite being a graveyard signal that doesn't actually make it TO Traverse City at all. Of course, the fact that Traverse City lost its own Standards station, WCCW-AM 1310 (was Stardust), to Sports a few years ago probably has something to do with that. There are also two Music of Your Life stations in the area, WCBY 1240 (Cheboygan, with a listening area that includes Mackinac Island) and WGRY 1230 (Grayling).

 

[lash]

Not familiar with the Timeless Classic satt. format, but I will say WJAS sounds great. Its much more of a real oldies format than standards, and they feature strong legendary on air talent as well. You'll notice on their website that they are even using the slogan Pittsburgh's Real Oldies Station.

 

[ChrisInMI]

"Timeless Classics" is the current on-air identifier of the ABC-delivered satellite format known as "Stardust." Similar to what Westwood One did with "Adult Standards" several years ago, a couple of months ago, after discontinuing the Soft/Gold AC satellite format known as "Memories" ("Unforgettable Favorites"), "Timeless Classics" became basically a hybrid of Oldies and '60s-'80s Soft Rock with very limited pre-1960s material. Frankie Laine, Doris Day, Patti Page and other traditional pop singers who were staples of the format previously are gone, and some longtime listeners (myself included) are none too happy about it. Now that Lacina and Hubbard have been fired, pre-rock-era music is more or less completely gone from Timeless Classics.

WJAS has yet to completely eliminate those songs from rotation - according to yes.com, they still have tracks from artists like Rosemary Clooney, Guy Mitchell and Teresa Brewer in rotation along with Olivia Newton-John, Maureen McGovern, Carpenters and other '70s AC artists. I guess you could call it more accurately a Nostalgia/Real Oldies/MOR hybrid than true "standards." CKWW in Windsor/Detroit used to have a playlist similar to that; it's since evolved into Gold-Based AC and now into pure Oldies.

Nashsound, I'm curious - what were some of the other Carpenters tracks you weren't allowed to play? I kind of see where some EZ station operators would consider their version of "Please Mr. Postman" a bit too uptempo for their playlists, although I personally like it. While I haven't heard the solo album Karen did in 1979 that was shelved until '96, I understand it's actually quite heavy on disco and harder rock.

 

[vchimpanzee]

"Timeless Classics" is the current on-air identifier of the ABC-delivered satellite format known as "Stardust." Similar to what Westwood One did with "Adult Standards" several years ago, a couple of months ago, after discontinuing the Soft/Gold AC satellite format known as "Memories" ("Unforgettable Favorites"), "Timeless Classics" became basically a hybrid of Oldies and '60s-'80s Soft Rock with very limited pre-1960s material.

Just to make sure you know, Westwood One went back to playing standards, although there are a few more AC tunes than there used to be, and they don't play Glenn Miller or Bing Crosby (Christmas being the exception) any more.

Frankie Laine, Doris Day, Patti Page and other traditional pop singers who were staples of the format previously are gone, and some longtime listeners (myself included) are none too happy about it.

Just in case I haven't said it here enough, include me also.

 

[cyberdad]

ABC'S "Timeless Classics" reminds me somewhat of what used to be called "Chicken Rock" back in the 60s.

 

[vchimpanzee]

When I first worked in Radio at an EZ station in the early 70's, "Goodbye to Love" was one of the few Carpenters cuts we weren't allowed to play ( yes, we played LPs, not automated).

I never heard that song on a soft rock station. Only on Stardust. And, amazingly, on Music of Your Life once. I think they cut it off early, though.

 

[lash]

Rumors in Cincy have WSAI returning to the standards format formally done in the 90's.

 

[vchimpanzee]

Rumors in Cincy have WSAI returning to the standards format formally done in the 90's.

That's good news. They should. Is that 1530 or 1360?

1530 reaches all over the East and it would make so many people happy.

I'll go check the Cincinnati board and see what 's up.

 

[vchimpanzee]

D'OH! No sign it'll change from Homer.