in talking about the changes at wls-fm

[cspotrun]

just curious...who decided that "Classic Hits" would morph into a Male oriented "Rock" format, with White t-40 bands from the 70's & 80's, eliminating most if not all black t-40 or R&B? and i'm not talking about just wls-fm, it seems to be a trend, and quite honestly losing black top-40 has made the format less fun.

 

[Dr Wayne]

I have read suggestions that WLS may flip to Country! Certainly Chicago could entertain another Country Stationhere in Chiago. It has been tried before with "Kick Country" which failed. That may increase their billing. I still believe they are sittting on a Gold Mine with the top DJ's in the country.

 

[rbrown]

They already did so with Nash FM in New York...maybe that could happen in Chicago. I just don't think they can overtake US 995.

 

[radioman148]

They already did so with Nash FM in New York...maybe that could happen in Chicago. I just don't think they can overtake US 995.

WLS-FM should've stuck to what they were doing before they changed to classic hits. Their ratings in their target demo were higher a year ago and they've been overtaken in that demo by WJMK.
Jan Jeffries ego can't be tamed.

 

[carolinaradio]

Glad to see WJMK beating them. They're a much better sounding station, IMO. CBS does a fantastic job with the format. 104.3 was "the" oldies station in Chicago for years, remember.

 

[cspotrun]

i was hoping someone could comment or give an answer as to why oldies has morphed into a Male Oriented white boy t-40 rock type of format with, all but eliminating Black t-40 music of the era.. not all black music from the era was disco, so WHO decided this was going to be what the format IS going forward? as i said before i think it makes Classic Hits now not as fun without Black top-40 in the mix...

 

[davideduardo]

i was hoping someone could comment or give an answer as to why oldies has morphed into a Male Oriented white boy t-40 rock type of format with, all but eliminating Black t-40 music of the era.. not all black music from the era was disco, so WHO decided this was going to be what the format IS going forward? as i said before i think it makes Classic Hits now not as fun without Black top-40 in the mix...

Generally, when a format morphs in that fashion, the reason is generally that research with listeners has shown which songs to stop playing and which ones to ad or to play more. It's definitely not arbitrary.

 

[cspotrun]

i was hoping someone could comment or give an answer as to why oldies has morphed into a Male Oriented white boy t-40 rock type of format with, all but eliminating Black t-40 music of the era.. not all black music from the era was disco, so WHO decided this was going to be what the format IS going forward? as i said before i think it makes Classic Hits now not as fun without Black top-40 in the mix...

Generally, when a format morphs in that fashion, the reason is generally that research with listeners has shown which songs to stop playing and which ones to ad or to play more. It's definitely not arbitrary.

i could make a case for eliminating disco, because i personally don't like it much, but disco is not what i'm talking about here. i've yet to see research that says Black music from the 70's & 80's is not what anyone wants to hear. if you know of such research please cite it for all of us. (i won't be holding my breath)

 

[davideduardo]

i could make a case for eliminating disco, because i personally don't like it much, but disco is not what i'm talking about here. i've yet to see research that says Black music from the 70's & 80's is not what anyone wants to hear. if you know of such research please cite it for all of us. (i won't be holding my breath)

Stations and station groups do their own proprietary research. They don't share it for competitive reasons.

Nobody asks listeners "do you want to hear Black music from the 70's and 80's". They ask, song by song, using "hooks" or snippets of each song, how much a person wants to hear each song on the radio today.

A "photo tour" of how this sort of testing is done is found at

http://www.americanradiohistory.com/research_AMT.htm

So, if a specific station does research with its specific target listeners and finds that very few "Black songs" from the 70's and 80's test well, they will play very few.

Similarly, if they find that "In the Navy" tests very well, as surprising as it might be to many of us, they will play the song because there is interest and a positive acceptance for the song.

Nobody will present you with music test results. Since the typical 500 song test costs in the vicinity of $35,000 to do, and a 1000 song test costs around $45,000 to $50,000 you are not going to get the data for free, particularly since revealing that data is "a firing offense" at most stations.

