April 2012 PPM's... WOW! WKLB No. 2!

[DToTheJ]

Who knew a flag-waving country format would be the second-most listened-to station in the capital of the Blue state of Massachusetts?

 

[JustinT]

Who knew a flag-waving country format would be the second-most listened-to station in the capital of the Blue state of Massachusetts?

"Flag-waving"? Check out the station's playlist - it's loaded with pop-country tracks and a nauseatingly-high amount of Taylor Swift and Carrie Underwood. I've lived in Nashville and Houston and love WSIX and KKBQ, but cringe every time I come home and hear WKLB.

Playlist aside, the station has a stellar personality lineup. With the growing popularity of country and the transition five years ago to 102.5, WKLB has done very well for itself. I'd just love to hear a "trucks and dogs and beer" song once in a while!

 

[magpie]

They play the Star Spangled Banner at noon 7 days a week.

And it's not all Carrie and Taylor; there are plenty of songs with beer and trucks and dogs
(eg "Big Green Tractor")

Also, there's "Sunday Morning Country Oldies"....though I do cringe at what they call "oldies."
A lot of it is "pop" country at its worst. Too bad they don't use that show to play some real country oldies.

 

[CTListener]

They play the Star Spangled Banner at noon 7 days a week.

And it's not all Carrie and Taylor; there are plenty of songs with beer and trucks and dogs
(eg "Big Green Tractor")

Also, there's "Sunday Morning Country Oldies"....though I do cringe at what they call "oldies."
A lot of it is "pop" country at its worst. Too bad they don't use that show to play some real country oldies.

It's a good fit for the market. Many of the country oldies played on 'KLB date back to WCOP's years as the only country station in town, and that station definitely stressed the "country-politan" Nashville sound: strings and smooth vocals, not too much twang. The country pop would be what the local listeners remember, and playing memories is the whole idea of an oldies show. Leave the down-home stuff, which never got much airplay in Boston, to WHRB and "Hillbilly at Harvard."

 

[Eli Polonsky]

Playlist aside, the station has a stellar personality lineup. With the growing popularity of country and the transition five years ago to 102.5, WKLB has done very well for itself. I'd just love to hear a "trucks and dogs and beer" song once in a while!

I also believe that a major reason for WKLB's success is that it's the first country station in the market that has proactively targeted women. The previous (failed) attempts at country stations in Boston for the past 40 years neglected women and tried to target that traditional male "trucks, dogs and beer" country listener, which works in many other markets (and rural areas), but that stereotype doesn't exist in significant numbers in Boston proper and the immediate suburban metro.

WKLB formats their version of country somewhat like a "twangier" version of Hot AC, with a lot of modern country (and country-pop) artists that appeal especially to women, some upbeat women hosts, and online promotions like "The Red High Heel Club" and "Boston Sports Women". I haven't seen the ratings breakdowns, but I would guess that WKLB skews more female than male, which seems to be the way to make a country station successful in Boston in this Millennium.

 

[raccoonradio]

"And the record man said every one is a yellow Sun Record from Nashville
And up north there ain't nobody buys them, And I said, but I will". Yes those Nashville
Cats are really burning up the ratings up here eh! (And Kenny Chesney concerts
at Gillette Stadium sell out fast.)

>>I'd just love to hear a "trucks and dogs and beer" song once in a while!\
Yeah and how about that '79 novelty hit by Tucson's Chuck Wagon and the Wheels,
"Disco Sucks"?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqSBQFJRKq8

Trivia: Can you name a Boston station that one time had a disco format, then later
a country format? Answer below!

Beer song: Toby Keith, Red Solo cup, proceed to party.

Eli's right about the appeal mostly to women, etc. I've kind of drifted away from country but
check it out once in awhile. As for the Star Spangled Banner, when 102.5 WCRB switched
places with 99.5 WKLB, Ricochet's version of the national anthem started on one
frequency and finished on the other (to be followed by Rascal Flatts' "Life is a Highway"
from the movie Cars; the other guys finished up with Aaron Copeland's "Rodeo" as heard
on the Beef: It's What's For Dinner ads, then the Hallelujah chorus

Answer: If you said 92.9 WBOS, ding ding ding you got it right! (It had been modern rock or something but switched to country and Boston Rock magazine lamented it as "the day The Boss became The Hoss") And I also might accept
107.9; we all know about Kiss but wasn't it country as WHIL-FM? But in this case
the country came before the disco, not after.

 

[Eli Polonsky]

And I also might accept 107.9; we all know about Kiss but wasn't it country as WHIL-FM? But in this case
the country came before the disco, not after.

I remember 107.9 being country WHIL-FM back in the mid/late '60s. Then, it was "Beautiful Music/Easy Listening" instrumental music WWEL-FM through the early/mid '70s, until it flipped to disco in the late '70s and was renamed WXKS-FM ("Kiss").

