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Automated oldies formats of the 1960s and 1970s

J

Johnf

(I put this message on the board devoted to 1950-60s oldies radio and realized it should probably go here too)

At age 51, I am old enough to remember when Drake-Chenault had its automated "Hit Parade" format on hundreds of radio stations from coast to coast in the late 1960s and early 1970s. I always thought that was a terrific format, and I wish we had it today (Maybe I'm weird, but I always preferred automated stuff which just gave the music, to the ongoing yak-yak of DJ chatter between songs).

I grew up in Seattle, and heard "Hit Parade" as a kid on both KIRO-FM 100.7 in Seattle and KFKF-FM 92.5 in Bellevue. KFKF also later carried Drake-Chenault's "Solid Gold" automated format.

I have been pleased to find a few GREAT audio samples of Hit Parade on the Web, One is at www.bossradioforever.com/hitparade68.mp3. Another is at www.reelradio.com/gifts/dcdemos.html
What memories!

But I am wondering if anyone is also familiar with another automated format of the 1970s that was called "Olde Golde." It was produced by a company called Draper-Blore (I assume that is longtime broadcast consultant Chuck Blore). I also enjoyed that format, which I heard on KISM-FM 92.9 in Bellingham, Wash. All I can find out about it on the web is that it also was carried on WDZ in Decatur, Ill., and WBNQ in Bloomington, Ill.

I would love to hear some old airchecks with that format. Anyone know where some might be circulating?

John Fortmeyer
Newberg, Oregon
 
Johnf said:
But I am wondering if anyone is also familiar with another automated format of the 1970s that was called "Olde Golde." It was produced by a company called Draper-Blore (I assume that is longtime broadcast consultant Chuck Blore). I also enjoyed that format, which I heard on KISM-FM 92.9 in Bellingham, Wash. All I can find out about it on the web is that it also was carried on WDZ in Decatur, Ill., and WBNQ in Bloomington, Ill.
Click to expand...

Is this the one that featured 2 songs cold-segued, then back-announced "That was 'You Light Up My Life' by Debbie Boone, before that Ted Nugent with 'Cat Scratch Fever'"? I always thought that was a TM production. Didn't KISM run Drake's Hitparade just before they went AOR in the mid 70s?
 
KISM may have switched to Hit Parade eventually. I don't know. But I have a VERY clear recollection of them running Olde Golde initially.
 
Oldbones said:
Johnf said:
Is this the one that featured 2 songs cold-segued, then back-announced "That was 'You Light Up My Life' by Debbie Boone, before that Ted Nugent with 'Cat Scratch Fever'"? I always thought that was a TM production. Didn't KISM run Drake's Hitparade just before they went AOR in the mid 70s?
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

The format you're refering to was TM's "Stereo Rock", which generally played two currents, a quick jingle, and two oldies or recurrents. For example "......The Rolling Stones, "Miss You" and before that "Hot Child In The City", Nick Gilder".....(Jingle)"Ninety-four.....(bling, bling, bling) W-C-G-Y" ...... then two older songs...... then the voice-over to the break "Stereo 94, The Rock Garden.....24 hours a day, WCGY!". I've heard the TM "Stereo Rock" on countless stations back in the late 1970's like WCGY/93.7 Lawrence-Boston, MA (now WMKK), WGFM/99.5 Schenectady (now WRVE) and WKFM/104.7 Fulton-Syracuse, NY. During E-skip conditions chances are you'd hear at least one of two TM "Stereo Rock" formatted stations, mainly from the midwest..
 
That's better. One of the stations I owned ran D/C Stereo Rock. I have a few hundred 10 inch reels,
 
hammondo said:
That's better. One of the stations I owned ran D/C Stereo Rock. I have a few hundred 10 inch reels,
Click to expand...

One station I worked at (WCAV/97.7 Brockton, MA ....now WKAF) ran a format called "The Love Rock". It was pretty bad. It lasted about a year or so until they switched to a homegrown oldies/Top-40 format. Then 50% Top-40 (days), 50% album rock (nights). It didn't go over well. So, they opted to Country.

I didn't know that Drake/Chenault also had a format called "Stereo Rock". I thought they basically had "Hit Parade", "Solid Gold Rock and Roll", The "Contempo" series and D/C Country. But, it's been a while. But I do remember the TM "Stereo Rock" quite well. The TM format continued for many years into the 1980's. I recall hearing it on WSTW/93.7 in Wilmington, DE, while I was driving through the area in the early 1980's. Same voice-over guy, same jingles with different call-letters. Considering the technology at the time (very mechanical and tape driven), it was amazing that somehow it all worked! Today, an off-the-shelf computer with software can do all that and more! How times have changed!

