That some didn’t move does not negate that the format did evolve.
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Do kids really like oldies?
- Thread starter vchimpanzee
- Start date
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
You are aware, I hope, that Emmis has no connection to KPWR and I doubt Meruelo -- even if interested -- has access to all of the imaging, etc.?
KROQ-HD2 has the benefit of essentially being under the same ownership today as KROQ was back then (in other words, I can draw a straight line on the merger chart between Infinity and Audacy), so they have all of those archives. I doubt a similar situation exists at Power.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Chimp, I politely suggest that you drop that argument. The industry accepts Classic Hits as having been an evolution from the Oldies format. Your saying it isn't so doesn't change anything.
Yes, some stations remained Oldies. And they are the stations on the verge of extinction. You cannot say the same for Classic Hits as a format, as it is one of the most popular formats on the air today.
It depends on whether the station continued to air the same decades or not. There are stations focusing on the 90s playing "classic hits", are there not? Actually, the station which today a child said was his "Grandma's favorite wadio station" does use the term "classic hits" but it is not playing 90s music. A sample of what it plays included "Sugar, Sugar" by The Archies. But you have to distinguish these stations from the ones that have evolved into playing 90s and even newer songs. That's why the terms have to be different.
If the category includes stations playing the 90s.
I still like it.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
A station does not have to include the 90s to be called Classic Hits, but very few (if any) still play the 60s and the number of 70s songs that fit most stations' demographic composition is dwindling as well.
You don't understand any of this, do you? Yet you persist on creating a definition of the format that is contrary to the industry's.
Here is an example of the relative importance by decades: KRTH, one of the best known stations that transitioned from Oldies to Classic Hits.
Their typical playlist is around 300 songs. 75 are from the '90s, another 16 are post-2000. 25 are from the '70s, and four of those are also in my all-80s format on KRKE because they are songs that listeners perceive as being '80s titles. Total spins of pre-1980 songs, 251. Total of songs from 1990 or newer: 318. Everything else: 1,296.
For comparison: KOSF, which is well-known for having expanded beyond its original all-80s concept (or so they try to convince their audience). 460 songs, 53 of which are newer than 1990 but comprise only 197 spins out of a total 1,996. 70's? 98 songs, 248 spins, and most only get a token one spin per week.
I can also show you stations that are a mix of 70s/80s but cut off somewhere around 1986-1987, and they are also called Classic Hits.
So ... NO, 90s is NOT a key make-or-break factor in what they are called.
Now stop it. Your definitions do not have any correlation to what the accepted industry ones are. Period.
I don't know, I hear they're pretty cheap.
Lousy tippers.
Even if they walk across the street to fix the ceiling fan.
The stations that play songs even newer than the 90s confuse things. We had a discussion about whether these are even classic hits.
Again: the format names used in the industry and for sales to advertising agencies are pretty much determined based on the list of format Nielsen allows in its Station Information filing. Nielsen has a list that includes most standard names for formats and the purpose is to allow advertisers who are not familiar with individual stations to consider for buys those that fit the requirements of the campaign.
Stations pick the one that is closest to their actual format variant as is possible. The list is not broad and nuanced; it is not intended for station promotion but for standard identification by people buying ads on stations.
Period.
On the air, as station can call itself and its format whatever it wants. There is no format police agency in the area of on-air descriptors or names or slogans.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Once again, my friend, it does not matter what you or anyone else discusses. The definition in the industry is what we have been telling you it is, and you are not going to change it by these comments.
The reason I asked David if he knew him and could pass the idea along was because the current KPWR program director was actually hired by Power in the mid-early 1990s as "DJ E-Man," a live mixer. He was extremely good and wound up staying with the station for the remainder of its Emmis days, a period when those imaging elements were undoubtedly still present in the station's archives. Since he's now an executive there, he would know for sure, if anyone would, what's still hanging around, and on the assumption that he may also have been a listener to the station prior to going to work for it, I thought there might be a possibility he fondly remembered its '80s crossover himself, and if given the idea, that he might feel motivated to research the possibility of its viability.
For what it's worth, I specifically remember -- and partly taped -- KPWR having a large Memorial Day event in the '90s where the entire station went back to its old format, complete with all its old imaging for an entire day ("72,000 watts of music power" / "Power 106 -- INSTANT REQUEST!" / etc.) The event took place far enough into the '90s that Big Boy was working there by then. I still remember him doing one of his air shifts that day, doing his darndest to "hit the post" on all the imaging elements and songs he was unfamiliar with. E-Man may have even been there, mixing that day, though I'm not sure. It could have been their other star mixer, Enrie. I haven't gone through those cassettes in two decades.
True, although if the service that made their elements for them back then is anything like Jam, there's a chance they have archived copies of their own.
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K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
According to the definitive source on KROQ "back in the day", Freddy Snakeskin (who hosts Flashback Weekend on The Eighties Channel™ ... shameless plug), those were all done in-house.
A similar situation may exist for KPWR. Jingles, maybe. Other produced imaging, probably in-house and unless transferred as part of the intellectual property from Emmis to Meruelo, not available.
We did. They are. It’s not remotely the stations that are confused.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
I only see one person who is confused about the nomenclature, and quite honestly I am surprised he still thinks his definitions override those of the industry. (Finger hovering over the "report" link on any further "I'm right and the rest of you are wrong" replies.)
Certainly possible, but only Emmanuel Coquia would know for sure, and I would still love to know what his thoughts were on the viability and technical possibility of a flashback format to rival KROQ's. I do know that Emmis hired Chuck Riley to be the voice of several of its Power formatted stations throughout the country. Those bits might have been co-produced by Jam or TM Century, or made entirely in house, as you suggest.
I did find one of the Jam packages KPWR utilized in the later years of its crossover period here:
https://archive.org/download/jingle...me - Jam Creative Productions - Power Up!.mp3
Not the best package (I have heard another one that's better, and earlier, but can't remember it's name -- which kind of thwarts Googling it). But as far as this one goes, I recall several of the cuts in it from my own memories of the station, and some were definitely brought back during the aforementioned Memorial Day extravaganza broadcast.
Voicework / imaging is generally done in-house. It may be done by a company employee or an "outsider" who is contracted.
The difference between jingles and voice work is significant: jingles might have been done in a package every few years or so. But voiceover agreements were and still are ongoing with new "content" delivered frequently to include new station contests, special programs, imaging campaigns tied with TV ads and the like.
Unfortunately, these are the beliefs and attitudes that get propagated in the terribly inaccurate general coverage of radio programming on sources like Wikipedia.
Here we have an admitted frequent Wikipedia contributor who does not understand the difference between an on-air positioning statement and an industry standard format name used to position individual stations for national sales purposes.
I think John Logic did a lot of them in the 90s, but not sure when he started there.