Fall part 2 ratings for market #33

[hschutte]

What about having the beat switch to adult hits {JACK}? I think their ratings could do well. 98.7 Simon seems to be doing well in greensboro.

 

[radiolives]

Beat should flip they can't beat CBS Radio's Kiss and Power. To bad WIBT couldn't flip to a oldies/classic hits format like WCBS-FM. Like Clear Channel would do something like that, CBS would maybe.

 

[hschutte]

CBS in NYC made a smart decision going back to oldies format. Jack format didn't do well there. However, classic rock still seems to be doing well here. That's why I feel Jack formats might do well here. It's doing fine in Nashville,TN.

I did notice Mix 106 seems to be taking more of the oldies lately. Will they be charlottes next oldies?

 

[radiolives]

If Clear Channel did flip WIBT to a Jack type format the name might be 96.1 Steve FM, The Drive @ 96.1, or maybe even just Radio 96.1. This as Clear Channel uses the name Steve FM in a station in upstate South Carolina and Clear Channel also uses the name The Drive in Charleston, SC on one of their stations there.

 

[MarkSC]

Maybe I'm missing something here, but isn't it downright embarrassing for Clear Channel to have only one station in the top SIX in Charlotte. I know I'm looking at 12+, blah blah blah...but, COME ON!

Of course, when CC's top station in Atlanta is tied for 12th, I guess it's all relative.

 

[Call Me Sherlock]

Yeah, but it's just one more reason that CC should be embarrassed after what they've done to the radio industry over the past 12 years. Let's face it,
it's all about the stock price and money. At this point, the company is beyond being embarrassed about anything!

 

[JustPastBuffalo]

Let's face it, it's all about the stock price and money.

And oh, just look at those stock prices... my 401(k) is now a 201(k)... Thank you, I'll be here all week, make sure you tip the bartenders.

But seriously, what a cool thread. It's meandered all over the place and it seems to be music centered. Oh, it also looks like "Buffalo South" since more than a few posters here also appear on the Bufffalo-Niagara Falls board. It's Friday and I should be doing production, but... ah hell, what's ten minutes of down time gonna hurt!?

Jeff, your recollections of WJJL Niagara Falls made me chuckle. I immediately thought of "Go All the Way" and there it was a few posts later. We used to fire that puppy up to test the processing at WUSJ (when it was on AM 1340 in Lockport rather than its present home on FM in Jackson, Mississippi.)

We ran a Gates Sta-Level in front of an Audimax and then the Volumax into the 1kW Bauer-Sparta in the next room. You could see the cherries on the modulators when "Go All The Way" rolled on those QRK turntables.

Eric Carmen was a radio junkie and musician who grew up in Cleveland listening to WIXY-1260 and WKYC-1100. So when it came to producing Top 40 hits for his band The Raspberries, he had the art form down to a science. He KNEW the jocks liked to talk up the intros and "Go All The Way" is a typically great jock talk-up song ("weather and at least one PSA on the intro".) It's big, dynamic, with at least a half dozen posts before the vocal hits. If you couldn't hit one of the posts on that intro, you weren't a Top 40 jock. The Raspberries follow up, "I Wanna Be With You" had the same typo of processing and intro.

A few years back (when we were Oldies 104), we had Paul Revere & the Raiders in for a station Oldies-Fest. I had the chance to talk radio and production with Mark Lindsay and asked him "OK, tell me the secret behind the bass line in Hungry and Just Like Me. I've played them off vinyl, cart, CD and WAV and the songs always sounds scary good. Clean, thick and that bass line cuts through. What'd you guys do to get that thick bass?"

Well, first off, he was genuinely appreciative of the question. He chuckled because he'd been asked that specific question by only a select number of radio people, whom he immediately identified as either musicians, production geeks or music engineers.

The story is, and he loved telling it, was that the group was always fooling around with the dials and the processing as much as the notes and the arrangements. He's originally a saxapohone player, and a very good one. So he and his buds would stay up all nite recording and then fooling around with the mixing and processing.

Long story short(er), he says they got the thick bass in Hungry and Just Like Me by using the foot peddles (bass) of a Hammond B3 organ, tracking in real time over the bass guitar line. They mastered th songs using two (L+R) RCA radio station peak limiters (model numbers I don't recall.) Next time you hear those songs, give a listen. It's delightful.

Another great Oldies that's superbly produced is Skip & Flip's "Cherry Pie." Even on the Columbia Red Masters label 45, it sounds spectacular.

Back to work. Four 60's, three 30's and a music promo await.

 

[Mike Sheridan]

Cool post Jim!

For me Charlotte is midway between the two other places I lived, Buffalo and Fort Lauderdale. That makes me a half-back.

Mike

 

[eggman961]

From some trade publication....


"Rhythmic WIBT slipped for a third straight book and is off 43% to its winter 2007 ratings 18-34."


'nuff said!

egg

 

[radiolives]

Maybe I'm missing something here, but isn't it downright embarrassing for Clear Channel to have only one station in the top SIX in Charlotte. I know I'm looking at 12+, blah blah blah...but, COME ON!

Of course, when CC's top station in Atlanta is tied for 12th, I guess it's all relative.

Well most of CC's stations are in the top 10. Four CBS Stations are in the top 5 with K 104.7 being in 7th. I think CC is just glad their in the top 10. But CBS Radio is real happy as their making more money in this market then CC. lol