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MsMusicRadio
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MusicRadioUSA said:
WDUV also plays Creedence, Neil Young, Wilson Picket, and Santana
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Easy Listening Radio Station in the New York City area
- Thread starter xmradiopro
- Start date
WDUV also plays Creedence, Neil Young, Wilson Picket, and Santana
There are only about a half-dozen non-comm stations doing traditional-EZ anymore. Trust me, if it was viable, you'd see more broadcasters doing it. We have to face it; beggars can't be choosers and with most of the FM non-comm band being devoted to programming which can deliver an audience and necessary revenue, you can be assured that broadcasters won't be going to such a format! So all EZ/AS fans, take heart; you cannot and will not see this format come to anywhere on the FM band. Your best bet is to find an AM station and make the best of it! It's better than nothing! Now mind you, I'd try to find an AM stereo and quality analog transmission standard which will make the station more bearable. The 'Bittner twins' seem to be doing OK with non-comm on AM so maybe that model can take hold elsewhere.TimeIsTight said:
I remember the days of WNEW-AM, WQEW and WMTR playing some easy listening/MOR format for a long time. MOR formats have come and gone, but the best way to listen to is the internet and Sirius/XM. If you don't have an easy listening station, you should try WCKL, they got good amount of music on 560 AM in Catskill and WHUC at 1230 AM. I remember the station used to carried "Music Of Your Life" network on so many stations like WGHQ, WKIP, WHUC and WELV back in the early to mid 2000's until it got away so fast. They used to have non-radio person like Peter Marshall from "Hollywood Squares", Wink Martindale from "Tic Tac Dough", Chuck Southcott, Gary Owens from "Laugh-In", Pat Boone, Patty Page and many of them that I missed listening to the station where they carried MOYL, but too bad, New York City didn't have an MOYL affiliate but that's not going to get it, we got too many stations. Now we got "Fox Oldies" at 98.9 you should check that out as well.
WPAT did transition from Easy Listening to a mainstream AC format in the early '90s. They even used the name "Today's 93.1" and ran TV ads to drive home the point that they weren't playing "sleepy elevator music" anymore. But at the time, both Lite FM and Mix 105 were doing very well, and WPAT didn't have much success at being the third AC station in the NYC area, so eventually they sold out. In the final weeks of WPAT-FM, Lite FM actually ran commercials on 93.1 inviting listeners to move up to 106.7.frozenfiresb said:
WPAT-FM was sold first, and became Spanish "Suave 93.1" (later "Amor 93.1"), while the AM side continued for a while longer as automated "Today's 930 AM" (in AM Stereo), before WPAT(AM) was eventually sold to Multicultural and became a brokered ethnic station.
satech said:
WPAT (AM) was sold to Heftel in late '95 and then resold to Multicultural when Heftel was moving towards a merger with TMS.
satech said:
A lot, if not most, of the heritage AC stations on FM were beautiful music in the 60s and 70s. In New York, I believe Lite was country (and jazz WRVR before that), but Chicago's Lite FM WLIT was Schulke format WWEL and WLAK (and kept the WLAK calls when it flipped to soft AC in 1983). KOST in LA was the McLendon BM station, Jerry Lee started B101 in Philly as an EL station and flipped it to AC, and so on. If an FM station's been AC for at least 25 years, it's a good bet that it was a beautiful music station before it changed.
There should be room for all kinds of formats in NYC. Easy listening included. NYC has the worst radio dial I've ever heard! I 'm sick of hearing that easy listening, smooth jazz, country etc etc etc won't work in NYC. That's crap, and very simple minded!! Big corporations control everything including radio. All it is is about$$$. It's really a shame.
I agree if someone would put a easy listening station on the air there's no reason why it couldn't have a good rating...As far as the advertising goes why not attract an new audience...
murphmac said:
Unfortunately, there are a multitude of reasons why it won't get good ratings.
You have to remember that the reason WRFM, WTFM, WPAT, and WVNJ stopped being Easy Listening stations was because they weren't getting the ratings or generating the advertising revenue that alternative uses of the frequencies could.
With the exception of WPAT, which went Spanish language, the other stations all were switched to formats that were more attractive to younger listeners.
And now, twenty-plus years later, with a large chunk of the audience that used to listen to those Easy Listening stations dead or moved out of the area, the ratings and revenue potential for that format are a lot less. Most advertisers are NOT interested in listeners over 54.
