Classic Hits: Evolution or Revolution?

[allenv]

To me the year you were born is not that important as your measuring stick. I was born in 66 but I heard 50's and 60's music on oldies station through the late 90's so my musical education years for these songs was over 30 years..So when I was 30 in 1996 and loved 50's music it was not as uncommon as you may think..Just as it is not as uncommon for a 30-35 year old to like the 70's now because as they were growing up and developing their musical tastes they got a heavy dose of it and like alot of it.

 

[semoochie]

There's a whole generation who grew up on pre-Beatles Oldies but it didn't seem to help. You still don't hear those songs on the radio anymore.

 

[michael hagerty]

There's a whole generation who grew up on pre-Beatles Oldies but it didn't seem to help. You still don't hear those songs on the radio anymore.

I don't know how to put it more simply than this:

Just because some people like music older than their time does not mean all do. And for a radio station to be successful today (especially with PPM), it needs to be playing what all (or as many as possible) the people in their desired target demographic either love, like or won't tune out over.

It's my pizza analogy. If you're hosting a party and the only food the 10 people coming over like in common...all ten of 'em...is pizza...you don't order a cheeseburger, some sushi, some barbecue, etc. You order a pizza. The music on the radio right now (carefully tested) is the pizza. Everything that's not getting played...is something other than pizza.

The people outside the desired target demographic? Some like pizza too. The ones that don't and are younger are at McDonald's. The ones that don't and are older are at Cracker Barrel. They want more (or less) than pizza. Every now and then they wander in and ask why we're not serving Happy Meals or Chicken-Fried Steak.

 

[PirateJohnny]

There's a whole generation who grew up on pre-Beatles Oldies but it didn't seem to help. You still don't hear those songs on the radio anymore.

I don't know how to put it more simply than this:

Just because some people like music older than their time does not mean all do. And for a radio station to be successful today (especially with PPM), it needs to be playing what all (or as many as possible) the people in their desired target demographic either love, like or won't tune out over.

It's my pizza analogy. If you're hosting a party and the only food the 10 people coming over like in common...all ten of 'em...is pizza...you don't order a cheeseburger, some sushi, some barbecue, etc. You order a pizza. The music on the radio right now (carefully tested) is the pizza. Everything that's not getting played...is something other than pizza.

The people outside the desired target demographic? Some like pizza too. The ones that don't and are younger are at McDonald's. The ones that don't and are older are at Cracker Barrel. They want more (or less) than pizza. Every now and then they wander in and ask why we're not serving Happy Meals or Chicken-Fried Steak.

OK, how many of those 10 people will come back next weekend when I invite them to my place for cheeseburgers?

 

[landtuna]

There's a whole generation who grew up on pre-Beatles Oldies but it didn't seem to help. You still don't hear those songs on the radio anymore.

Rarely, but they are still there. In little town radio stations that don't depend upon the agencies who believe people over 55 are essentially useless for advertisers.

 

[michael hagerty]

There's a whole generation who grew up on pre-Beatles Oldies but it didn't seem to help. You still don't hear those songs on the radio anymore.

I don't know how to put it more simply than this:

Just because some people like music older than their time does not mean all do. And for a radio station to be successful today (especially with PPM), it needs to be playing what all (or as many as possible) the people in their desired target demographic either love, like or won't tune out over.

It's my pizza analogy. If you're hosting a party and the only food the 10 people coming over like in common...all ten of 'em...is pizza...you don't order a cheeseburger, some sushi, some barbecue, etc. You order a pizza. The music on the radio right now (carefully tested) is the pizza. Everything that's not getting played...is something other than pizza.

The people outside the desired target demographic? Some like pizza too. The ones that don't and are younger are at McDonald's. The ones that don't and are older are at Cracker Barrel. They want more (or less) than pizza. Every now and then they wander in and ask why we're not serving Happy Meals or Chicken-Fried Steak.

OK, how many of those 10 people will come back next weekend when I invite them to my place for cheeseburgers?

The one that likes cheeseburgers is the only one you can count on...if they don't have a prior commitment. You may get a couple others if they really like you and their other invitations are for parties with food they like even less, but you had 10 happy people with the pizza this weekend. Next weekend, you'll have between 3 and zero and only one (if he shows up) will be totally happy.

 

[firepoint525]

Michael's music was legendary, ...

Not to me. MJ is my primary button pusher with the sole exception of "Billy Jean".

Michael's music after the Off the Wall and Thriller albums was simply too "angry" and/or "preachy" for my tastes. It seemed like he always had a chip on his shoulder about something. I have the 12" single of "Billie Jean," but I don't think that I have any other MJ music.

 

[davideduardo]

To me the year you were born is not that important as your measuring stick. I was born in 66 but I heard 50's and 60's music on oldies station through the late 90's so my musical education years for these songs was over 30 years..

You bring up what is a very important point in the "years covered" part of any gold based format.

A person born in the mid-60's is not going to be a candidate for a 60's based oldies station. But by the time of early adolescence... let's say 1975... if they listened to a CHR station then they were exposed to what that CHR was playing as gold at the time.

