Format change wishes

[xmradiopro]

If you wanted to wish for any Hudson Valley radio stations to change format, what stations would you pick and change to ?.
I myself would change K 104 WSPK back to an Oldies station. WPDH 101.5 would flip to Classic Country since there are no Classic Country stations in the area.

 

[Time Traveler]

If you wanted to wish for any Hudson Valley radio stations to change format, what stations would you pick and change to ?.
I myself would change K 104 WSPK back to an Oldies station. WPDH 101.5 would flip to Classic Country since there are no Classic Country stations in the area.

Actually WPDH was a country station many years ago before flipping to AOR back in 1976....

 

[xmradiopro]

If you wanted to wish for any Hudson Valley radio stations to change format, what stations would you pick and change to ?.
I myself would change K 104 WSPK back to an Oldies station. WPDH 101.5 would flip to Classic Country since there are no Classic Country stations in the area.

Yes, I'm not familiar with what kind of country was playing on WPDH before they flipped to classic rock in 1976 but think it was progressive country. What I. was wanting for them to flip was classic country from the 1960s & 1970s with artists like Johnny Cash, Loretta Lyn, Lynn Anderson, etc. You didn't make your wish....

 

[Time Traveler]

Yes, I'm not familiar with what kind of country was playing on WPDH before they flipped to classic rock in 1976 but think it was progressive country. What I. was wanting for them to flip was classic country from the 1960s & 1970s with artists like Johnny Cash, Loretta Lyn, Lynn Anderson, etc. You didn't make your wish....

The 1976 Broadcasting Yearbook classified them as "Modern Country"...

 

[MTNProductions]

Yes, I'm not familiar with what kind of country was playing on WPDH before they flipped to classic rock in 1976 but think it was progressive country. What I. was wanting for them to flip was classic country from the 1960s & 1970s with artists like Johnny Cash, Loretta Lyn, Lynn Anderson, etc. You didn't make your wish....

To be honest, WPDH was a country station from the early 1970’s until 1976 when it became a rock station where is still remains to this day.

Remember WBNR was a country station? Yes it was. So thanks to Kevin Richards for doing a fantastic job hosting the “Classic Country Hall of Fame”. You can listen to it on Saturday morning from 6AM until 10AM on WMML’s new “Big Country 97.9”. He used to be on WKBE’s “Big Country 107.1” before he moved over to 97.9 back in mid March. He plays some great country oldies the way it sounded back in the good old days of WPDH when it was a country station back in the 1970’s.

This is right before “Sunny” Joe Allen comes at 10AM over on WGNY-FM’s “Oldies 98.9”, not “Fox Oldies”.

 

[MVB13]

If you wanted to wish for any Hudson Valley radio stations to change format, what stations would you pick and change to ?.
I myself would change K 104 WSPK back to an Oldies station. WPDH 101.5 would flip to Classic Country since there are no Classic Country stations in the area.

K104 is fine as is.

 

[xmradiopro]

How about changing 1390 WEOK to Amerian Oldies ? Keep in mind there's currently no Oldies station in Poughkeepsie.

 

[MTNProductions]

How about changing 1390 WEOK to Amerian Oldies ? Keep in mind there's currently no Oldies station in Poughkeepsie.

Only WGNY is still oldies, and so does WGHQ.

 

[xmradiopro]

Only WGNY is still oldies, and so does WGHQ.

Noted but my aberration was that Poughkeepsie does not have a full time oldies station.

 

[Hyrum]

Why all the wishes for an oldies station? Everyone who likes that music has access to it through a thousand other sources. If you want to relive your youth when we all salivated to the WABC chime, those days are over, we're 100 years old, advertisers don't care about us and no oldies station makes money. Honest. It's sad but true. Part of what made those old days great were the personalities between the songs. They're all gone now, either dead or working places were they can make a living. I agree that we need to make some changes, or shut off half the stations so the survivors may make some money, but oldies isn't going to do anything constructive for the bottom line. If it would someone with a half ounce of programming experience would put lame excuses of radio like WGNY out of business. Oldies are the last breath of radio stations before they die or change to syndicated sports.

 

[CTListener]

Yes, I'm not familiar with what kind of country was playing on WPDH before they flipped to classic rock in 1976 but think it was progressive country. What I. was wanting for them to flip was classic country from the 1960s & 1970s with artists like Johnny Cash, Loretta Lyn, Lynn Anderson, etc. You didn't make your wish....

That's not what today's classic country stations play. The focus is on the '80s and '90s, with a very few songs from the '70s and '00s. Core artists are Garth Brooks and Reba McEntire, not Johnny Cash and Loretta Lynn.

 

[xmradiopro]

This is not true if you scan the dial for Classic Country Stations streaming online though out the states you will find many stations playing 60s & 70s classic Country.

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

This is not true if you scan the dial for Classic Country Stations streaming online though out the states you will find many stations playing 60s & 70s classic Country.

THAT isnt wholly true either.

spoken as someone whos background is in classic country radio

Most classic country stations will focus on 70s to 90s .... some in bigger cities will do 80s 90s

If you find a station playing mainly 60s and 70s its a much smaller in dependently owned independently programmed station but even those are probably only playing a few 60s here and there as oh wow tunes.. and only the bigger ones.

60s country just sounds way too old to be really commercially viable full time.


Compare a 60s classic country tune to an 80s.. vast difference in sound... and you dont wanna ram an early 60s tune next to a mid 80s tune on air, itll KILL the momentum and mood.

If i was programming a commercial classic country station now, id focus on mid 70s to mid 90s..... kinda depends on who my competitors are.. if theyre all hot country and nothing before about 2010.. id go up to the early 2000s with my classic country station, playing the newer songs that sound old... but i wouldnt go much farther back than the mid 70s except in a very very very rare, big well known oh wow tune.

