K-Mozart is back on 1260

[Street Novelist]

I think the Four Seasons would work well on a Classical station.

Good job sir

 

[TheBigA]

One of the bigger issues the management of a classical station has is that group of self-proclaimed "experts" who get mad when you use the Cleveland Symphony rendition rather than the New York version of a work. Or, heaven forbid, the St. Martin in the Fields version which is just a bit too sappy...

Cleveland wasn't bad. The Philadelphia under Ormandy was the worst. Duller than dull. But I always prefer Von Karajan.

 

[davideduardo]

Cleveland wasn't bad. The Philadelphia under Ormandy was the worst. Duller than dull. But I always prefer Von Karajan.

Cleveland under Szell was great. But he was only there until 1970, and good stereo classical recordings had not become prevalent enough for us to have a wealth of his material. Every time in season that I was in Cleveland, I attended.

 

[K6JHU]

MY daughter and I were just discussing sometime similar. The announcer said 'I prefer the XXXX version, but today we are going to listen to the YYYY version". Ouch!

 

[Miss Tuned]

That is not true. XHLNC did avoid the word classical on air calling it the world's biggest hits. So by your logic, if there was a classic rock station and you didn't call it classic rock on the air, it would fail because people would forget about it and because not calling it classic rock means nobody would be interested in listening..

The station had been set up by the Dad to be a classical station perpetually. It may have been a non-profit. In the end, there was lots of money missed by the frequency being classical versus a mass appeal station. When the station started, they were the only classical on the dial in areas of Southern California.

We had a commercial Jazz station back in the '90s, simply called "Jazz FM". They had bad ratings, did some research, and found out people didn't sample the station because the name put them off, so it became just "J-FM". It didn't last long before reverting, because what you're doing is getting people to sample the station with a super generic three-letter name, finding out it plays jazz all day, and they don't like jazz, so off it goes. Meanwhile, the people who do like jazz haven't got a clue what "J-FM" stands for.

 

[TomásEstefan]

One of the bigger issues the management of a classical station has is that group of self-proclaimed "experts" who get mad when you use the Cleveland Symphony rendition rather than the New York version of a work. Or, heaven forbid, the St. Martin in the Fields version which is just a bit too sappy...

They might indeed get mad if you play the Cleveland Orchestra rendition of anything with the late, great George Szell at the helm because those recordings were considered definitive, almost too good and therefore "beyond criticism" - so some of those folks might say: "there must be something wrong with them that people are just somehow missing".

 

[CTListener]

Who knew there were so many fans of classical music here? Now, what's our average age?

 

[K6JHU]

Look at the ratings. Dirty little secret about many classical stations being in the top ten of 6+

 

[K.M. Richards]

We had a commercial Jazz station back in the '90s, simply called "Jazz FM". They had bad ratings, did some research, and found out people didn't sample the station because the name put them off, so it became just "J-FM". It didn't last long before reverting, because what you're doing is getting people to sample the station with a super generic three-letter name, finding out it plays jazz all day, and they don't like jazz, so off it goes. Meanwhile, the people who do like jazz haven't got a clue what "J-FM" stands for.

That is a perfect example of what not to do, and why station management is often clueless about the right way to brand a station to attract a desired audience.

What that station obviously did not understand is that "Jazz-FM" was a perfect, simple positioner which told potential listeners who liked that music what to expect. But the justification for changing that -- too little sampling -- missed the point completely; people who didn't like Jazz weren't going to sample the station anyway, and changing the name drove away more sampling by potential listeners who did like the music.

The same reasoning explains why my format running on my client station in Albuquerque is called The Eighties Channel™.

 

[TomásEstefan]

That is a perfect example of what not to do, and why station management is often clueless about the right way to brand a station to attract a desired audience.

What that station obviously did not understand is that "Jazz-FM" was a perfect, simple positioner which told potential listeners who liked that music what to expect. But the justification for changing that -- too little sampling -- missed the point completely; people who didn't like Jazz weren't going to sample the station anyway, and changing the name drove away more sampling by potential listeners who did like the music.

The same reasoning explains why my format running on my client station in Albuquerque is called The Eighties Channel™.

At some point during 570 KLAC's tenure as a Country station, the personalities were instructed to never refer to the station or the music as "Country". This apparently was the policy for a couple of years...what do you suppose the reasoning or lack thereof was??

 

[michael hagerty]

At some point during 570 KLAC's tenure as a Country station, the personalities were instructed to never refer to the station or the music as "Country". This apparently was the policy for a couple of years...what do you suppose the reasoning or lack thereof was??