Since CHRs did not play very far back (10 to 12 years perhaps) and did not go very deep, there still would be a set of songs some of which are as old as the listener which are familiar and behave as if they had been currents at the time.

The questions about why many songs don't get played can be answered by your observation. If those 60's and earlier 70's songs didn't later get played as gold on 70's and 80's CHRs, they generally won't be played on classic hits stations today.

 

[semoochie]

Part of the reason I brought up this topic was to see if people agreed with the basic concept that what happened in 2004 will happen again, in about the same way, ie. an entire era purged at once. I'm also looking for any word from the industry that this is going to happen or any similar path, including letting it evolve naturally. Yesterday, my Classic Hits station played two 1964 songs in a row, as part of the "Fab Four @ Four" feature. This can't go on much longer.

 

[michael hagerty]

Michael's music was legendary, ...

Not to me. MJ is my primary button pusher with the sole exception of "Billy Jean".

Michael's music after the Off the Wall and Thriller albums was simply too "angry" and/or "preachy" for my tastes. It seemed like he always had a chip on his shoulder about something.

If that's a widely-held sentiment, the songs won't test well and won't get play.

I don't hear them often, if at all, and certainly not in the rotation that I hear the Off The Wall and Thriller cuts.

 

[carolinaradio]

I think the next cut-off is going to be more difficult. We could say pre-1970 with an almost entire elimination of the 60s, with only a handful of heavyweights remaining (such as "Louie, Louie", "Born To Be Wild", "Brown Eyed Girl", "Oh, Pretty Woman", "Doo Wah Diddy", "Respect", tracks from the Beatles and Stones, and so on) that still seem to test well.

I don't know where you could cut with the 70s. Early 70s had heavyweights such as Three Dog Night, Eagles, Stones, America, Steely Dan, Santana, Elton John, Doobie Brothers, Guess Who, Chicago, etc. that are still such a big part of the format today, with a few spanning the entire decade. I just don't know if it is as easy to form a cut-off date for that era as it was for the 60s with 1964 (when the British Invasion kicked in to high gear). Ultimately, IMO, early 70s music will stick around longer than that from the early 60s.

 

[michael hagerty]

With all due respect, you guys are overthinking it. Two things will govern when the music disappears, demographics and testing. If the audience gets too old or if the desirable demo goes negative on pre-1970 music, a change will happen.

The same can be said of pre-1975 or pre-1980 music. Nobody's doing anything arbitrarily. There's too much at stake for that.

 

[CTListener]

With all due respect, you guys are overthinking it. Two things will govern when the music disappears, demographics and testing. If the audience gets too old or if the desirable demo goes negative on pre-1970 music, a change will happen.

The same can be said of pre-1975 or pre-1980 music. Nobody's doing anything arbitrarily. There's too much at stake for that.

It's already happening at WDRC-FM Hartford. Early Elton John, with the exception of "Honky Cat" and "Crocodile Rock," is gone. Pre-"Miss You" Stones, except for "Satisfaction" and "Ruby Tuesday," is gone. The Guess Who have vanished. The '60s are down to maybe 30 titles. Most of the songs played are from 1974-1988, with the heaviest concentration in the late '70s.

 

[michael hagerty]

With all due respect, you guys are overthinking it. Two things will govern when the music disappears, demographics and testing. If the audience gets too old or if the desirable demo goes negative on pre-1970 music, a change will happen.

The same can be said of pre-1975 or pre-1980 music. Nobody's doing anything arbitrarily. There's too much at stake for that.

It's already happening at WDRC-FM Hartford. Early Elton John, with the exception of "Honky Cat" and "Crocodile Rock," is gone. Pre-"Miss You" Stones, except for "Satisfaction" and "Ruby Tuesday," is gone. The Guess Who have vanished. The '60s are down to maybe 30 titles. Most of the songs played are from 1974-1988, with the heaviest concentration in the late '70s.

Which means that DRC either began to look top-heavy demographically to the ad agencies, or listeners in the core demo began to show negatives on the titles eliminated.

 

[CTListener]

With all due respect, you guys are overthinking it. Two things will govern when the music disappears, demographics and testing. If the audience gets too old or if the desirable demo goes negative on pre-1970 music, a change will happen.

The same can be said of pre-1975 or pre-1980 music. Nobody's doing anything arbitrarily. There's too much at stake for that.

It's already happening at WDRC-FM Hartford. Early Elton John, with the exception of "Honky Cat" and "Crocodile Rock," is gone. Pre-"Miss You" Stones, except for "Satisfaction" and "Ruby Tuesday," is gone. The Guess Who have vanished. The '60s are down to maybe 30 titles. Most of the songs played are from 1974-1988, with the heaviest concentration in the late '70s.

Which means that DRC either began to look top-heavy demographically to the ad agencies, or listeners in the core demo began to show negatives on the titles eliminated.