But if i didnt have any true local competition. .big signals form out of market, etc.....i would maybe go back a few more years than the mid 70s and woudl feel out the market on the late 90s/early 2000s stuff

When i did afternoons on a country station, we were a 60/70 vs 40/30 mix of new vs old.. but our old didnt go back too much farther then the mid 70s. though when i did the old time jukebox, id play stuff as old as the 40s once in a blue moon, from time to time played 50s and playd 60s all the time.... why?

Bigfoot and Froggy on all sides of us were all top 40 hot country. i reacted to what my competitors were or werent doing

 

[CTListener]

The Saga Broadcasting chain calls its classic country format "The Outlaw," which pretty much sticks to the playlist Paul describes. Here are the most recent songs played:

Red Solo Cup -- Toby Keith
You Look So Good in Love -- George Strait
Nothin' But the Taillights -- Clint Black
Two Dozen Roses -- Shenandoah
Daddy's Come Around -- Paul Overstreet
Suds in the Bucket -- Sara Evans
Too Much Fun -- Daryle Singletary
Good Hearted Woman -- Waylon and Willie
Rockin' Years -- Dolly Parton and Ricky Van Shelton
I'm Alright -- Jo Dee Messina
Let's Chase Each Other Around the Room -- Merle Haggard
You're Gonna Miss This -- Trace Adkins
Born to Run -- Emmylou Harris

Toby Keith's song is from 2011 and Waylon & Willie's is from 1972, but the rest fit into Paul's parameters nicely. "Good Hearted Woman" is old, but certainly well-known. As I finish writing this, Tom T. Hall's "I Like Beer" (1975) is playing. So we have two '70s songs and one '10s song in one hour. This is comfortable for someone like me, who started listening to country music in the '70s and still listens today. I've heard other classic country stations that are more '90s-'10s in focus, which is where I'd expect this format-in-a-can to drift as more of its audience ages out completely or even dies. I like those stations, too, and I'm in my late 60s, but I realize that many people my age abandoned hit country sometime around 1999.

 

[MTNProductions]

THAT isnt wholly true either.

spoken as someone whos background is in classic country radio

Most classic country stations will focus on 70s to 90s .... some in bigger cities will do 80s 90s

If you find a station playing mainly 60s and 70s its a much smaller in dependently owned independently programmed station but even those are probably only playing a few 60s here and there as oh wow tunes.. and only the bigger ones.

60s country just sounds way too old to be really commercially viable full time.


Compare a 60s classic country tune to an 80s.. vast difference in sound... and you dont wanna ram an early 60s tune next to a mid 80s tune on air, itll KILL the momentum and mood.

If i was programming a commercial classic country station now, id focus on mid 70s to mid 90s..... kinda depends on who my competitors are.. if theyre all hot country and nothing before about 2010.. id go up to the early 2000s with my classic country station, playing the newer songs that sound old... but i wouldnt go much farther back than the mid 70s except in a very very very rare, big well known oh wow tune.

But if i didnt have any true local competition. .big signals form out of market, etc.....i would maybe go back a few more years than the mid 70s and woudl feel out the market on the late 90s/early 2000s stuff

When i did afternoons on a country station, we were a 60/70 vs 40/30 mix of new vs old.. but our old didnt go back too much farther then the mid 70s. though when i did the old time jukebox, id play stuff as old as the 40s once in a blue moon, from time to time played 50s and playd 60s all the time.... why?

Bigfoot and Froggy on all sides of us were all top 40 hot country. i reacted to what my competitors were or werent doing

The only place to listen to classic country is listen to Kevin Richards where he hosted the “Classic Country Hall of Fame” every Saturday morning on WMML’s “Big Country 97.9”. He plays nothing but the best in classic country music like the way it sounded back in the good old days of WHN, WYNY and most likely WPDH when it was a country station at the time.

I listened to Kevin Richards every Saturday morning and it sounds excellent.

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

The only place to listen to classic country is listen to Kevin Richards where he hosted the “Classic Country Hall of Fame” every Saturday morning on WMML’s “Big Country 97.9”. He plays nothing but the best in classic country music like the way it sounded back in the good old days of WHN, WYNY and most likely WPDH when it was a country station at the time.

I listened to Kevin Richards every Saturday morning and it sounds excellent.

Ah, au contraire... I play classic country on KSKO every morning 7 to 8am, 8 to 9 is newer country... and the 7pm hour is stuff alot of other stations won't touch. We're NPr, so we can be different. We stream at www.kskopublicradio.com and are 4 hours behind eastern.

 

[R.D.P.]

Ah, au contraire... I play classic country on KSKO every morning 7 to 8am, 8 to 9 is newer country... and the 7pm hour is stuff alot of other stations won't touch. We're NPr, so we can be different. We stream at www.kskopublicradio.com and are 4 hours behind eastern.

I can do you one better, @SomeRadioGuy. I play many of the classic Christian and Gospel songs, that no one else will even touch. I've been know to play songs from the early days of Southern Gospel, as a great example and continue to do so. I play a few classic Soul Gospel tunes from the 50s to the late 2000s. Play a few classic CCM songs from the 70s to the late 2000s. I also play other styles of music and songs that otherwise wouldn't get airtime on the other "Big Boys Styled" stations. My own playlist isn't all new music only. It's much more than that.

Dan <><

P.S. I'm now adding the entire catalog of the Johnny Cash Gospel collection. I can play him because I'm a rebel and don't have to answer to some earthly suit and tie person. Mr. Cash is my kind of singer anyway. Love what he stood for. That man was indeed " A Rebel" in the music business.

So...If you're looking for a radio station that's completely different, I'm your go to guy. Intend to keep it that way for a long time to come.​