Peter Q. George (K1XRB)
Whitman, Massachusetts
 
I would like to hear some of those automated oldies airchecks from the 70's unscoped, on tape. Could you try to post one?
 
I also liked listening to the automated formats. The one I heard and like the beset was "TM Stereo Rock" as played on WGFM, Rock 99 (Albany/Schenectady, NY from '73-'80). My dad worked at WGY, their AM station and I got to see the format and discuss it with the station engineers. I think I liked it more than they did - they saw themselves as babysitters! :)

First Brice Armstrong, and then John Borders did the taped announcing from Dallas at TM. The specially produced jingles also came from TM (an average of at least one new package per year). The "bling bling" ones Peter mentioned for the Rock Garden were the "SR-1" package.

Anyway, does anyone know of any airchecks and/or jingle packages for TM Stereo Rock? As Peter mentioned, they were on a LOT of stations (over 100), so there must be something out there.

Scott Davis
Indianapolis, IN
 
Jinglefreak said:
Anyway, does anyone know of any airchecks and/or jingle packages for TM Stereo Rock? As Peter mentioned, they were on a LOT of stations (over 100), so there must be something out there.
Click to expand...

I'll have to check my archive of airchecks to see what I can dig up. I remember WLYQ-FM (We-Like-Q) in Norwalk CT ran the TM Stereo Rock series, as I inherited a bunch of the reels when I was experimenting with own station in the early 80's. I honestly don't remember what they had for jingles so it's possible they had the ones that complimented the formatics.

I know up the road a little, Westport's WDJF-FM 108 (pre-WEBE108) ran a Century 21 (pre-TM/Century) format too at one point before moving to Radio Arts a few years before the sale and change to WEBE. I don't recall the format name since it's not mentioned anywhere in the TM docs (I was lucky enough to obtain the original TM automation docs and binder when the station was sold).
 
The early to mid 80's seemed to be the time most of the automated TM stations went live. The last one I was aware of was WLAP-FM in Lexington, KY, which lasted until 1987.

WLYQ was known as Q-96. I have a small aircheck of the station from 1981. They were using the TM SR-8 package - the same one that WQGN (Q105) in Groton/New London, CT used during the same time. ("We're Coming On...." and "Feel the Music...." were some of the tag lines with that package).

If you have any of the original reels still around, and/or any cue sheets, please let me know - maybe we can trade copies of either of them as I have a bunch from the 70's time frame to share.

Thanks,

Scott Davis
[email protected]
 
Jinglefreak said:
First Brice Armstrong, and then John Borders did the taped announcing from Dallas at TM. The specially
produced jingles also came from TM (an average of at least one new package per year). The "bling bling" ones Peter mentioned for the Rock Garden were the "SR-1" package.

Anyway, does anyone know of any airchecks and/or jingle packages for TM Stereo Rock? As Peter mentioned, they were on a LOT of stations (over 100), so there must be something out there.

Scott Davis
Indianapolis, IN
Click to expand...

I'm from Hamilton, Ontario (yes in Canada), but since we were adjacent to Buffalo, NY, we also heard Stereo Rock, on WBEN-FM Rock 102 (102.5 MHz). They ran it from 1974-1984. I liked the automation, because at that time, it wasn't the norm. And the sound quality was awesome. I don't know this for fact, but I think that like DC, all radio edits were created from LPs, because the resolution was better. They wouldn't use 45-rpm discs to create the tapes. Someone from TM can correct me if I'm wrong. But they had a lot of interesting custom-edits.

One evening, I remember in late summer 1984, the reels f--cked up. They were playing Cory Hart (Buffalo inserted Canadian song reels to attract cross-border listeners), and "High on Emotion" by Mr DeBurgh were playing at the same time. I wonder if that had to do with Rock 102 getting rid of Stereo Rock only a month later (September 1984).

I have two questions. How long did Stereo Rock go on until? Plus was there another format that I heard on SE-93 (WWSE) in Jamestown, NY running intermittently from 1986 until 1992 that was QUITE similar. Except that they only backsold one current at a time. Say it was 1987, you would hear "Valerie ..... Steve Winwood", then the next song. It was more AC music-mix wise.

Cheers,
Jody Thornton
 
The TM Stereo Rock had some unique song edits:

Celebration - Kool and the Gang (chorus was only cycled once)
Don't Stand So Close to Me - The Police (Edit right before chorus fade)
Rapture-Blondie (Interesting LP Edit)
(Just Like) Starting Over - John Lennon (Space at end was overlapped and eliminated)
Let's Hear It For the Boy - Denice Williams (12" single edited to radio length)
Do You Really Want to Hurt Me - Culture Club (musical interlude at end edited out)
Little Red Corvette - Prince (the "Trojan" stuff in the first verse was cut out....lol)
Passion - Rod Stewart (last refrain only cycled once - custom edit from LP)
 
In New York, I remember a theme on automated WNBC-FM around 1973 called, The Rock Pile. WNBC-FM did simulcast Imus In The Morning and, I think the Midnight to 6 AM show, which was Murray The K. The rest of the day was automated.

