CBS kept it on the schedule for four years ('78-'82). It produced 90 episodes and was nominated 10 times for Primetime Emmys, including three for Outstanding Comedy Series. (There was one win.) So WKRP was by no means an artistic or a ratings failure. It just wasn't a huge hit show, like Hill Street Blues or Mary Tyler Moore or Cheers. It did respectably in its early years of syndication, and over the decades has done respectably when it's been trotted out for some limited run. Had it not been for the music licensing problems, it probably would have done respectably in video-to-home. (But let's not go there or this thread will veer sharp left into another tangent.)
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Anyone listening to the yacht rock weekend on klos
- Thread starter hotpatrick2004
- Start date
Well, throw in murders and it’s a different movie.
Even Adrienne Barbeau couldn’t quite save that. Extra demerits for making us listen to a bad jingle reel.
WKRP trivia question:
What was the frequency and wattage of WKRP?
Hint: it's on the coverage map that's on the WKRP lobby wall by Jennifer's desk
The irony was that all-disco stations could only be found on FM. In Phoenix, where I lived, it was KXTC (now KTAR-FM); in Los Angeles, both KIIS-FM and KUTE-FM went all-disco; WDAI-FM did the same in Chicago as did WKTU-FM in New York (the cities outside of Phoenix I learned through airchecks of the time and station surveys now available at the ARSA survey site).
I think the biggest problem with disco was the fact that it was dominated by black artists and many white teenagers, especially teenage boys, resented that. When disco died in 1980, almost all activity by African-american artists in the top-40, especially upbeat songs, died and it didn't start to revive until Michael Jackson's 1983 "Thriller," album and Prince's 1982 "1999" album.
With regard to yacht songs on AOR stations at the time, yes there were some but they were (mostly) by artists who were already accepted in the AOR format. The Doobie Brothers, Boz Scaggs, Steely Dan, and Jackson Browne were already being played by FM radio so it wasn't hard to add slightly lighter songs to AOR playlists by these artists. While some of Chicago's and Ambrosia's earlier songs were accepted by AOR stations, I don't remember any, certainly not in my hometown of Phoenix, that played, say, "If You Leave Me Now," by Chicago and "How Much I feel," by Ambrosia when they were top 40 hits and later--these tracks were just a little too soft for the AOR crowd. And I can tell you now that neither of Phoenix' two AOR stations ever played Robbie Dupree, and I don't know of any AOR stations that did.
Interesting. Charlotte's album rocker got those letters around that time. I was doing some research for Wikipedia and found out that, ironically, the station actually rocxed harder as WRNA, but that eventually changed. It was a hard rock station when I was in college. Then it went Top 40 and later Rock 40. After going back to Top 40 they put the letters on their AM which was Z-Rock at the time but soon changed to "Cool" oldies with appropriate letters. Now the letters are on a classic rocker in Greenville SC and have been for decades. And the former WROQ is still CHR.
While there was a disco FM in the Charlotte market which evolved into urban, there was disco on AM. However, the station set a record for most format changes until it finally settled on Christian programming for African-Americans.
WAYS in Charlotte didn't have a true Top 40 as competition since WBCY was "Charlotte's best rock", biut I think it was still doing pretty well in '79.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
I don't think the frequency was on the map. I do remember that the pilot showed a 50kW coverage area, but that was seen to be in conflict with the idea of a failing radio station, so it became 5kW for the rest of the series.
Usually in its own format, not mixed with other songs, as would be the case for AM Top 40. People were reacting to the music, not AM or FM radio.
Yes, but the reaction to those stations on AM was often pronounced and could be deadly:
And the gay subculture angle too. Indefensible bigotry in both cases.
For TV shows, there was also "Hello Larry" and for movies, "The Fisher King":
The Fisher King
www.boxofficemojo.com
Private Parts also:
Private Parts
I remember seeing "1530 AM", the real frequency of WCKY (later WSAI). It might have been on the syndicated version that aired a few years after the original ended.
1972 was the year of the rollout of many "instantly successful" FM Top 40's such as WMYQ in Miami, WDRQ in Detroit and KSLQ in St Louis. In addition, many AMs that had FM "sisters" upgraded the FM and achieved, sometimes earlier, great success. An example is WPGC in Washington and, a few years later, KUPD in Phoenix.
Internationally, "Los 40 Principales" was rapidly top rated in Madrid and, by simulcast networking, across Spain, as early as 1967.