That's what I figured, too. A minor correction: They're still playing "Honky Tonk Women" and "Jumpin' Jack Flash" by the Stones, but I haven't heard "Get Off of My Cloud," "Mother's Little Helper," "19th Nervous Breakdown," etc. in many a moon. Even "Angie," from 1973, has been dropped. All those songs are at least 40 years old, so even people who remember hearing "Angie" in their childhood are likely at least 50 years old today. We Boomers have a great attachment to our music, but I must admit that it's unrealistic to expect succeeding generations to feel the same way about it just because "our" bands played instruments or didn't Auto-Tune their voices. That is irrelevant; every generation has its own popular music, and most of the time it alienates members of the previous generation. I don't expect the songs mentioned here to ever return to DRC-FM.

Judging from the pictures of people who post to its Facebook page, it certainly appears that the younger half of the 35-54 demographic is being attracted to the station. When DRC played its entire '70s library in alphabetical order after Christmas, I was surprised by the number of FB posters who asked for the feature to be all-'80s next time around. This never would have happened two years ago. And given that I hear several new '80s titles joining the rotation every week, I can certainly see DRC having a big enough library of '80s music by next December to give its listeners five straight days of alphabetical '80s.

 

[michael hagerty]

With all due respect, you guys are overthinking it. Two things will govern when the music disappears, demographics and testing. If the audience gets too old or if the desirable demo goes negative on pre-1970 music, a change will happen.

The same can be said of pre-1975 or pre-1980 music. Nobody's doing anything arbitrarily. There's too much at stake for that.

It's already happening at WDRC-FM Hartford. Early Elton John, with the exception of "Honky Cat" and "Crocodile Rock," is gone. Pre-"Miss You" Stones, except for "Satisfaction" and "Ruby Tuesday," is gone. The Guess Who have vanished. The '60s are down to maybe 30 titles. Most of the songs played are from 1974-1988, with the heaviest concentration in the late '70s.

Which means that DRC either began to look top-heavy demographically to the ad agencies, or listeners in the core demo began to show negatives on the titles eliminated.

That's what I figured, too. A minor correction: They're still playing "Honky Tonk Women" and "Jumpin' Jack Flash" by the Stones, but I haven't heard "Get Off of My Cloud," "Mother's Little Helper," "19th Nervous Breakdown," etc. in many a moon. Even "Angie," from 1973, has been dropped. All those songs are at least 40 years old, so even people who remember hearing "Angie" in their childhood are likely at least 50 years old today.

Beyond demographics, there's also mood. "Angie" is a bit of a downer for the sound that Classic Hits is going for at the moment.

 

[carolinaradio]

They don't play The Guess Who, even? Hard to believe a classic hits station wouldn't play "American Woman." Even the more modern classic hits stations still play it, as do Variety Hits and Classic Rockers. I can't believe a station would rotate 40 60s songs and not play that act. Wow.

One thing about Elton John's earlier material is that it may be too sleepy (much like "Angie") for what the format's wanting.

Edit: checking out WDRC on yes.com, what are they currently playing as of now...."American Woman" (during the Tom Kent show, though, so it doesn't really cound).

 

[CTListener]

They don't play The Guess Who, even? Hard to believe a classic hits station wouldn't play "American Woman." Even the more modern classic hits stations still play it, as do Variety Hits and Classic Rockers. I can't believe a station would rotate 40 60s songs and not play that act. Wow.

One thing about Elton John's earlier material is that it may be too sleepy (much like "Angie") for what the format's wanting.

Edit: checking out WDRC on yes.com, what are they currently playing as of now...."American Woman" (during the Tom Kent show, though, so it doesn't really cound).

Right. Kent plays many titles that have "aged out" or are too soft for the DRC playlist in the station's current incarnation. ... Oops, well, whaddaya know! They played "No Time" this evening at 6:01, during Floyd Wright's shift, so the Guess Who is still on the playlist.

 

[willdav713]

Classic Hit's and Adult Hit's will play Chicago's "25 or 6 2 4" or "Does Anybody Know What Time it is?" but only the True Oldies Channel will play "Make Me Smile" and "Beginnings" "Color My World" hasn't been heard in ages, but "Just You and Me" will play on the True Oldies Channel. "If You Leave Me Now", "Glory of Love", along with "Hard to Say I'm Sorry" gets airplay on Classic Hits stations. "Wishing You Were Here" gets some airplay on the TOC.

But I haven't listened to WDRC. I wonder if it is the same story with the Chicago titles I just referenced.

Tom Kent doesn't have "Sandman" by America (I know I called his all request show during KXBT's last days) but has "Horse with No Name", "I Need You", "Sister Golden Hair", "Tin Man", "Don't Cross the River", and "Ventura Highway" The TOC plays "Daisy Jane" and doesn't play "Sandman" All these songs on own their Greatest Hit's Album.

 

[michael hagerty]

Tom Kent doesn't have "Sandman" by America (I know I called his all request show during KXBT's last days) but has "Horse with No Name", "I Need You", "Sister Golden Hair", "Tin Man", "Don't Cross the River", and "Ventura Highway" The TOC plays "Daisy Jane" and doesn't play "Sandman" All these songs on own their Greatest Hit's Album.

Probably because "Sandman" wasn't a hit. It was the B-side of "A Horse With No Name" and did not chart on its own.