 

[raccoonradio]

Yes--years ago I used to have a card (found at Radio Shack in Lynn, a promo item) which had a list of stations on the FM dial at that time. And of course at the very top was, in big letters,
WWEL-FM 107.9 Beautiful Music

At one point there was a slight glut of beautiful/soft stations on including
WJIB 96.9
WHUE AM 1150/FM 101.7
WSSH 99.5
WWEL 107.9 (can't rememeber if it was at same time as WHUE AM/FM)
WPLM 99.1 (though maybe they were more big bands)

92.9 and 94.5 may have been beautiful music at one point

 

[Uncle Kaimbridge]

Yes--years ago I used to have a card (found at Radio Shack in Lynn, a promo item) which had a list of stations on the FM dial at that time. And of course at the very top was, in big letters,
WWEL-FM 107.9 Beautiful Music

At one point there was a slight glut of beautiful/soft stations on including
WJIB 96.9
WHUE AM 1150/FM 101.7
WSSH 99.5
WWEL 107.9 (can't rememeber if it was at same time as WHUE AM/FM)
WPLM 99.1 (though maybe they were more big bands)

92.9 and 94.5 may have been beautiful music at one point

And don’t forget WEZE-1.260, which was in that time period. :

 

[CTListener]

"And the record man said every one is a yellow Sun Record from Nashville
And up north there ain't nobody buys them, And I said, but I will".

Sun Records were from Memphis, not Nashville. But I suppose to a New Yorker like John Sebastian the difference was fuzzy at best.

 

[Eli Polonsky]

92.9 and 94.5 may have been beautiful music at one point

94.5 was "beautiful music" in the '60s/very early '70s as WHDH-FM, except for a brief period in 1968 when WHDH-FM broadcast automated/recorded progressive album rock, similar to what WBCN was also then airing in it's early "free-form" progressive rock days at that time, but without DJ's. After that brief period, WHDH-FM went back to "beautiful music" and switched calls to WCOZ "We're playing it 'Cozy'" in the early '70s. WCOZ made its more memorable, and briefly successful, attempt at progressive rock (AOR by then) with live hosts in the mid to late '70s, culminating in the brief flash-in-the-pan "Kick A** Rock'n'Roll" hard rock format in the very early '80s. Then to AC, then to a decade of CHR as WZOU in 1983, then to WJMN "Jam'n".

92.9 WBOS was "beautiful music" from the '60s until it's brief fling as Boston's first FM disco station in the mid-'70s, which was quickly beaten by 107.9 flipping from WWEL to "Kiss-108". I don't remember exactly what WBOS did right after their brief disco format, maybe AC or back to "beautiful", then there was a progressive-modern rock format (at one point programmed by ex-WBCN's Maxanne Sartori) for a few years until 1983 when it flipped to Country, then to many years as a mainstream-leaning AAA in 1989.

 

[raccoonradio]

>>a progressive-modern rock format (at one point programmed by ex-WBCN's Maxanne Sartori) for a few years until 1983 when it flipped to Country

Yes and I do remember reading an issue of Boston Rock and it called it "the day the Boss became
the Hoss". 1983:

>>http://bostonradio.org/stations/23439
In 1983, WBOS changed formats again, this time becoming a country station...In 1989, WBOS dropped country music for a New Age-y AC format, which soon metamorphosed into something closely resembling Adult Alternative, albeit with a mainstream bent.

Bostonradio.org mentions that WBOS had been changed to an AC format after the debut of Kiss
beat them in ratings. You say maybe it was "AC"...the site apparently says you're right.

As for 94.5 as part of their album rock days they put out a couple albums of local bands;
the cover of one showed a bear with a guitar ("Best of the Boston Beat")
http://www.radiouseonly.com/states/massachusetts_albums/wcoz_best_of_boston_beat.htm

 

[thirdendorsed]

At one point there was a slight glut of beautiful/soft stations on ....

Don' forget WEZE and the Beautiful World of Music before and after Alan Colmes and "solid gold z-1260" and before Clark Schmidt's failed album rock format.

Remember, in 1975, people born in 1921, who became teen-agers in the early 30s, were still in the 25-54 demo. That's even pre-Sinatra. That still left another 10-15 years when a good chunk of the people who matured in the pre-rock era were a big part of the money demographic, hence the attractiveness of the format.

 

[JIBGUY]

In late 1979 or very early 1980, WBOS changed from disco to a competitor for Magic... soft hits. Magic was softer then, than it is now. WBOS' soft hits format sounded good, but only lasted a short while, til their next format.

 

[JIBGUY]

WBOS' flip to country in 1983 was very much aimed at women. And it did rather well for then, scoring in the 2's on a regular basis. Country then was not as dominant as it is today. Many folks believe that today's music os SO bad, that folks have looked for different types of music. To a smaller extent, WJIB-740 has enjoyed a recent 5-year flow of younger folks (25-54) to it, but the biggest winner is COUNTRY. Country, no doubt, is today's contemporary mainstream rock. Had it been that way in 1983, WBOS would have prospered much more. - WBOS' 1983 2's in the ratings was impressive for country, but not impressive enough for an owner of a full-signaled FM.

 

[DToTheJ]

So just days after a country station goes to No. 2 in the Boston market, Clear Channel makes a deal for 101.7 which could possibly go "country and western"... coincidence?

 

[raccoonradio]

Hmm! Example of a CC country station, WWYZ in Hartford area

http://www.country925.com/main.html
(btw I tried country1017.com --turns out to be a station in Okla. Was wondering if the
domain was being registered for... )

 

[DToTheJ]

Think about it: CC flips 101.7 to country, possibly drawing listeners away from WKLB - and thus possibly moving WJMN to No. 2 behind WXKS-FM... so CC can once again (WJMN tied with WMJX for second last month) have the top two stations in BOS.