Again, in the right place at the right time.
Remember, he was brought in to implement the format that was, apparently, already decided on.
That is where he stumbled into a situation where market forces and already planned but not implemented concepts. In nearly two decades at iHeart, he has not managed to make the station group profitable. There are plenty of "he inherited too much debt" excuses, but nothing the operating stations have done is outstanding or exceptional.
What he has done successfully is develop a secondary revenue stream to broadcasting. As David Field showed, you can have a well-run company, with lots of successful and profitable stations, and still go bankrupt. There is nothing a CEO can do to fix broadcasting, especially given the number of stations iHeart has in areas where there is not enough local revenue to sustain ad-based radio. I find it hard to blame him for something that really no one is able to fix. Anyone they hire to replace him will start out by shutting down lots of radio stations, because they're boat anchors weighting down the entire company. That would be a way to become profitable, and Pittman seems to be unwilling to do that.
And the same thing happened in Miami where Y-100, set up by Buzz Bennett and programmed for many years by Bill Tanner, moved to a more rhythmic blend... lots of K.C. and the Sunshine Band! But the 1980 core was mostly Air Supply. REO Speedwagon and Blondie and the like.
Those, as I mention, were core. But there were core artists like The Carpenters and Barry Manilow just a few years earlier.
What I saw in that period when I was a manager with multi-market Metroplex was a buying attitude change where agencies no longer looked at radio to sell to teens. This resulted in Top 40 stations trying to, gradually, find a more adult focus. The successful transitions were those that "found" that 18-34 women like most of the same songs as the traditional teen audience had.
We also have to remember that, in 1980, we had just come off of the 4 to 5 year phenomenon or fad of disco. That had younger targeted stations squirming and squiggling, like an octopus out of water, trying to find the right blend of all the music that was left after disco.
The frequency was 1530 (on the map). And 50,000 watts There is a REAL 1530 in Cincinnati (WCKY) that was the inspiration for the fictional WKRP.
I know in some cases an early FM top 40 took off because the AM had signal problems. WPGC being the best example, as DC only really has one good AM signal (630) in a very spread out market. Atlanta, where WZGC had early success as WQXI at night had trouble in the rapidly growing suburbs. KLIF got beat early by KNUS FM in the huge Dallas/Fort Worth market, after the two were combined into one market in F1973 making only WBAP, KRLD and possibly WFAA equally able to cover both cities. Poor Ft. Worth only stations KFJZ and KXOL, which had excellent numbers (especially KFJZ) before the markets were combined.
In other cases, it wasn't a signal problem as KXOK had a great signal but got wiped out by KSLQ. I would assume WQAM had no trouble covering all of South Florida, but still was hurt badly by WMYQ and later WHYI. Yet in some markets with good AM signals, the FM top 40 didn't really hurt the AM at all. Chicago where WLS had no problem at all with WDHF/WMET or even WEFM in the late 70s. WTIX in New Orleans (monster daytime signal) was strong into the early 80s.
Could it be that some of these top 40 stations like KSLQ sounded like hit music stations where some of the others were doing kind of an AOR approach to top 40 with boring, stoned sounding djs?
In other cases, it wasn't a signal problem as KXOK had a great signal but got wiped out by KSLQ. I would assume WQAM had no trouble covering all of South Florida, but still was hurt badly by WMYQ and later WHYI. Yet in some markets with good AM signals, the FM top 40 didn't really hurt the AM at all. Chicago where WLS had no problem at all with WDHF/WMET or even WEFM in the late 70s. WTIX in New Orleans (monster daytime signal) was strong into the early 80s.
Could it be that some of these top 40 stations like KSLQ sounded like hit music stations where some of the others were doing kind of an AOR approach to top 40 with boring, stoned sounding djs?
Yes, 1530. It was on the original series
If Field had not bought the on-decline "nowhere to go but down group of CBS stations, it is quite possible that Entercom would have been a survivor due to low debt, a good array of stations and good billing.
He started right after the sale by the Mays family and there was plenty of opportunity to do more. Yes, he got a lot of the hodge-podge of stations that all consolidators unfortunately ended up with. But there was not enough effort to do things like creating national formats... which has been the saviour of radio in many other countries.
I can't see that many "useless stations". Even ones like the zero-rated Black talk network ones seem to make money while serving a socio-political purpose.
Again, I just think that he "fell upward".