Enjoyed your thoughts Freeball, and I've got some observations of my own.
You're very right in that the days of Fleetwood Mac, CCR, The Beatles, and Elton John are largely over for rock stations, but that's been the case for about 10 years now, although I hate to think they're all being relegated to oldies outlets. Oldies stations, of course, should play Elvis and Buddy and Otis, not disco, and classic rockers should stick with the heritage AOR that's been jettisoned from rock stations and dump the hair metal. WDVE, like many hertiage rock stations that have chosen to keep the emphasis on heritage instead of new, have been forced to re-evaluate their music more often than other rock stations which comfortably describe themselves as active rock, which seems to be the dream station situation you were describing.
For what it's worth, I hate hair metal, and along with 80's "rock" acts like Phil Collins and one-hit disasters like Cutting Crew I credit hair/shred metal (Warrant, Ratt, Cinderella, etc.) with ruining a lot of what was great about great rock stations in the 80's, but if hair metal has to be played, well, it's probably best heard on an active rocker. Nothing wrong with a good red meat active rock station. by the way. They can be a lot of dumb fun, though it's a shame active rock DJs these days seem more interested in being complete d---s with constant empty-calorie stunting rather than talking about the music or being more conversational with the audience. Of course, if your new music is Hinder and Nickelback, well, there's not much to talk about anyway. There's still more meat on the bones of a 25-year old solo Ozzy song to talk about than the latest from Nickelback, but ANYWAY.
The reality is WDVE, unlike WEBN in Cincinnati or WLVQ in Columbus, has a lot of long-time, older-folk listeners who were adults in the waning years of the Vietnam War. In fact, I think after L.A. County, Allegheny County has the largest population of Vietnam-era vets and folks that age. A lot of those guys still count WDVE as their station, and still expect to hear lots of Allman Brothers and Jimi Hendrix, while their younger brothers who may have worked in the Jones and Laughlin or Crucible plant with them for a summer also fully expect to hear their Deep Purple, Tom Petty, and Rush favorites. So short of a radical re-imagining of the station (like the kind of music revampings WMMS was going through every couple of years a decade or so ago), WDVE remains obliged to serve those listeners without turning into a fully backwards-looking classic rock station. I think there's still room for the Beatles and Aerosmith favorites on WDVE, but it's the new music they need to be choosy on, and it's foolish of them to ignore great new records from heritage artists like Neil Young and John Fogerty, both of whom the audience knows and who are arguably making records now as good as the ones they were making in 1969 and 1970.
WDVE can very much get away with Nirvana and the White Stripes and make those selections work well with their Zeppelin and AC/DC silver-haired library (they sound better together than you may think), they won't spin those artists since WXDX is right down the hall. So you get watered-down junk that passes for new rock these days like Hinder and Nickelback and Three Doors Down, instead of something with some creativity and teeth that better compliments the heritage side of things. And there's only so much Stevie Ray Vaughan and Alice In Chains and Dave Matthews Band you can play to cover the middle ground.
I fully appreciate WDVE's music dilemma, but I also appreciate their commitment to Pittsburgh and their long-time listeners, and it's great they've managed to remain a heritage rocker without having to retreat into that dopey "everything that rocks" approach like the formerly-great WRIF in Detroit. If they can get a little more picky about the new music and play what works AND what's good without worrying if it's eating up listeners on the other end of C.C.'s Pittsburgh flank with WXDX with artists like the White Stripes and Nirvana (don't know why they'd worry about that anyway, are those two stations really sharing that much audience?), they should be able to be around for a little while longer. Kudos too to WDVE for retaining the long-time personalities, instead of hiring a bunch of loudmouth nitwits who don't know or care about the music.
And while Metallica and Megadeth can work for a heritage rocker if properly dayparted and scheduled, Slayer won't. Save the Slayer (and Pantera!) for the alternative stations (that's another discussion), and as for the Iron Maiden, well...it'll never fit in anywhere, which means play at your own risk.