KLAC segued from an MOR format to Country, using most of its MOR hosts. The idea was to simply present itself as it had, but to only change the music...hopefully losing as few of its existing listeners as possible while attracting new ones who liked the music. Given that it was 1970 and "Countrypolitan" was the dominant sound, that made some sense.

Really worth remembering that people in the era of K-Jazz (30-ish years ago) and now choose their radio stations completely differently from how people chose them 55 years ago.

 

[TheBigA]

At some point during 570 KLAC's tenure as a Country station, the personalities were instructed to never refer to the station or the music as "Country". This apparently was the policy for a couple of years...what do you suppose the reasoning or lack thereof was??

There was a point during the 80s when country music itself was trying to de-emphasize association with the word "country." That was when you saw the rise of Olivia Newton John and other pop crossover artists. One of the most successful country radio stations at that time was WHN New York.

However, here's a pic from 1984 with a KLAC billboard in the upper right that says "More Of The Best Country Music."

 

[vchimpanzee]

The Philadelphia under Ormandy was the worst. Duller than dull. But I always prefer Von Karajan.

Seriously? My parents had three albums of Christmas music and he was on all three of them.

The one I listened to first also had Andy Williams, Steve and Eydie, Dinah Shore, Sammy Davis Jr., Richard Tucker, Maurice Chevalier, Diahann Carroll, Anna Maria Alberghetti, Doris Day, Danny Kaye and Andre Kostelanetz.

 

[vchimpanzee]

We had a commercial Jazz station back in the '90s, simply called "Jazz FM". They had bad ratings, did some research, and found out people didn't sample the station because the name put them off, so it became just "J-FM". It didn't last long before reverting, because what you're doing is getting people to sample the station with a super generic three-letter name, finding out it plays jazz all day, and they don't like jazz, so off it goes. Meanwhile, the people who do like jazz haven't got a clue what "J-FM" stands for.

But is the jazz real jazz or smooth jazz?

 

[CTListener]

There was a point during the 80s when country music itself was trying to de-emphasize association with the word "country." That was when you saw the rise of Olivia Newton John and other pop crossover artists. One of the most successful country radio stations at that time was WHN New York.

Olivia's country years were the '70s. She went pure pop in '81 with "Physical." I used to listen to WHN during the years that Hartford/New Haven didn't have a country station. Nothing about its presentation seemed country at all, and most songs with even a hint of twang, fiddles and steel guitars never made the playlist. When Randy Travis, Dwight Yoakam and others came along in the late '80s, it was OK to sound country everywhere, even in the Northeast. Except NYC, where the demographics and lifestyle never worked for country.

 

[Miss Tuned]

That is a perfect example of what not to do, and why station management is often clueless about the right way to brand a station to attract a desired audience.

What that station obviously did not understand is that "Jazz-FM" was a perfect, simple positioner which told potential listeners who liked that music what to expect. But the justification for changing that -- too little sampling -- missed the point completely; people who didn't like Jazz weren't going to sample the station anyway, and changing the name drove away more sampling by potential listeners who did like the music.

The same reasoning explains why my format running on my client station in Albuquerque is called The Eighties Channel™.

They didn't even use the word 'jazz' on air. Old airchecks have the jocks using the strap "Real Music Radio, J-FM".

 

[CTListener]

Cleveland wasn't bad. The Philadelphia under Ormandy was the worst. Duller than dull.

That's what my dad used to say about the Boston Symphony Orchestra when I'd ask him why he didn't have any BSO records in his huge collection. He did have plenty of Philadelphia/Ormandy, though. As always, taste is purely personal.

 

[Miss Tuned]

But is the jazz real jazz or smooth jazz?

It was 30 years ago, but I recall a lot of smooth jazz and fusion at the time. "Birdland" by Weather Report was an ever-present. The station still exists (after a few sales and moves around the dial, it's now on DAB) and their current playlist is here:

Jazz FM Playlist

Catch up with the most recently played music on Jazz FM. Listen to your favourite shows and playlists again, and get the full list of upcoming tracks.

hellorayo.co.uk

 

[K.M. Richards]

But is the jazz real jazz or smooth jazz?

For the point being discussed, it doesn't matter.

 

[vchimpanzee]

For the point being discussed, it doesn't matter.

I think it does. If the claim is that people know what jazz is, do they mean real jazz or smooth jazz when they are describing what jazz means to them.