Future of 1210 AM in Philadelphia

[FredLeonard]

So I guess the only good mom & pop stations are the ones that have no ratings and no money. Several of those around Philly too. All on AM.

Wall to wall elevator music ain't radio.

Lots of corporate stations have no ratings and no money. That's radio in the 21st century. I don't know of any good "mom and pop" or "hobby stations" that are any good and very few of any type.

 

[TheBigA]

Wall to wall elevator music ain't radio.

Tell that to the people of Philadelphia. They love WBEB.

 

[davideduardo]

F

Everybody gushes about Jerry Lee. He and Lowry Mays started out at the same time. Each with one station. He still has one station. Anti-automation? Sure doesn't sound like it. Computer-generated elevator music.

Jerry Lee and his partner bought WDVR in, IIRC, 1961. Lawry Mays got into radio in the mid-70's. Nearly a decade and a half of difference.

Jerry Lee decided not to expand by choice. He certainly had the money and the opportunity, going back to the late 60's when FMs were cheap and WDVR was profitable.

Jerry worked with FM when FM was not cool. He had one of the world's first profitable FMs, and his management was crucial in developing the Beautiful Busic format with programmer Marlin Taylor and then with Phil Stout (Marlin went on to develop the Bonneville Beautiful Music format, and Stout worked with Jim Shulke at SRP doing the same).

Through the WEAZ and then WBEB years, Jerry knew exactly how to keep the station at the top of the ratings. He is likely the most consistent user of research in the industry, keeping a close track on listener needs. He's done some pioneering TV advertising and is considered the person to emulate in that area.

The programming is anything but "computer generated". It has stood up against direct and tangential attacks from the big guys, including Clear's relatively recent attempt to knock it off with "Sunny". Nobody has been able to dethrone this station in its 50 years of extreme success.

Playing less-strident adult pop (they are definitely not elevator music today) fills a definite listener need, as evidenced by the ratings. Not every person wants news and information, and providing a well crafted music source is every bit as rewarding, challenging and difficult.

 

[Ravens]

I think we've learned one thing from this discussion. All radio stations are owned by evil people. Whether it's a large corporation or a family. Everyone except Fred is wrong and evil.

 

[gr8oldies]

So if we handed a high powered license to a mom and pop owner, and mom and pop talked about potholes and city council meetings before every spot break, apparently it would be number one? I worked for some of these stations in the 70s and 80s, and it was not Utopia. Mom and Pop didn't pay anything and if there was insurance at all, it sucked. I got blown out of one because a sales manager wanted a different voice. I was 400 miles away from home with an 8-months-pregnant wife. You want to tell me warm, fuzzy stories about how all was great with Mom and Pop? Really? Like if we could hand these stations to Mom and Pop we'd all be rehired as 60-year-old Top 40 jocks. Not likely

 

[Ravens]

Like if we could hand these stations to Mom and Pop we'd all be rehired as 60-year-old Top 40 jocks.

You, sir, hit the nail on the head.

 

[davideduardo]

Wall to wall elevator music ain't radio.

No, WBEB is not just radio. It is great radio run by an enormously competent single station owner.

Lots of corporate stations have no ratings and no money. That's radio in the 21st century.

Lot's of stations were acquired by the larger broadcasters as part of packages that included some bad or mediocre AMs and some rimshot or marginal Class A FMs.

One product of the recession has been a relative inability to dispose of such properties. iHeart has even resorted to giving some of them away... look at 1310 in Detroit as an example.

Of course, companies such as Multicultural and Salem have a business model that is very, very profitable without the need for ratings. And some of the religious groups such as Immaculate Heart are making good use of mediocre AM stations without the need for ad sales or ratings.

I don't know of any good "mom and pop" or "hobby stations" that are any good and very few of any type.

Very, very few stations are "hobbys" in any situation. Ego-driven stations pretty much went out with Earle C Anthony.

There are plenty of stations in smaller communities where the owner knows that being active in the community, supporting local organizations and local businesses and being an overall booster is both satisfying and profitable. As I said, the late Paul Sidney proved that at WLNG over a period of more than 4 decades. And, like WLNG there are many more such stations... WLNG is just very visible as it operates from within the New York City MSA and is a good, profitable radio station.

While "Swap Shop" and the local births and obituaries and arrests may make dull big market radio*, they do serve a real purpose in smaller communities and make for great local radio.

Of course, "good radio" is in the ears of the listener.

* There are even exceptions to this. I did "Swap Shop" (with a different name) on a 50 kw Los Angeles AM "in recent times" on a Saturday morning and the show was #1 in the key adult demos of 18-49 and 25-54 among 87 "home" stations and dozens of out of market signals.

 

[davideduardo]

I think we've learned one thing from this discussion. All radio stations are owned by evil people. Whether it's a large corporation or a family. Everyone except Fred is wrong and evil.

