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Do kids really like oldies?

Let's attempt to put this thread to bed once and for all. Kids liking "Wooly Bully" and wearing Pink Floyd T-shirts don't represent a significant current or future audience for oldies radio. Most are listening to oldies because their parents or grandparents liked that that music when it was current or because the tunes are dumb but catchy and kids find them fun. (Or, in the case of the classic rock T's, the kids don't give a crap about the music but wear the garb because they don't want to hurt Gramps' feelings, even though they would have greatly preferred toys or gaming stuff to clothing for a Christmas gift.)

That's not the profile of people who are still going to be listening to Sam the Sham or wearing replicas of ancient tour shirts when they reach their 20s and begin to matter to radio's advertisers. Chances are that, as young adults, they'll be into whatever popular music most 20-somethings are into at the time, whether it's pop or rock or hip-hop or country or R&B. And their parents and grandparents will feel about that music the way most of ours felt about "our music" when we were in our 20s: They'll think it's junk and that their generation's music was the best ever and will live forever. Can we just accept this and accept that '60s-'70s oldies is a dying format and is not coming back to FM, no matter how much we like it, because once the kids develop their own musical tastes and leave the nest, they'll leave most of that music behind?
 
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CTListener said:
Can we just ... accept that '60s-'70s oldies is a dying format and is not coming back to FM, no matter how much we like it, because once the kids develop their own musical tastes and leave the nest, they'll leave most of that music behind?
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Another factor is that the younger demos abandoned AM for the most part, years ago. Some of them don't really know what FM is, either.

People who think Oldies -- or any music format that has essentially disappeared -- is going to be the salvation of radio needs to stop pontificating and look at the facts. Yes, there are still some AMs holding on with older-skewing demos, but that does not mean the younger generations are going to magically embrace those formats, which means the audience for those stations is literally dying off, with no replacements.

Those who think otherwise have blinders on. They either are blissfully ignorant of the rise in AMs being taken permanently silent, with license surrenders, or they put on a pair of rose-colored glasses and think those stations going away will somehow make their listeners come over to their favorite Oldies station. The flaw in that logic should be obvious: If those listeners wanted to hear that music they would have been there already.

For the moment, the 80's seems to have the highest amount of music that attracts wide demographics. How long will that last? I don't know, but it sure seems to have exceeded the longevity that many expected. For all I know, Classic Hits focused on that decade may be the last surviving format for radio as a whole. I just hold on tight (hey, that was an 80's hit, too!) and ride it out.
 
20 years ago, on this very board, the fact that Radio Disney was tossing in the odd oldie from Elvis was cited as evidence that kids liked oldies and that Elvis' music would live forever on the radio.

I got roasted by those people for saying that the Beatles were on borrowed time when it came to airplay, much less Elvis.

And here we are.
 
michael hagerty said:
20 years ago, on this very board, the fact that Radio Disney was tossing in the odd oldie from Elvis was cited as evidence that kids liked oldies and that Elvis' music would live forever on the radio.

I got roasted by those people for saying that the Beatles were on borrowed time when it came to airplay, much less Elvis.

And here we are.
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Now you get to say:

IMG_1754.jpeg
 
michael hagerty said:
In terms of radio---and the question of this thread----"Do kids really like oldies?"----then, no, it is not indicative of a trend.
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If you're in Gen Z, then anything from a year that begins with 19 is an "oldie".

To them, it's all just music from before their time. How much before their time is irrelevant.

The problem for radio is that this happens organically -- maybe even just kids randomly searching for songs with keywords they're looking for in the title, and then playing whatever they find. Thus you can't force-feed them old songs to like.
 
kevtronics said:
If you're in Gen Z, then anything from a year that begins with 19 is an "oldie".

To them, it's all just music from before their time. How much before their time is irrelevant.

The problem for radio is that this happens organically -- maybe even just kids randomly searching for songs with keywords they're looking for in the title, and then playing whatever they find. Thus you can't force-feed them old songs to like.
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Right.

An oldie on TikTok only has to exist within the context of that single video. It doesn't matter what video was watched immediately before or after.

An oldie (or any other piece of music) has to exist on the radio within the context of the entire radio station. That's much more critical.

It's essentially the same principle @DavidEduardo and I have been explaining for the past two decades when people say "I heard (song) in a (grocery store/gas station/restaurant/hotel lobby/business) and people weren't plugging their ears, so it should be on the radio."
 
kevtronics said:
The problem for radio is that this happens organically -- maybe even just kids randomly searching for songs with keywords they're looking for in the title, and then playing whatever they find. Thus you can't force-feed them old songs to like.
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And the fallacy of that argument is that any such "blip" is precisely that. Here now, and gone as soon as the next viral "blip" materializes.

There is no real way to analyze the effect on radio, because there is nothing to evaluate and the effect passes before it could be measured.

The other misconception is the description of "force feed". Radio doesn't do that. It programs what the research says are the consensus favorites are for the desired demographic, and people then choose to listen if that playlist aligns with their tastes well enough. You're looking at it backwards.
 
michael hagerty said:
It's essentially the same principle @DavidEduardo and I have been explaining for the past two decades when people say "I heard (song) in a (grocery store/gas station/restaurant/hotel lobby/business) and people weren't plugging their ears, so it should be on the radio."
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You, David, and me. 🧐
 
K.M. Richards said:
There is no real way to analyze the effect on radio, because there is nothing to evaluate and the effect passes before it could be measured.
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It depends. Kate Bush got a hell of a lot of airplay out of her "blip".

www.billboard.com

Kate Bush’s ‘Running Up That Hill’ Is Already a 2022 Sales and Streaming Smash — Will It Take Over Radio Too?

After becoming a global hits thanks to its 'Stranger Things' usage, radio programmers are adding Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill."
www.billboard.com www.billboard.com
 


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