Ultimately, radio is a business that sells the attention of crowds, it either has to attract a large crowd or a highly specialized crowd, but the one group that is not in demand is an old crowd. And almost nobody under 55 would listen to Mantovani, Ferrante and Teicher, or the Ray Conniff Singers for more than two minutes.
It's too bad, but with the number of commercial frequencies available on FM in NYC, Easy Listening has less than a snowball's chance in hell of coming back. Even the former Easy Listening AM stations that no longer show up in the ratings like WPAT-AM, and what was WVNJ-AM-620 can be more profitable selling block time directed to foreign language or religious groups. That is just the free market at work.
Satellite radio offers all kinds of music formats, more than one hundred channels, but their marketing data probably told them that there weren't enough potential listeners interested in what used to be Beautiful Music, to even offer a dedicated channel there.
WDUV would appear to have little in common with the old "beautiful music" stations. More like the lite AC formats they switched to... here's a list of songs WDUV played in the 1pm hour this afternoon:
Elvis Presley - Memories 19.08.2011 1:11pm
Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine - Anything For You/No Te Olvidare 19.08.2011 1:14pm
Bill Withers - Lean On Me 19.08.2011 1:17pm
Lionel Richie - Deep River Woman 19.08.2011 1:32pm
B.J. Thomas - I Just Can't Help Believing 19.08.2011 1:37pm
James Taylor - You've Got A Friend 19.08.2011 1:40pm
Vanessa Williams - Colors Of The Wind 19.08.2011 1:44pm
Johnny Rivers - Baby I Need Your Loving 19.08.2011 1:49pm
Jim Croce - Operator (That's Not The Way It Feels)
It may be #1 6+ in Tampa, but I have a feeling when it comes to billing, it's not close to the top.
Elvis Presley - Memories 19.08.2011 1:11pm
Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine - Anything For You/No Te Olvidare 19.08.2011 1:14pm
Bill Withers - Lean On Me 19.08.2011 1:17pm
Lionel Richie - Deep River Woman 19.08.2011 1:32pm
B.J. Thomas - I Just Can't Help Believing 19.08.2011 1:37pm
James Taylor - You've Got A Friend 19.08.2011 1:40pm
Vanessa Williams - Colors Of The Wind 19.08.2011 1:44pm
Johnny Rivers - Baby I Need Your Loving 19.08.2011 1:49pm
Jim Croce - Operator (That's Not The Way It Feels)
It may be #1 6+ in Tampa, but I have a feeling when it comes to billing, it's not close to the top.
Nick said:
They're not Easy Listening. They're soft AC. They're predominately contemporary (as in 60s onward) vocals with tighter production, announcers backselling songs, perhaps jingles and everything running on the same sound levels. They're also in markets with a higher percentage of over-55s.
And it seems to me that what should be called "Easy Listening" is not soft ACs or adult standards stations, which are different beasts, but where the music was in quarter-hour segments, often only one vocal in a set (sometimes no vocals), announcers not identifying records (something Schulke started to hide the fact that their initial library was limited), liner cards with NO AD LIBBING ALLOWED, dead air between almost every program element on purpose and music running at higher levels than the commercials or the announcers' mikes or the carts with the liners on them if totally automated (and often banning jingles or loud noises in ads). There were, of course, exceptions to the rule, like the more highly produced McLendon stations or WFMR/WGAY in Washington, but the Easy Listening format dominated by instrumentals pretty much followed the Bonneville/Schulke/FM 100 Plan template in almost every market, even if stations used other services besides the Big 3.
jh said:
In looking at that list, the only way EL stations in the 70s would play any of those songs if they were 70s songs or older would be as instrumentals, most likely either custom productions or imported from Europe (and Schulke had a deal with the BBC where he got their vast library of BBC in-house orchestra recordings of instrumentals that they had to play on Radio 2 because of the "needle time" restrictions on playing records). By the 80s, as the EL/BM format was starting to lose steam, I could imagine some of the formats playing from that list of songs Elvis, James Taylor or Jim Croce during that decade, but they would edit the song down to 2:55 if it ran longer. IN their glory years, most of the vocals the formats played were either choral group vocals or melllow-toned male vocals--you could listen to EL/BM stations for hours back then and the only solo female voice you'd hear singing was Karen Carpenter (and they counted the Carpenters, of course, as a group).
Nick: If my memory is correct you are twenty-something, and it is very understandable that the use of "Easy Listening" in this thread has created some confusion because the music played in the radio definition of the term has changed since the days before you were born.
