How did old Cincinnati top 40 stations acquire and store their music?

[NoWayNoCC]

How did top 40 stations in Cincinnati - particularly in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s - acquire and store the music they played?

I know Q-102 had vinyl albums and 12-inch promo singles, which I discovered from the time they unloaded their record library onto NKU. But I assume they had copied the records to cart for broadcast use back before they switched to CD's. I also assume they got their records straight from the record labels. Also, I noticed the records they unloaded at NKU had a little sticker on the side with a number printed with a dot matrix printer. It was a clue as to the inner workings of Q-102.

I'm pretty sure WCLU played 45's over the air without copying them to cart, since records used to skip all the time there. I thought someone here said WCLU had to go to a record store to buy their records, but I remember a couple of songs they played being the promo single version. I think they used a version of "Dress You Up" for a while that was only found on a promo single. But how did they store their records to keep them in such pristine condition?

When 105.9 was top 40 around 1984-85, I think they claimed to be the first station in the area to use CD's.

I have no clue about WLAP-FM Lexington, which I was able to pick up here.

What about some of the other stations that came and went?

 

[davideduardo]

How did top 40 stations in Cincinnati - particularly in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s - acquire and store the music they played?

Depends on the era.

70's and into the 80's, most of us had our music on carts. Stations with big album libraries, like AAA or Classical, used LPs.

By the later 80's and into the 90's, we played off of CDs. Then we got systems like AudioVault and put our libraries on hard drives .

Stations in larger markets got "promo copies" of songs and albums from labels. Free. Smaller markets bought services that provided new releases. In the 70's, they were on tape. By the later 80's, they were on CDs. Examples of the subscription services were TM Century's "Hit Disk" subscription services where a subscriber got 15-20 new cuts a week from all the labels.

In bigger markets, bigger stations could get lots of albums or CDs to give away on the air, too.

I know Q-102 had vinyl albums and 12-inch promo singles, which I discovered from the time they unloaded their record library onto NKU. But I assume they had copied the records to cart for broadcast use back before they switched to CD's. I also assume they got their records straight from the record labels.

In the big markets, yes. When vinyl was the norm, we copied to carts to avoid cue burn and other noise from over-used vinyl.

Also, I noticed the records they unloaded at NKU had a little sticker on the side with a number printed with a dot matrix printer. It was a clue as to the inner workings of Q-102.

Likely the ID used for the song in early computer music scheduling systems.

I'm pretty sure WCLU played 45's over the air without copying them to cart, since records used to skip all the time there. I thought someone here said WCLU had to go to a record store to buy their records, but I remember a couple of songs they played being the promo single version. I think they used a version of "Dress You Up" for a while that was only found on a promo single. But how did they store their records to keep them in such pristine condition?

Small station in big markets did not get record company service. As to keeping them clean, maybe the vinyl you saw was the library copy, used to dub to cart.

 

[TheBigA]

I also assume they got their records straight from the record labels.

One factor in where radio got their music was whether or not they're a chart reporter. To become a chart reporter, a radio station has to be top rated in their format, and make music decisions locally. They also have to play a certain percentage of currents. At one time, there were lots of record charts for radio stations to report their airplay. Today there are basically two: Billboard and Mediabase. But at one time there were more, and if you qualified as a reporter, record labels wanted to not only get you their music, but they wanted the ability to call you and convince you to play their music. That relationship continues today. The goal is to increase "spins" or airplay as a song moves up the chart.

At the same time, I'm aware of non-reporters that had to buy their music at the store, or subscribe to music delivery services. Once CDs were available, TM Century offered their HitDiscs to stations. CDX was another music delivery service. More recently, physical delivery has been replaced by online distribution.

 

[davideduardo]

At the same time, I'm aware of non-reporters that had to buy their music at the store, or subscribe to music delivery services. Once CDs were available, TM Century offered their HitDiscs to stations.

Before CD delivery, we had companies doing music services on reel to reel tape or even on disks going further back. The largest labels also had subscription services for a fee to get new releases which were targeted at smaller stations and smaller markets.

 

[TheBigA]

Before CD delivery, we had companies doing music services on reel to reel tape or even on disks going further back. The largest labels also had subscription services for a fee to get new releases which were targeted at smaller stations and smaller markets.

Both of those things are what infuriated smaller stations when MusicFirst and the RIAA started to campaign for a new music royalty that would be paid by all radio stations. The small stations felt they were already paying because they had to buy the music they were playing. They resented having to pay labels for that music twice.