It was 20 years ago tonight...

[Robert Bass]

It's also interesting to note . . . with regards to all the discussions lately here concerning billboards, promotions, giveaways, etc. . . . that KLTY has just announced a contest where they will be giving away a new car during the next few weeks. I didn't catch all the details earlier today, but it involves calling in at the right time and then answering a question correctly in order to get a key which might "start your brand new car!"

Hmmmm Interesting. I received a possible winning key, via snail mail. Perhaps it's related to that contest? I'll try locating that mailing again, and see if there's any more info.

R

 

[easttxtv]

You first said, "20 years ago tonight"...I was thinking--
I'm working late at Western Auto again?

And you admitted it... That had to be a trip of a job, and let's see, the minimum wage was what again? The mind-numbing, get-rich-quick sum of $3.35! (not that you made that, of course, you're much more enterprising than that)....

, and I was meeting up that evening with an ex-pal who owed me $2,000. (He still does.) It was a Monday. Hey, I keep great notes.

Enterprising, and you pick friends well, too 8)

Now if you're talking 9/7/1985, this was the evening that the old dance show, "Sump'n Else," had its 20th anniversary reunion at The Galleria. Ron Chapman hosted, of course; Channel 8 carried a couple of hours of it, and KVIL simulcasted the whole thing.

Too bad I didn't have a VCR then (I only got to see just a little bit of the show)--guess I wouldn't be in the market at the time with those astronomical sums of - you guessed it - minimum wage piling up at such a record rate !!

 

[little1]

Deregulation, consultants, focus-groups, music testing, corporate targets, and budget cuts aren't the only things that changed radio. And the only thing that's certain is that 2027 will look just as different from today as today does from 1987.

Thanks for backing up the point I was trying to make. It seems like a vast majority of the posters here complain about what radio has become today, and blame it on the dereg, CONsultants, music testing and the like.

Where in reality a lot of it can be traced to changes in teh economy, changes in the competitive landscape, etc...(After all, let's count the number of signals that didn't even exist as semi-viable alternatives from 85 to 2007- Twister and Bone are the 2 that come innediately to mind, and I know there's a bunch on AM too...)

Want to know why more stations aren't live and local 24-7? Want to know why more stations rely on shows satellited in from out of town? Look at the differences...

20+ years ago 10 stations were drawing SIXTY percent of the available audience. Which probably translated to well over 60% of the available revenue.

Now, you probably need to go to 16-20 stations to get 60+% of the share/revenue. And that means that all those stations are having to do the same or more with less.

When KVIl was billing 10-20 million and beating the competition by 2 full shares they could justify 'over the top' promotions to keep them there. But can they justify spending millions now for a minor increase in cume? I think not...

Blame deregulation and CON sultants if you like. But realize we're not going back to those days. And it's either adapt and overcome, or get out of the buisness...And does whining about it here really hep you adapt?

 

[ropertex]

The signal was PATHETIC. 94.5 still suffers today!!

But was/is quite good in Gainesville, the city of license!

 

[TheRover]

I'm trying to remember a "musical" contribution of KVIL----

But Nothing....

However.... MANY Contests and Bumper Stickers and Soccer Moms.....

 

[jdean]

Up until the early 80's KVIL did alot of musically unusual or risky things for an AC station. True, it was never the pure focus of the station - but the other things the station did could not have worked without the right tunes to go with it. Sometimes that was Chapman playing an artist you would hear no where else. Sometimes it was Selden playfully profaning the playlist. More than once it was Cat Simon stretching formatic logic. I can even recall a highly-promoted live Willie Nelson concept well before Nelson began to cross over from Country and Outlaw. The overall theme was always entertainment - music included - and for about ten years the numbers indicated the package worked.

Ultimately, caution changed that. Trying to sit on a lead didn't work. A good example was Springsteen's Dancing In the Dark, which was only added four or five years after it had been a smash. By that time, the station was trying the slogan "So much more than JUST music"...not realizing that for many potential new listeners "just music" was exactly where tastes had run. There was no catching up.

 

[Robert Bass]

Speaking of Chapman...

Many years ago during the pre Fox4 affiliation days, channel 4 news ran a week long segment called "FM in the AM". It was a synopsis of the then-popular DFW radio morning jocks. On the profile about Chapman, Mary Rodgers (the reporter) stated that Chapman once apologized to his listeners for playing an "awful song by a man named Elvis" (Presley).

Just curious, what was the song?

R

 

[snoman]

To use their own promotion against them (it used to be my signature)...

"It's a shame what's happened to 'KVIL' "

The whole station was full of personality plus people. Music, Promotions, Personalities... they had it all.

When I was up in Dallas last weekend, I literally wanted to cry. It used to be my favorite market... KVIL, K104, 100.3 JAMZ, Q102, KZEW, 97.1 THE EAGLE, 99 1/2 KPLEX... all of them gone (and yeah I knew that before this weekend, but reality really sets in when you are scanning through the dial).

K104 is NOT the same K104 as it was in the 80's & 90's. All it is now is a glorified Rap station. I didn't hear one R&B song the whole time I was there. KVIL is "Lite" and that's the key word, Lite on everything. 100.3 JAMZ was such a great station. Q102 & THE EAGLE are just among several Rock stations that Clear Channel threw under the bus, because they simply are programmed badly in the South. I'll never understand that. KZEW will always be a sore subject for me, as I never really understood why they ditched the format for AC?! And, 99 1/2 KPLEX had some ratings issues, I know, but I always thought they did a better job with the music back then, than they do now. Not to mention, the station's name fit the DFW market, better than "The Wolf".