Then they became all news-WNWS and about a year later, WYNY ("Between Rock and a soft place.")

I also remember WAXY in Ft. Lauderdale around 1971 had automated oldies until about 1974. They even used the same Goldmine jingles as WCBS-FM and WCAU-FM, but had no live jocks.
 
I think, what was amazing was that the machines took up so much space. Eight feet high and about fifteen feet long and at least two feet wide. I saw the machines at WCAU-FM, KOL-FM and at least a half dozen other stations.



Peter Q. George (K1XRB) said:
hammondo said:
That's better. One of the stations I owned ran D/C Stereo Rock. I have a few hundred 10 inch reels,
Click to expand...

One station I worked at (WCAV/97.7 Brockton, MA ....now WKAF) ran a format called "The Love Rock". It was pretty bad. It lasted about a year or so until they switched to a homegrown oldies/Top-40 format. Then 50% Top-40 (days), 50% album rock (nights). It didn't go over well. So, they opted to Country.

I didn't know that Drake/Chenault also had a format called "Stereo Rock". I thought they basically had "Hit Parade", "Solid Gold Rock and Roll", The "Contempo" series and D/C Country. But, it's been a while. But I do remember the TM "Stereo Rock" quite well. The TM format continued for many years into the 1980's. I recall hearing it on WSTW/93.7 in Wilmington, DE, while I was driving through the area in the early 1980's. Same voice-over guy, same jingles with different call-letters. Considering the technology at the time (very mechanical and tape driven), it was amazing that somehow it all worked! Today, an off-the-shelf computer with software can do all that and more! How times have changed!

Peter Q. George (K1XRB)
Whitman, Massachusetts
Click to expand...
 
I have two questions. How long did Stereo Rock go on until?


Stereo Rock lasted on some stations until the mid to late 80's. The last station that I know for sure that ran TMSR was WLAP-FM in Lexington, KY in 1987, although one poster I know claimed a Texas station ran it until 1990.

There were several factors that contributed to its' demise:

1. Sattelite radio hit in the mid 80's. Many stations that previously opted for a jockless automated system not could could select a sattelite service like Jones. The idea of mailing constant packages of reel tapes become passe as these services evolved.

2. The advent of the CD allowed stations to more easily set up and play music in a more automated fashion on their own without the expensive consulting services like TM Programming and the large automation system. Before that, it was just records, cart tapes and reels.

3. TM sold it's programming division to first Drake-Channualt in 1987, which then sold their tape clients to BPI (Broadcast Programming Inc) about 1990 or so. It was never the same after that. Currents segments went from 2 back-announced to just 1 (part of that was due to the increasing length of most current hits from 3-4 minutes to 5-6 in some cases)

4. Most of all, perhaps, was the evolution of FM radio. In the mid 70's, rock music on the FM band was in many cases a novelty - so an automated format playing rock got a lot of attention. By the 80's, CHR formats like "Hot Hits" were common all over the FM dial and thus, a LOT more competition for the same listeners.

Scott Davis
[email protected]
 
I visited WFYR 103.5 FM in Chicago as a teenager on a "snow day" once about 1976, and was amazed at the automation system with
three reel to reels cycling on 25hz. I appreciated the music, which had quite a few oldies we did not hear in the midwest in the 60's.
ALL the music, according to the engineer, was from masters, and none from vinyl. It was clean enough that I believed him, but now,
I think maybe that might not have been true. It certainly was a different presentation.
On saturday night, WFYR did a live remote from the "FYR station" a club somewhere with live DJ's, interviews with club patrons, and otherwise the same format musically 'cept not automated.
 
Stereo Rock was a TM format and was the one referenced above where two songs were segued and then back-announced by a very laid-back announcer. Drake had Hit Parade, Solid Gold, and another oldies format (which debuted on KRTH) which I can't recall the name. They sounded a bit more live and each song was either front or back announced. Probably because of the RKO FM stations, Drake formats were more pprevalent in larger markets. Either HP and/or SG ran on WROR Boston, KFMS San Francisco, and KHJ-FM LA; as well as non-RKO stations in Philadelphia, Orlando, and Cleveland. TM's format came out in the mid-70's and was more prevalent on smaller and medium market stations including Louisville, Tampa, Canton, Cedar Rapids, as well as places like Athens, OH and Parkersburg, WV. The whole phenomenon faded for two reasons.... the growth of FM to the point where it was economically feasible to use live talent, as well as the advent of real-time satellite delivered formats, circa 1981.
 
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