 

[cspotrun]

it would depend on what Black music they are presenting for tests, and the makeup of the people in the test. (i don't think too many black folks are into the eagles and journey, compared to what is being played)... i'm sure many stations and PD's are not testing but rather following the crowd due to costs, not everybody does music tests, in fact over the past 10 years in clusters of stations and several PD's none have done their own local music testing. if they get testing it comes from the home office(wherever it is) and since its not local, you can make of it what you will. bad testing and research(and that done 1000 miles away for another market) is worthless. there is no money or "People" to conduct it on a local basis.

 

[davideduardo]

there is no money or "People" to conduct it on a local basis.

Funny, but I sit in on the wrap-ups of a couple of local tests a week.

 

[Tom Wells]

WLS, going all the way back to beginning of the music format, has only ever included music recorded by black people
when there has been momentary popularity of a song, and then it is faded out at a faster rate than say, the Eagles
or Journey. That it is morphing into a "white-boy top 40" is a pretty fair characterization.
But WLUP pioneered that concept, and WDRV is trying to outdo them on as a "wbtf" station.
There really isn't any room for another of the same.

YMCA is an excellent example of a song that should be played because it is so polarizing!
The whole gay/disco/black feeling turned into a demolition event here in Chicago.
I think there are some PDs who are doing their best, as always, to make the hsitory of music so much simpler for listeners.
That's a nice way to put it.


From a long time back, WLS was ridiculed in Chicago's black neighborhoods as "White-Like-Snow".

 

[cspotrun]

there is no money or "People" to conduct it on a local basis.

Funny, but I sit in on the wrap-ups of a couple of local tests a week.

conducted by you or the poor bastard who is the only employee of the station wearing 5 different hats? what do you charge?

 

[cspotrun]

WLS, going all the way back to beginning of the music format, has only ever included music recorded by black people
when there has been momentary popularity of a song, and then it is faded out at a faster rate than say, the Eagles
or Journey. That it is morphing into a "white-boy top 40" is a pretty fair characterization.
But WLUP pioneered that concept, and WDRV is trying to outdo them on as a "wbtf" station.
There really isn't any room for another of the same.

YMCA is an excellent example of a song that should be played because it is so polarizing!
The whole gay/disco/black feeling turned into a demolition event here in Chicago.
I think there are some PDs who are doing their best, as always, to make the hsitory of music so much simpler for listeners.
That's a nice way to put it.


From a long time back, WLS was ridiculed in Chicago's black neighborhoods as "White-Like-Snow".

you Nailed it, and don't let D.E. tell you otherwise.... Classic Hits today has turned into Classic Rock "Lite" for baby boomer Men.

 

[davideduardo]

Funny, but I sit in on the wrap-ups of a couple of local tests a week.

conducted by you or the poor bastard who is the only employee of the station wearing 5 different hats? what do you charge?

Where did you acquire the XX-L chip you are wearing on your shoulder? Your comments would make it seem that there are no intelligent, knowledgeable people in radio anywhere. And that is far from the truth.

But to answer your question:

... conducted by a professional research company with its own staff, recruited by a professional recruiting firm with many employees and considerable experience in all kinds or consumer research.

... analyzed by a programming team, including group, cluster and station programmers and music directors.

... depending on the market and number of respondents, a test can run between $35 thousand and $60 thousand.

As posted previously, here is a photo tour of a test being conducted.

http://www.americanradiohistory.com/research_AMT.htm

These tests often used advanced technology and very sophisticated analytical techniques including factor/cluster analysis. It's not just an "I like it" kinda' thing.

 

[davideduardo]

YMCA is an excellent example of a song that should be played because it is so polarizing!
The whole gay/disco/black feeling turned into a demolition event here in Chicago.

First, disco was not "urban" or "r&b" music. Most disco did not get played on African American targeted stations unless it was urban first and dance later. Disco was Travolta, the Bee Gees and Casablanca Records, not an extension of Motown.

The "gay" thing is a stereotype. I'm not going there.

And, usually, songs like "Y.M.C.A" are simply not played due to high negatives. Some people may dislike them more than others, but if the song is not played on a particular station, it is because the song... not the genre... is going to do more harm than good.

