Tony,
In kind of a strange way, though I personally think what you're doing is a tremendous waste of time, I respect your ability to articulate your point as well as your passion for organizing such a cause. Yes, I did laugh when I heard "dance radio coalition", and for good reason-- with all the problems in the world, I just found it quite humorous that someone would take the time for something which to me seems so trivial. But you obviously believe in it, and I'm sure there are plenty of people who think my spending a dozen hours a week to do an Internet show about broadcasting is equally as stupid. You're able to coherently put sentences together, which, these days unfortunately puts you above the fold. I'd be lying if I said reading years of "dance station nonsense" on the boards wasn't annoying, to say the least. Again though, I do indeed respect your stance and your quest.
But you say you're keen on Philadelphia radio's "history", and if I may, I'd like to point out that it goes far beyond what you may have heard was done for a brief time with WIOQ (nearly 20 years ago, at that).
I don't know what you "heard", but Rocking Rob is right. Trust me, as he was there at the time. Q-102 was a CHR leaning toward "Dance" (again, not a format, despite what others try to insist) in its very early days (1989) under Mark Driscoll. This was mainly because Philadelphia had an enormously-popular CHR at the time in Eagle 106. Q-102 was able to distinguish itself from Eagle by playing to the Delaware Avenue scene (which was becoming quite impressive at the time, admittedly, as the nightclub scene there was beginning to grow exponentially). This was only about a year removed since CBS killed WCAU-FM, which in its final days, was playing a lot of dance tracks. Eagle (with its almost Hot-AC-like approach in the beginning), for the most part, gave acts like Expose, Sweet Sensation, Pajama Party, Johnny O, and Stevie B short shrift around that time. Driscoll did almost everything right at the time, and only once (WDRE) has a station here launched in the last 20 years that carried as much excitement as did Q-102.
In 1989, of course, there was no Internet. And this music had few other opportunities to be heard, outside of the clubs. So much has changed since then. Anyone who wants to hear this stuff has an abundance of ways to do so. Not to mention the music industry itself bears little resemblance to what it was 20 years ago. The music you speak of is but a tiny, tiny fraction of what 18-34s ever listen to. I know that comes as shocking news to some of the "dance fans", but it's true. You're a niche group at best.
I truly believe we're witnessing the final years of terrestrial radio's being a mass medium. But it still is. Maybe in a few years, when licensees are desperate, they'll turn to niche programming ideas like the one you're proposing. But for the time being, there's no chance in hell of such a thing happening.
JerseyDude,
I'm so sorry you're as shortsighted as you are to think that just because the masses here don't care to indulge in the current "club music" you think the rest of America wants, the Philadelphia-area listeners are some kind of "backwards town". I also think your prejudices on the entire Commonwealth of Kentucky cloud any potential argument you may have.
The fact that people here don't agree with your obscure, out-of-the-ordinary tastes doesn't mean they're any less "sophisticated".
Go ahead, take your act to Boston. Hold your breath until there's a "dance station" there. Please. Be my guest.
The fact that your parents listened to Teddy, Patti, the Trammps, and Karen Young is inconsequential. A lot has changed in 30 years. Those acts are still alive and well in Philadelphia, and if you don't believe me, go to Benny The Bum's or Michael's Cafe on a Saturday night. Bob Pantano has been playing the same 50 songs every week for almost three decades! Go to a Blavat show. It's the same thing. Philly HASN'T LOST ITS SOUL. It's just that the music of that era was different, and to my prejudiced ears, better. The target crowd was a generation removed from today's Internet population, and didn't have the thousands of choices available today. The acts you name were HUGE here. The "dance" acts Tony is talking about aren't, when compared with giants like those of the late 1970s. Not even close.
So go ahead and think Philadelphia is "backwards". There are plenty of jocks who will continue to pack them in with what we know WORKS. Not what a handful of message board postors happen to personally dig.
"DanceRev",
I suggest you proofread before you click the "post" button.
Note that I said "a few thousand", not "less than a thousand". There's a difference of about 300-400 percent.
If you feel so confident that WBZC, a station I believe (and I really do want correction if I'm wrong) gets at least SOME taxpaying funding, is setting the world on fire with "dance"-- why not go 24 hours a day with it? Your station, it's my understanding, had a history of mismanagement before your arrival, therefore making it unclear (to me, anyway) whether or not there was audience support for the previous programming (which was far more eclectic and had a much better chance, I'd think, of gaining community involvement). You may think Burlington County wants to live its life in triple-digit BPMs, but I know of quite a few folks who were happy with the "voice of Burlington County" just the way it was. Knowing some of the people who literally paved the way for that allocation to have even been granted in the first place, I am confident in my saying there are quite a few folks who gave their hearts and souls into building an outlet for Burlington County that's now little more than a shill for perpetuating a "dance radio agenda". (And for the record, I'm a fan of Kalina's work going back to Wizzard and WCAU-FM.)
