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"Big D" A to Z

Q

qunewsguy

Has anyone heard WDRC-FM's "Big D A to Z" stunt? They keep touting they're playing every song in the Big D library in alphabetical order through New Year's Eve. You'd think an event like that would take more than a day to get through, but even with commercials and DJ chatter they blow through everything in around 18 hours and start all over again.

Just how small is their overall music library these days, let alone the standard playlist?
 
As oldies and classic hits stations go, DRC-FM's library has seldom been very small. I haven't been music director there in over ten years, but I know they still play at least one pre-64 song per hour, their sixties songs are not limited to the power "California Dreamin'" and "Dancing In The Street" stuff, and they include plenty of titles from the eighties. There may be some tunes in the A-Z that don't get very heavy rotation, but I would hardly call it a "stunt." A stunt would be more like throwing out any semblance of regular format, and they're hardly doing that. BTW a Facebook post from Big D just said they were "in the H's now."

I give you guys at WQUN a lot of credit for what you do, but is AM 1220 thinking of bringing back the old Winner Radio oldies WNNR from the eighties?
 
qunewsguy said:
Has anyone heard WDRC-FM's "Big D A to Z" stunt? They keep touting they're playing every song in the Big D library in alphabetical order through New Year's Eve. You'd think an event like that would take more than a day to get through, but even with commercials and DJ chatter they blow through everything in around 18 hours and start all over again.

Just how small is their overall music library these days, let alone the standard playlist?
Click to expand...

You've got the whole thing wrong. The "stunt" started on Monday at 5 a.m. and is still going today. Playing as I write (just after 8 a.m.) is Stevie Wonder's "Heaven Help Us All." (Update: It's taken 15 minutes to get from "Heaven Help Us All" to the Grass Roots' "Heaven Knows." Somehow, I don't think they can reach Z, which last year was "Zip-a-dee-doo-dah," by midnight!) The countdown, or whatever you want to call it, pauses at midnight and resumes at 5 a.m. every day. It will also pause for Ron Sedaille's request show on Saturday night and the syndicated Beatles show on Sunday morning. Not sure about Charlie Tuna's syndicated '70s show on Sunday night; that wasn't on the schedule last year.

Last year's run-through lasted just over eight days, slightly longer than the first one, in 2008-09. Not sure how many songs we're talking about, but according to yes.com DRC-FM blows through about 1,000 titles a week (including requests and syndicated shows) with plenty of songs getting played every day, so the A to Z must consist of 2,500 titles or more. I'd say that's pretty impressive for a commercial FM.
 
"Honky Tonk Woman" by the Rolling Stones at 1:05 PM on Thursday..."Honolulu Lulu" by Jan & Dean after that.
 
Thanks. I could've swore I heard "A" songs three days in a row in the morning. Guess the run's a lot longer than I thought, and that's a good thing!

Glenn, good pickup on the username, however I'm just a QU grad who happens to work in the news biz. Never worked at WQUN so can't help you there.
 
Grahame Winters said last night that there were more than 3,000 songs in this year's A to Z. They're still deep in the S's as of 7 o'clock this morning ("Shilo," "Shimmy Shimmy Koko Bop," "Showdown" ...) and with the huge T and W libraries still to come, we're probably looking at Thursday or Friday for the conclusion. If they'd kept all the Christmas songs in the playlist, as they did last year, it could have stretched into next week.
 
MarcB said:
The BIG D A to Z concluded around 8AM this morning. I missed it as I was getting ready to go out. When I turned on DRC around 20 after 8 Jerry mentioned that it had just concluded a few minutes ago. Mike Stevens mentioned it took 2 weeks. Jerry said they had a lot of songs.
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Same final song as last time: "Zip-a-dee-doo-dah," by Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans.
 
Last week, my analog dial briefly stopped on a station playing "One Fine Morning" by Lighthouse. I am located in Westchester County NY about an hour SW of Danbury and 20 mins NW of Greenwich and I was assuming it was B 103 from Long Island, but I fought to find a spot where I could get the station to come through and it turned out to be DRC!
 
There are times I'm motoring around southern Fairfield County and DRC-FM just roars in. I've been in the Darien Stamford areas and have had it quite listenable depending on direction of travel.
 
frozenfiresb said:
Last week, my analog dial briefly stopped on a station playing "One Fine Morning" by Lighthouse. I am located in Westchester County NY about an hour SW of Danbury and 20 mins NW of Greenwich and I was assuming it was B 103 from Long Island, but I fought to find a spot where I could get the station to come through and it turned out to be DRC!
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For some reason, they play a strange edit of "One Fine Morning" instead of just simply playing the single or LP version.
 
BobRadil said:
frozenfiresb said:
Last week, my analog dial briefly stopped on a station playing "One Fine Morning" by Lighthouse. I am located in Westchester County NY about an hour SW of Danbury and 20 mins NW of Greenwich and I was assuming it was B 103 from Long Island, but I fought to find a spot where I could get the station to come through and it turned out to be DRC!
Click to expand...

For some reason, they play a strange edit of "One Fine Morning" instead of just simply playing the single or LP version.
Click to expand...

They play strange edits of a few songs. The copy of "Here Comes My Baby" they've got drops out abruptly before the fade even gets going. I have the 45; there's much more to the fade than that.
 
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