CTListener: They do play Fairport Convention and a lot of Richard Thompson
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As the Earth Turns.
- Thread starter davideduardo
- Start date
THANK YOU MR GLEASON (love your acknowledgment 'not a train wreck' INDEED)
The ironic thing is that I know he was being a tad sarcastic (no problem!) to make his point, but I am just the kind of off-the-grid listener who would tune into a station that plays such a wide variety!
I am up for a station that plays everything from Dorris Day to Iron Maiden; from Benny Goodman to Elmore James to Johnny Cash to Abba to the Ramones. He (and most everyone else) would call that station a trainwreck. I would call that station an appreciation for rock and pop music of nearly all types, spanning many decades and genres. While I am not against good new music (when I can find it) there is so much "buried treasure" as Tom Petty calls it that such a well-programmed station would be both fun and educational to listen to. One that engages both body and mind; that challenges while it entertains.
You may say I am a dreamer, but I am not the only one (but probably pretty close)!
Well, then, that makes it tops in my book!
Seriously, I admit rushing to erroneous judgment on KCSN. I'm thinking now that it must sound a lot like two of SiriusXM's channels, Underground Garage and The Loft (the latter now available only online), both of which, like KCSN, were the pet projects of a single programmer -- Little Steven Van Zandt for the former, Mike Marrone for the latter -- and play all sorts of rock and occasional non-rock tracks. If that's the case, I'm glad it exists. I guess I've become a bit cynical from years of listening to college and community radio here in western New England, much of which is still DJs spinning their personal collections in three-hour blocks and rambling on about the music, politics or the weather between songs.
Not trying to be picky here but they ID as "KCSN" ONLY once/hour (TOTH) since the combined signals of KCSN and KSBR are now simply called "88-5 FM"
Kudos to you for a good knowledge and appreciation of a wide variety of music. I hear lots of people (rock music fans) say there's never any good music out there today, they haven't turned on 88-5 FM OR are stuck in the 60s or the 70s. It's a shame when the span of music 88-5 FM covers around 6 decades of music
Hey at this minute they are playing "I Found Love" ha
Sky reads this board (or at least he used to).
Interesting, thank you. Didn't know this even occurred. I'll have to check them out online again. I remember taking a radio course or two at Saddleback back in '87, but never actually interned at KSBR and their strong jazz format back then. My internship actually began at KWVE that fall.
A
Aquarius
Guest
My hometown classic hits station in San Antonio KONO-FM has pretty much gone in the same direction as KRTH. The last 60's song left on the station was Brown Eyed Girl and it's long gone, there are a few early 70's songs remaining and the rest is mid 70's to late 80's, and they've added maybe 4 or 5 90's songs here and there. Most of those 90's songs are from artists that were around in the 80's however (Bryan Adams, The Cure) for the exception of MC Hammer which is surprising for a classic hits station to be playing.
Their AM station is Classic Hits of the 60's and 70's, but I've yet to hear them play anything from before 1964, they mainly play stuff from 64-75.
Their AM station is Classic Hits of the 60's and 70's, but I've yet to hear them play anything from before 1964, they mainly play stuff from 64-75.
The last station in the Bay Area I can recall playing anything older than 1964 was James Gabbert's KOFY-AM, "The Nifty 1050." And that was more or less a pet project of James Gabbert, who owned the station and also hosted a Dance Party show on his KOFY-TV. He sold his stations in 2004 or 2005 - so pre-64 music has been missing from Bay Area airwaves for a dozen years. Not too surprising, even I'm too young for that era of rock, and I'm 66!
The only classic hits station we have left is actually branded, "iHeart 80s".
The 60s are pretty much gone altogether in the Bay Area. The only 60s I hear are the occasional classic rock song on K-Fox and The Bone. The 70s are fading fast, other than classic rock, I only hear the occasional 70s song on 98.1 or 94.5.
If you do the math, it's obvious. A person BORN in 1970, who probably has no memory of this music because they were in the diapers to kindergarten era of their lives - are turning 48 this year. I've been in Facebook contact with a woman I dated in 1975, who had an 8 year old brat son, so born in the "Summer of Love" year - 1967. That kid just turned 51.
The really disheartening part of that the unstated sentiment behind this post "old people who are no longer in demo (defined as anyone over the age of 49) are no longer saleable, and thus music and formats they might like really have no business being on the radio". Boil the sentiment down further to its core essence and you come up with "commercial radio is for young people only; old people can find their music elsewhere, it is not deserving of mass media distribution".
Looking back, I don't think this can be called a recent development in radio. "Middle of the Road" (MOR) formats were huge in the 1960s - think KMPC, KGIL, KLAC for awhile, KHJ pre-Boss; and here in San Francisco KSFO, KNBR, and KFRC pre-Boss. These formats were all gone by the early 1980s, IIRC - when my parents were in their 60s. The prime demo in those days, I assume, consisted of Boomers like me, and we had no interest in Sinatra, Damone, Clooney (Rosemary, not George).
Also disappearing around the same time - "Beautiful Music" stations such as KOST, and KABL, KOIT, and KFOG in the Bay Area. Most of those became "Light Rock" by the early 80s, or album-rock in the case of KFOG.
49 is the top limit for decisions in television; in radio it's 54.
But that is for agency business, as the ages are much more flexible for local direct business. But the larger the market, the less non-agency business there is.
Radio, as a business, is sustainable as long as the audience matches what advertisers want.
It's not the ad industry... it's the clients of ad agencies who essentially set the marketing parameters for their campaigns.
Llew: MOR kinda evaporated and morphed into Adult Contemporary (hit singles minus the hardest ones played on Top 40 and compatible rock-era oldies) around 1973-75. Made sense. The 35-year-old of 1975 would have been 16 when Elvis hit.
Beautiful music FMs in fact thrived when MOR became AC. The 50-plus base for the KSFOs and KMPCs wasn't happy about the new music and found a lot to like on the KOSTs and KFOGs. But unsalable demos doomed them ten years later (1983-ish) and, as you note, most of them made the fairly easy transition to Adult Contemporary, which, on FM, became a different kind of format based on the success of KOST's "Continuous Soft Hits" approach. In essence, they traded 70-year-old women for 35-year-old women. And, ten or so years ago, those FM ACs re-invented and started playing Katy Perry...because those 35-year-old women had become 60-year-old women.
Michael - I recall that in the early 80s in San Francisco, KSFO did a huge TV ad campaign trying to eek the last years out of the MOR format, and you're right - there was a lot of AC (light rock) mixed in. But those commercials were amusing, with "real" middle aged people (actors I'm sure, but you know, balding, overweight) "grooving" to the sounds of KSFO. IIRC, the slogan was "Radio Real Music." I don't recall if the station was still Golden West (Gene Autry) or after. IIRC, the format only lasted a year or two longer, then KSFO became the AM repeater for KYA-FM Oldies.
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