It's deeper. Anyone who owns a radio station must have money. Anyone with money is evil, because there are people who can't work in radio any more who forgot to put money away for such a time and neglected to stash some cash in a 401k when it was an option. And that opens the door to "haves and have-nots" and "one percenters" and the general area of redistribution of wealth.

 

[FredLeonard]

Very, very few stations are "hobbys" in any situation. Ego-driven stations pretty much went out with Earle C Anthony.

Anthony died in 1961. It's a stretch to call the KFI/KECA duopoly "hobby radio." G.M. Richards, however, would qualify. In any case, hobby stations survived long enough in this area to provide grist for this very board.

Wall to Wall Muzak ain't radio. I don't care how much money the owner makes. Money is no sign of quality, integrity or creativity.

Clear Channel gave away a station they didn't want, had no use for and couldn't sell. So, they took a tax break and call themselves philanthropists. Last I heard, the station was still silent. But even with a lousy signal, with talented, creative people and an enlightened owner they became number one in the market. And it was with personalities, hustle and production, not wall to wall automated music.

 

[JeffM]

I think we've learned one thing from this discussion. All radio stations are owned by evil people. Whether it's a large corporation or a family. Everyone except Fred is wrong and evil.

Commercial radio sucks, public radio sucks worse, and college radio sucks worst of all. Why doesn't he just give up and go drive a dump truck instead?

 

[TheBigA]

Wall to Wall Muzak ain't radio. I don't care how much money the owner makes. Money is no sign of quality, integrity or creativity.

But AUDIENCE is. The fact that this station attracts large numbers of people is a sign of quality and integrity. Especially given the number of choices available in the market. The best always wins, no?

 

[davideduardo]

Anthony died in 1961. It's a stretch to call the KFI/KECA duopoly "hobby radio." G.M. Richards, however, would qualify. In any case, hobby stations survived long enough in this area to provide grist for this very board.

I did not say KECA / KFI was a hobby station; I said it was an ego-driven operation that was fueled by a very rich car dealer. It was also a bit of a rivalry with another car dealer with a radio station in the same market.

Wall to Wall Muzak ain't radio. I don't care how much money the owner makes. Money is no sign of quality, integrity or creativity.

FIrst, WBEB is hardly "Muzak" as it is a personality AC station with a fun morning show and live personalities and lots of promotions. WBEB has not been "Beautiful Music" for 26 years.

And, in any case, programming "Beautiful Music" in the late 60's to late 80's prime years of that format was very much radio. Stations groups and syndicators spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on custom versions of pop songs, programmers spent thousands of hours creating the right flow and feel for the music. And it was the format that most helped bring FM into the mainstream when many markets had a couple of Beautiful Music stations in the top 10... sometimes even in the top 5. It's was as challenging to program Beautiful Music as talk or news or Top 40.

Clear Channel gave away a station they didn't want, had no use for and couldn't sell. So, they took a tax break and call themselves philanthropists.

I doubt they got a tax break for two reasons. First, AM assets have pretty much all been through impairment charges and ones like Keener were likely valued at very minimal levels. Second, after interest, iHeart does not make money, so there is no tax saving in making a donation. 1310 is not the only station iHeart has given for the purpose of being given to a minority operated community group.

Last I heard, the station was still silent. But even with a lousy signal, with talented, creative people and an enlightened owner they became number one in the market. And it was with personalities, hustle and production, not wall to wall automated music.

From the data I can see, Keener was only #1 for a couple of surveys in 1964 in Hooper, using a very restricted metro geography. By 1966, The Big 8 had rolled over them in Arbitron, which began in Detroit in 1965 using a larger metro survey area. The signal has been pretty useless for the growing suburbs since the 50's when urban sprawl moved Detroit outwards and away from the station's signal.

 

[FredLeonard]

Well, we probably won't agree on this either, but I considered CKLW and Drake programmed stations, in general, an abomination. Keener was a class act. In the class act top 40 department, second only to the Draper-programmed late 60s Voice of Labor.

Class acts in Philly:
WCAU 1958 to 1976
KYW 1965-1980
Wibbage 1970-1973
WPEN 1975-1978
WIP 1970-1981
WFLN
WMMR 1968-1976
NJ 101.5 1990-2011

 

[davideduardo]

Well, we probably won't agree on this either, but I considered CKLW and Drake programmed stations, in general, an abomination.

The true Drake stations were anything but an abomination. They took the spirit of Top 40 and gave it new life. The amount of work and dedication that went into working with the air personalities to say more in less time was tremendous. And due to that, the stations had a feel and flow that was unmatched even when imitated.

Many think the Drake stations took personality out of radio. What they did was take the lazy, disjointed "personality" out, and replaced it with clear, concise and well polished performances only the very best talents could accomplish.