Brett, how much taxpayer money is going to fund your hobby? If the answer is "zero", please accept my apologies for even making the suggestion.
I'm not taking away from your "2000 people at Kat Man Du" accomplishment. But do you really think a lesser-powered non-comm FM put all of those asses in the seats? Be honest. You really think WBZC deserves ALL the credit for that one event?
I'm not quite sure what your point was about my reference to Classical and Standards, but I'll bet a decent amount of money WRTI brings in a hell of a lot more (in listener contributions) with Beethoven than you do with Rhianna.
Your comment about "American Bandstand", I think shows some ignorance. Yes, the show originated here, but if you go back to the archives, you'll find that its success with regard to music was largely because of its broad appeal with POP. Not "dance music", per se. Sure, the records selected had to be "danceable", but it wasn't a "dance show". It was, at least in its Bob Horn/Philly days, a very early form of social networking. Sorry, but your use of "Bandstand" in this argument, to me, is absurd.
I was unaware Philly had always been "a dance station". But having a handful of "dancey" songs being popular today is NOTHING compared with the Disco Invasion of the 1970s. Please. Anyone who frequented public places in the late '70s knows how huge disco was. This, today, ain't no disco. Disco was big enough to spawn, at least briefly, its own radio "format" (mainly WKTU New York). If Philly were such a dance town, how come our Disco stations (WCAU-FM and WZZD) were bombs?
You're right about "programmers not being allowed to program anymore". But that's for all of local radio. It has as much to do with Rock-based formats, or, Talk-based formats as it does with your "dance music". That's a "radio problem", and it's not unique to any one style of programming.
D Stroyer,
I understand you've adopted "HD" Radio as a pet agenda, but even the "dance nuts" I'm respectfully disagreeing with here know the "side projects of obligation" you named above aren't even remotely germane to the discussion. I played to more "dance radio" fans in one bar/club tonight that "Club Ben" did to the entire Delaware Valley via its "HD" science project. I'll bet money on that. I'll also bet money that low-power high school station WMPH in New Castle County, Delaware has more listeners than that "Wired 96 Phase Two" or whatever it is. Bank.
21st Century my foot. How about, "Welcome to reality"?
Have any ARB books to show me how well-received "Club Ben" or "Hot Wired" are?
Get back to me.
In conclusion,
Those who in the past decade or so have dedicated their radio message board lives to "dance radio", I feel, have failed to understand the nature of terrestrial radio as a business. They fail to understand the "burnout factor", or the concept of "mass appeal". Can you imagine someone listening to a "dance station" all day in an office? Or the bank? (To be fair, one could say the same about a Rap station-- but at least in the past ten years, there's been more of a market for that stuff than there has been for a so-called "dance station".) "Dance" is not a format, but one of many kinds of music. It's a style of music that is perhaps best utilized on a DANCE FLOOR, not on one of a few limited frequencies designated for mass appeal. Unfortunately, it seems, some don't realize what's gold at 1AM on a dance floor isn't the same as what's on a radio station. Having jocked in clubs, bars, and radio stations, I know how each is very different.
Note that "dance" is a very, very subjective term. "Dance" means different things to different people. The folks we've heard from here, largely, have a very specific and narrow definition of what constitutes "dance". Their agenda has been in plain sight for many years, on this and other radio message boards going back to the mid 1990s.
The proliferation of Internet-based audio stations, I think, presents a wonderful opportunity for fans of "dance radio" to make things happen-- on their own terms. If there's as much of a market for this programming as some here would have us believing, it will flourish on the Internet and in other venues. Clubs like Kat Man Du will continue to "pack them in" on "dance night", and Delaware Avenue will have an amazing re-birth. And bar/club jocks like me and my friends will have an abundance of work ahead of us.
Or maybe just my friends.
When you've heard one Daft Punk song you've really heard them all.
and the common folk won't necessarily jump on to something unless it is forced upon them (such as buying a new car with streaming stereo already built in.). For now, we have terrestrial...though with everything that has happened over the past few years, we might be TOO LATE to get the teen crowd into terrestrial since they have their iPods. At the very least, let's at least TRY to bring in something exciting.