I think there are some PDs who are doing their best, as always, to make the hsitory of music so much simpler for listeners.

Radio stations are not museums or history books. Music stations are entertainment sources, not classrooms. Listeners don't go to gold-based stations to learn about music... they go to hear songs they know and like and which make them feel good.

From a long time back, WLS was ridiculed in Chicago's black neighborhoods as "White-Like-Snow".

Gee, and for a long time WLS was the market's #1 station. Not every station can appeal to every age, ethnic group or subset of the population. If you played Beatles, Four Seasons and Beach Boys in the 60's, you were not going to get many Black listeners, no matter how many Four Tops and Superemes songs you also played. Get over it.

 

[davideduardo]

Classic Hits today has turned into Classic Rock "Lite" for baby boomer Men.

The youngest baby boomer turns 50 this year. 70% of baby boomers are over 55 today.

Stations are not targeting baby boomers directly, as there is no money in it.

 

[briancraig]

Except for the era (late 60s/early 70s) when John Rook was PD, WLS was always very white. Considering the demographics of Chicago, I never understood why this was the case. WABC and KHJ certainly played lots of R & B crossover.

"If you played Beatles, Four Seasons and Beach Boys in the 60's, you were not going to get many Black listeners, no matter how many Four Tops and Superemes songs you also played"

You might in cases where the soul station was a daytimer. When he was working nights in Mobile, Scott Shannon was friendly with the afternoon dj at the market's only black station daytimer WGOK. The dj would tell people to tune into Scott on WABB and his night time numbers were huge.

I also vaguely recall reading once about where a top 40 station had significant black listenership even where there was major R&B competition. It might have been WTIX in New Orleans or WMAK or WLAC in Nashville.

 

[davideduardo]

I also vaguely recall reading once about where a top 40 station had significant black listenership even where there was major R&B competition. It might have been WTIX in New Orleans or WMAK or WLAC in Nashville.

WMAK. That's where Scott did mornings and was PD after Joe Sullivan left.

And the station did pretty well in Black listenership, mostly because WVOL had such a bad signal... not even all of Davidson County by day, and a wretched night patter.

But even then, the Black listening was relatively small and came by default.

 

[secondchoice]

I also vaguely recall reading once about where a top 40 station had significant black listenership even where there was major R&B competition. It might have been WTIX in New Orleans or WMAK or WLAC in Nashville.

WMAK. That's where Scott did mornings and was PD after Joe Sullivan left.

And the station did pretty well in Black listenership, mostly because WVOL had such a bad signal... not even all of Davidson County by day, and a wretched night patter.

But even then, the Black listening was relatively small and came by default.

Having gone to high school in the Nashville market (Springfield) then going to USAF tech school in Biloxi MS briancraig posting brings back a few memories. IIRC WMAK had Russ Spooner doing morning drive until at least the summer of 1973. Scott was doing nights at WMAK. So I assume Scott took Russ's place when Russ went to WSB. WMAK was unique in that they would occasionally slip in a pre "southern rock" artist like Joe South and follow it up with a Motown tune. WMAK also played a lot of non Motown artists like Al Green, Spinners, Joe Simon and Aretha Franklin. When Dick Kent went over to WLAC for a while they were still doing some "Blues" latenight. I am not sure when John R left WLAC. WTIX did have a "soul" flavor as well and really came in well in Biloxi thanks to salt water in the Gulf. I do not know know if there was a R & B station in the New orleans market with a good night time signal in the 1960 & 70's. if there was I never heard it in Biloxi. (Weekend in New Orleans are a blur!) Another Southern Top 40 station that I heard that had a "soul" flavor was WFIL. Similar conditions to Nashville in that Chattanooga's soul station (WNOO?) lacked any significant night time signal. Living in Springfield TN we were out of WMAK's nighttime pattern so I tuned in to WLS at night, and IMHO WLS did not play that much Motown or other black artists at the time as compared the WMAK. Even in the late 1970's at nights they seemed not to play as much R & B, Motown, or "southern rock" Allman Brothers, Skynyrd, Charlie Daniels.