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Could WHLI be any worse now?

W

wgliradio

WHLI's format is awful. While that is a harsh sentiment, I tried to listen objectively for 4 hours this week to see if I could get a handle on what's going on. Casual tune-ins always yielded poor results, so I wanted to know if it was a case of bad timing or if the ship has really left the dock.

The station is wrapped up in modern, somewhat unknown artists either trying to recreate standards or make new ones. ??? You can't go wrong with Sinatra, Williams, Cole, Mathis, Carpenters etc on a standards station. Ok, Buble etc is fine, but there are things on the air that made me say... WHAT!?!?! I think I may have recognized two songs during one hour... one was a Sinatra cut, the other a remake of some song I think I remember by some over dramatized female singer.

WHLI cannot win any points with this. These new takes on standards don't cut it. They are too unfamiliar. If anything, WHLI should have added some older smooth jazz cuts when QCD hit this skids (like Quincy Jones, Sade, etc etc).

When I worked in oldies radio on Long Island, some of the worst drivel I had to deal with was revivalist doo-wop. Usually they couldn't come close to the originals. At WNYG, we had CD's and 45's of this stuff (most came in for free.. and those who worked at WNYG knew how important free was) and those who knew what they were doing avoided it like the plague. Very few were worth airing. WHLI seems to be airing every free CD that comes in from artists who master with Behringer gear as if it's discovering the next thing. It's not. Take a cue from the WRIV's of the world and play what works already. You're listeners are old dogs, they don't like new tricks.
 
Re: Speaking of revivalists on WNYG

>> When I worked in oldies radio on Long Island, some of the worst drivel I had to deal with was revivalist doo-wop. Usually they couldn't come close to the originals. At WNYG, we had CD's and 45's of this stuff (most came in for free.. and those who worked at WNYG knew how important free was) and those who knew what they were doing avoided it like the plague. Very few were worth airing. <<

What was even worse was having the family of the revivalist artist call up and request one of their songs.
 
It can go both ways. One can make the argument that at least the "revisionists" are keeping the music alive, per say, by continuing on with the genre.

Yes, though.....it can get pretty schmaltzy.

The WNYG modern-doo-wop syndrome is indeed a good example. It was quantity over quality.

(Although to this day I still actually like MORSE CODE OF LOVE, recorded by the Capri's in 1982, but maybe that doesn't count and that's more of a fluke.)
 
Re: My crackpot theory on WHLI music

I think perhaps WHLI is trying to attract a new and somewhat younger audience. Some singers like Sinatra and Tony Bennet are a safe bet because they span the generations well. New artists like Buble and the Puppini Sisters also theoretically have a broader appeal because the music is in the old style, however the person performing is younger. I'd say its sort of like what Fresh 102.7 is doing, soft rock but nothing older than 1980. My guess is that they're hoping the older people won't notice so much, and that new listeners will discover the new breed of "Standards." WHLI is fairly safe to experiment because they are the only game in town playing standards; or are they?

Is this direction working for WHLI? I think the ratings will tell part of the story. Might I say though that I'm suprised at the number of people in the 50+ bracket that have found 740 WNYH and tune them in regularly.
 
Re: Speaking of revivalists on WNYG

FrankF said:
>>What was even worse was having the family of the... artist call up and request one of their songs.
Click to expand...

Someone did that to me, too, many winters ago. She called to rave just a little too excitedly after I played someone's self-produced holiday song. It was neither great nor hideous, but at least it was new and decently produced enough to give a local a little exposure. I asked the caller what her name and town were, but all she would only say was that she was a regular listener to the Gospel station. Then, I prodded her to name her favorite Gospel artists. After she repeated that she just likes listening to great Gospel music (though unable to name a single act), I never played the CD again.
 
Re: My crackpot theory on WHLI music

Ted Russell said:
I think perhaps WHLI is trying to attract a new and somewhat younger audience.
Click to expand...

The problem is, there are no youngsters flocking to AM radio to hear music, standards or otherwise.
 
Re: My crackpot theory on WHLI music

DToTheJ said:
Ted Russell said:
I think perhaps WHLI is trying to attract a new and somewhat younger audience.
Click to expand...

The problem is, there are no youngsters flocking to AM radio to hear music, standards or otherwise.
Click to expand...

I don't think they are trying to attract youngsters, if by youngsters you mean teens and twenty or even 30 somethings. For a station such as WHLI where the typical age of the listeners may be in the 60' 70's 80's and beyond, (my grandmother is 96 and listens to WHLI) but rather try to attract listeners in their mid to late 40's and 50s.

I'm not saying they are achieving success, and I'm not defending or attacking them. It's just my perception as to what's going on there with the playlist. Personally If I were trying to attract more mid to late 40's and 50's people, I would be playing more music from the 70's and perhaps some of the lighter stuff from the 80's. This would conflict with B-103 perhaps? Maybe that is why they have chosen the direction of new standards. I don't know, I'm not the PD, and I don't work for Barnstable.

You are absolutely correct though that the Youngsters aren't flocking to AM. It seems even the 40 year olds to late 50's age people really aren't flocking there either. At least not in our area.
 
What WHLI should do is increase their rotation of 1970's and 80's MOR/AC acts like the Carpenters, Neil Diamond, Air Supply, Christopher Cross and their like along with the traditional standards and these young artists like the Puppini Sisters who are doing remakes of standards.




Thanks,
Kevin L. Sealy
 
Too much Neil Diamond and Christopher Cross is the death knell of the format
and where I get off, I am someone on the younger side that loves standards and do not want them watered down like Dial Global is running on WFEA.
I do not want to have to sit through 10 crappy trite songs to hear one good one,
its like 8/10's hamburger helper mixed with 2/10's meat....why bother, you please
NO ONE.
It makes me think of TV Land, why must every channel be aimed at the same
moronic demo, TV Land has no discernable identity anymore, they just rerun the same garbage recently run on network TV or movies that appear or every other
CBS property, all they do is time and channel shifting of the same s..t
I want Archie Bunker, Barney Miller, Leave it to Beaver, Andy Griffith....etc will
watch them over and over every night, lifes relaxation after a day of crap.
My brothers, friends and family even in their mid 30's feel the same way.
TV Land programmers must be psychotic.
 
I love hearing the folks who grumble about "new music" on the radio.

You guys and your obsession with "oldies" are the reason people are ditching radio for MP3 players and their own personal record collections. Eventually hearing Diana Ross and the Supremes gets .... old.
 
People who work at or worked at an "oldies" stations, and when I say oldies I mean from the 50s and 60s are loyal to that format and its sound. One thing about oldies music, it keeps getting bigger and bigger, day by day, year by year and some of the really older stuff tends to fall off the format. I do think that the song Cars from Gary Numan is an oldie, it came out around 1980, thats 28 years ago, its an old song...AN OLDIE! But to some people an oldie will always be a song a guy with a pack of luckys rolled up in his sleeve, driving an old chevy, going to the car hop, a doo wop song, or some R and B and to others an oldie is a mersey beat type of song or one of the motown groups, and not a new wavy song from a guy with a skinny tie!

It all comes down to what you think is an oldie? For me Dion and the Belmonts singing I Wonder Why is an oldie, and so is Hold On, by Ian Gomm, would I play those on the same station? I dunno!
 
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