The thread started with this:
Back in the ancient days of the 1970s and 1980s WRFM, WTFM, WPAT and WVNJ were all considered Easy Listening or Beautiful Music stations. They played mostly orchestra type instrumental music that came from movies, Broadway shows, standards composers etc. usually with one well chosen vocal every quarter hour.
Depending on the station in the 80s and 90s they changed formats and owners. WRFM became "soft rock," and is now Power-105, WVNJ became Z-100, WTFM is now WKTU, and WPAT became Spanish.
So, when posters in this thread referred to "Easy Listening" or "Adult Standards" the non-rock mostly instrumental music is what they are talking about. I've gone over the playlists for both WDUV, and Easy 91.3 and while a few songs now played there, might have been played on the old NYC easy listening stations referenced above, most of the older songs they play would have only been considered "rock" in the 70s and 80s. Some might have been played then on "soft rock" formats like "Magic" in Philly, or Lite-FM or WNSR soft rock in NYC, but never on WRFM, WPAT, WVNJ or WTFM. Although toward the end of its English language life WPAT did try soft rock for a while.
As far as the success of Easy 93 in Miami, or WDUV in Tampa, they are different markets than New York. I lived there for a while and there is a reason Florida has long been called "St. Peter's Waiting Room," a significant chunk of the population is retirement age. Somewhere, I heard these two top stations are hard sells because of the demographics of the audience, even though they are top rated stations. Lite-FM in New York had a similar format, and kept upgrading it as time went on. It likely would not be the top station in NYC if it still had the same format it did 20-years ago, which is kind of what WDUV and Easy 93 are now.
The thread started with this:
Back in the ancient days of the 1970s and 1980s WRFM, WTFM, WPAT and WVNJ were all considered Easy Listening or Beautiful Music stations. They played mostly orchestra type instrumental music that came from movies, Broadway shows, standards composers etc. usually with one well chosen vocal every quarter hour.
Depending on the station in the 80s and 90s they changed formats and owners. WRFM became "soft rock," and is now Power-105, WVNJ became Z-100, WTFM is now WKTU, and WPAT became Spanish.
So, when posters in this thread referred to "Easy Listening" or "Adult Standards" the non-rock mostly instrumental music is what they are talking about. I've gone over the playlists for both WDUV, and Easy 91.3 and while a few songs now played there, might have been played on the old NYC easy listening stations referenced above, most of the older songs they play would have only been considered "rock" in the 70s and 80s. Some might have been played then on "soft rock" formats like "Magic" in Philly, or Lite-FM or WNSR soft rock in NYC, but never on WRFM, WPAT, WVNJ or WTFM. Although toward the end of its English language life WPAT did try soft rock for a while.
As far as the success of Easy 93 in Miami, or WDUV in Tampa, they are different markets than New York. I lived there for a while and there is a reason Florida has long been called "St. Peter's Waiting Room," a significant chunk of the population is retirement age. Somewhere, I heard these two top stations are hard sells because of the demographics of the audience, even though they are top rated stations. Lite-FM in New York had a similar format, and kept upgrading it as time went on. It likely would not be the top station in NYC if it still had the same format it did 20-years ago, which is kind of what WDUV and Easy 93 are now.
B
butchfm
Guest
MsMusicRadio said:
jh said:
It is around 14th in billing, which is also around where they rank in 25 to 54 listening.
It's likely cheap to operate, and bills enough to get a good cash flow, but it is not a good example for NY for a variety of reasons that have already been posted.
Nick said:
WFEZ is 10th in 25-54 in Miami, and WDUV is 15th in the Tampa Bay market; they are hardly the top stations in either case.
Mark Jeffries said:
Most of the BBC material was released on LP; they were easily imported or ordered from places that obtained beautiful music material for stations in the US from Europe and Japan. The more contemporary Bebe stuff was not exclusive to any company.
The SRP custom stuff, just like the Independent Beautiful Music group's material, was truly custom and was produced using orchestras like Norrie Paramour to the specifications of SRP, Bonneville or the independent group.
DavidEduardo said:
Thanks, David. I figured you would know how it's billing.
Although a very lite AC like WDUV probably wouldn't work in most rated markets, it might work in some small non-rated markets. We have a problem now with some of our 50-60 year old advertisers who themselves have aged out of the demos for our Hot AC. They don't like the music, think only kids listen to it, and they're a tough sell for buying advertising... of course, some of them do like our country station.
In small, rural markets like ours, the advertisers often don't want to buy stations if they personally don't like the music. CHR is a very hard sell.
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