I remember flying 3,500 miles north to LA in '65 to hear KHJ after I read about it in the trades. Once I realized that the key to the sound was brevity and economy of words without sacrificing content or listener involvement, I thought, "can I work with my station's team to achieve something like that?" Probably because I was only about 19 at the time I did not realize how hard that would be; it took over a year of work to achieve something even approaching what Drake and Jacobs did with KHJ.

The real Drake stations were absolute marvels. My personal favorite early on was Tom Rounds programmed KFRC, but they were all terrific stations.

 

[FredLeonard]

I would hardly call Keener's air talent "lazy" or "disjointed." Nor the great early top 40 personality jocks.

 

[davideduardo]

I would hardly call Keener's air talent "lazy" or "disjointed." Nor the great early top 40 personality jocks.

Nearly everywhere, whether it was KFWB and KRLA, WHK, WKNR, WMPS or KEWB, the Top 40's had become rather loose, with personalities who equated that term with "more talk". The Drake stations put much more forward momentum into the format, cut back the long jingle-songs and got the talent in and out with far more poignant comments.

 

[gr8oldies]

So what a station like WBEB should do is what? Get rid of what's working and hire long winded jocks who ring cowbells? Stop down the format for live coverage of school board meetings? Have jocks doing long produced comedy bits? You tell me it's not radio if it doesn't sound like 1964?
In any of these threads I don't see a suggestion of what they should do instead of what they're doing, and given the choices that are out there, why? Stopping a country format in drive time for a half hour public affairs show? Listeners can turn that off in a second

 

[FredLeonard]

Once again, people parrot the industry line/conventional wisdom and call it expertise.

As soon as radio's golden age ended and radio became about personality DJs, management has tried to diminish their role (their influence and their paychecks). Stations hired top jocks away from competitors and audiences followed them. First the payola scandal allowed management to take music selection away from jocks (and collect "incentives" from record companies themselves). The consultants like Drake allowed management to take the personality away from air personalities - to make them interchangeable - to transfer listener loyalty from the jock to the station. Management made it difficult - often impossible - for air talent to command salaries or to take listeners with them. All that was required were decent pipes and the ability to give time-temperature-call letters for a four hour shift.

One way to accomplish this was to spread the lie (based on zero evidence) that "listeners" claimed jocks talked too much. The same listeners who followed jocks from one station to the next, who quoted them the next day and who remember them fondly half a century later.

How do you tell when managers lie?
Their lips are moving.

Hey, Oldies: Who said anything about public affairs in drive time - 50 years ago or now? Can't make your argument without twisting things, eh? No, radio today doesn't have to sound like 1964. But radio now sure doesn't sound like radio. And synethedroid elevator music offers nothing anyone can't get better from Pandora.

 

[gr8oldies]

Never occurs t anyone that different people like different things? Some might want a lot of talk and some don't? Some of those elevator music stations sat in a corner, clicked and whirred, and were number one. I guess someone forgot to tell those listeners that they needed the "Joe Blow Show" with "Joe Blow" playing his personal favorite Mantovani records and doing comedy bits between them. That appears to be what you want, not a station that's consistent, but block programmed DJ shows with show intros, a lot of talk, and those DJs hand picking their personal favorites. I don't see how that works today.

 

[FredLeonard]

Never occurs t anyone that different people like different things? Some might want a lot of talk and some don't? Some of those elevator music stations sat in a corner, clicked and whirred, and were number one. I guess someone forgot to tell those listeners that they needed the "Joe Blow Show" with "Joe Blow" playing his personal favorite Mantovani records and doing comedy bits between them. That appears to be what you want, not a station that's consistent, but block programmed DJ shows with show intros, a lot of talk, and those DJs hand picking their personal favorites. I don't see how that works today.

Again twisting things. Quantity of talk and quality of talk are two different things. Whether a station has a consistent format or blocks is also a different issue than whether it has personality jocks. But these are equated in the industry line to justify getting rid of personality jocks. If you want to argue about this stuff, fine. But you keep making up stuff you can argue against. I guess that's the only way you can win an argument. Sad.

Another issue not mentioned (can't wait to see how you'll twist this one): Selling. Personality jocks sold product. Personality jocks were foreground radio; not background radio (for supermarkets and dentists' offices). People listened to jocks, often believed what they said and generally remembered the advertisers' message - because they paid attention. And, oh yes, personality jocks weren't do five minute stop sets from which listeners tune out completely (figuratively and literally). One reason management likes stop-sets is to get rid of jocks, who once wove spots into shows. Listeners hate them and advertisers are short-changed. One reason why both groups have bailed out on radio.

And personality jocks did not play their "favorite records." The good ones were showmen and they knew how to reach an audience, often better than the PDs who took over that function. They also realized that the audience composition changes over the course of a day and a station should not sound same all the time.