It's just aggravating, because some of these format changes didn't need to happen when they did. And, yet some of these horrible stations are allowed to continue without change.

 

[VERITAS DE VOCE]

I think this is an avenue of posting in which we are all in agreeance. It's not "Good Ol' Day" syndrome, but rather acknowledging the facts. It was a better time in radio back then. There seemed to be more care about the listeners (much to Dean's response about Flower Mound), the formats were more distinct and true to form and the uber-corps didn't have that much to say... oh wait, they didn't.

Yeah, now with dereg, formats are more homogenized and the classic "on air personality" is a relic.

Personally, I blame everything for that but perhaps I should just stick to the trusty iPod and check out my Bruce Hornsby selection, "That's just the way it is" 8)

 

[jdean]

Back in the very old days the record companies used to ship sampler albums rather than 45's. Very often you'd simply drop the tone arm in the first groove and let the LP track. Ron was at the very dawn of his career back East and in the restroom when - between the Perry Como and Rosemary Clooney - the album he was tracking suddenly produced a sound no one had ever heard before. Running back to the control room, he let the turntable wind down on the air - opened the mic, examined the playlist, and ruefully announced to the world that it would never hear from THAT artist again.

It was Hound Dog, by Elvis Presley.

It was much later I think that he adopted the saying that applies not only to changing music, but changing radio. "Things are as they are, not as we wish them to be." In recent years, he's added the coda "And that's okay".

These ARE the good old days.

 

[317C50KW]

[Now if you're talking 9/7/1985, this was the evening that the old dance show, "Sump'n Else," had its 20th anniversary reunion at The Galleria. Ron Chapman hosted, of course; Channel 8 carried a couple of hours of it, and KVIL simulcasted the whole thing.

That was fun television. I mixed the broadcast audio from one of the John Crowe trucks in the bowels of the Gallaria that night. On the 60's "Sump'n Else" Ron had a button his podium that would set off a light in the control room so the engineer
would start the next record. It got pulled out of retirement for that occasion and if you watch a tape of the reuion show you'll see Ron demonstratively pushing the button. And like Pavlov's dog, I hit the cart. A camera was run to the top of the Westin hotel aiming down at the skylight over the ice rink for a 1980's version of a "wow" shot. Since steereo had not been approved for TV in 1985, the show aired in Mono on 8 and in full stereo on KVIL. I remember setting up my at the time fancy Panasonic VHS-HI-FI recorder at home to get the video from 8 and the audio from the radio. Worked perfectly and I've still got the tape someplace. Crossroads Audio handled the live sound at the rink, they were always great to work with. The show aired from 9 to 10 that night, and resumed at 10:30 to 11:30 interupted by the 10 o'clock news. Bob Brock wrote in the Times-Herald that the show won its time period from 9 to 10, but was edged out by 'wrasslin' on Channel 11 at 10:30.

On September 8, much of what was the Dallas North Parkway was closed to allow for the coonstruction of the tollway extention.

Thanks for mentioning that Mike.

 

[Chuck]

[Now if you're talking 9/7/1985, this was the evening that the old dance show, "Sump'n Else," had its 20th anniversary reunion at The Galleria. Ron Chapman hosted, of course; Channel 8 carried a couple of hours of it, and KVIL simulcasted the whole thing.

That was fun television. I mixed the broadcast audio from one of the John Crowe trucks in the bowels of the Gallaria that night. On the 60's "Sump'n Else" Ron had a button his podium that would set off a light in the control room so the engineer
would start the next record. It got pulled out of retirement for that occasion and if you watch a tape of the reuion show you'll see Ron demonstratively pushing the button. And like Pavlov's dog, I hit the cart. A camera was run to the top of the Westin hotel aiming down at the skylight over the ice rink for a 1980's version of a "wow" shot. Since steereo had not been approved for TV in 1985, the show aired in Mono on 8 and in full stereo on KVIL. I remember setting up my at the time fancy Panasonic VHS-HI-FI recorder at home to get the video from 8 and the audio from the radio. Worked perfectly and I've still got the tape someplace. Crossroads Audio handled the live sound at the rink, they were always great to work with. The show aired from 9 to 10 that night, and resumed at 10:30 to 11:30 interupted by the 10 o'clock news. Bob Brock wrote in the Times-Herald that the show won its time period from 9 to 10, but was edged out by 'wrasslin' on Channel 11 at 10:30.

On September 8, much of what was the Dallas North Parkway was closed to allow for the coonstruction of the tollway extention.

Thanks for mentioning that Mike.

I'd pretty well forgotten the details, but I was the house engineer that evening, since I owned Crossroads Audio at the time. It WAS a fun evening. There were lots of old friends to see and the show was a really good one. Chapman handled it like the pro he was. He was always good to work with in a live situation. He had the gift to cover anything that went wrong and make it look like it was supposed to be that way. I’ve always admired people who could do that. It seems to be a lost art, but one that broadcasting used to be built on.

I think I still have a Betamax tape of the broadcast sitting around somewhere. I guess I need to look for it one of these days.

I sold Crossroads several years ago, but I hope the new owners are still good to work with. They have done a lot of upgrading and seem to be doing very well.

Thanks for the memories.