KOLA new music adds

[oldies76]

So if I need to buy a "Classic Hits" or "Classic Rock" station for an EARLY Beatles Tribute concert promotion in LA...who do I rely on? It appears that I'm hearing the EARLY '60s are not relevant on LA Classic Hits stations any longer. Would love your input those who know LA Classic Hits. Thanks.

Unless there is some AM out there (a Mojave Desert AM was mentioned a while back on a thread, that plays 50's and 60's, as an alternative to KRTH) you're unfortunately out of luck.

The only early 60's hits you'll hear on LA radio anymore is "Stand By Me" or "The Lion Sleeps Tonight"....

 

[SolidGold16]

KOLA has pretty much lost me, permanently. Too much 80s and 90s in the mix now. Don't get me wrong, I like some 80s music from the MTV era (approx 80-85) but I don't want to hear "I Ran" all day long. It's probably just my imagination, but it seems like they more or less changed overnight from a 60s - 70s station to a semi-70s, 80s heavy, semi-90s station. This was the last straw for me for LA radio. I just bought a Grace Digital Internet Radio component system, arrived yesterday. What a difference a day makes! I've been streaming stations from all over the USA and world, and loving it.

My current favorite is a station I discovered when visiting my mom in Florida. It's a LPFM run on a shoestring - no commercials at all, only a few seconds for a weather break every hour. The signal barely goes a couple of miles in each direction, but it reaches my mom's place in Zephryhills. Apparently, they have some kind of record for playing the most songs in a row (still going, BTW): 1,000,000 songs without interruption! The station is WZPH ("The Zephyr") in Zephyrhills/Dade City, FL. They used to play only 50s and 60s, now it's virtually all 60s, 70s, and a smattering of 80s (weighted heavy to the 70s right now, though). This is just the kind of station I've been looking for, the playlist is 10,000 songs deep! You are not likely to hear a song repeated for months. Yesterday, in the course of an hour I heard the Partridge Family, Led Zeppelin, Ray Stevens... Right now, they're playing "Beep Beep" (Little Nash Rambler) by the Playmates. When was the last time you heard that on any station, anywhere? As long as they keep this up, I'm loving it. You never know what you might hear next. Even if some are "clunkers" or there are songs I don't care for, I stay tuned in because if the "surprise" factor and the variety. I'll take a few clunkers if I hear songs I like and haven't heard in years. Yes, DE, I know I'm an anomaly, and don't represent the "average" listener. But I still think there are more people like me out there than you might think.

The website if you want to check out their stream: http://rdray.com/WZPH/index.htm

In my car, I have already installed a MP3/USB deck about a year ago, so I rarely - if ever - listen to radio in my car. If I do, I either listen to KRTH-HD2 or KSWD. I load up my 32GB flash drive and have a few thousand songs to go, and hit shuffle.

Looks like I've aged out of the demo for pretty much everything on terrestial stations at this point (I'm 55, BTW).

At least we have lots of alternatives these days, with Pandora, Flash Drives, and MP3 everything. IMO, the stations did us a favor driving us away. It forced me to find alternatives.

Life changes, life goes on. Bye, KOLA, thanks for all the good music over the years and good luck!

 

[oldies76]

Yes, DE, I know I'm an anomaly, and don't represent the "average" listener. But I still think there are more people like me out there than you might think.

The website if you want to check out their stream: http://rdray.com/WZPH/index.htm

Life changes, life goes on. Bye, KOLA, thanks for all the good music over the years and good luck!

There are thousands upon thousands of so called DE "anomalies" in every radio market. Maybe he should do a bit of research and find out exactly how many...He'll be surprised.

 

[SolidGold16]

There are thousands upon thousands of so called DE "anomalies" in every radio market. Maybe he should do a bit of research and find out exactly how many...He'll be surprised.

Taking any bets on that happening? I'd say the odds are about the same as KOLA playing "Doesn't somebody want to be wanted" today. ;D :

 

[davideduardo]

There are thousands upon thousands of so called DE "anomalies" in every radio market. Maybe he should do a bit of research and find out exactly how many...He'll be surprised.

I've done more than $40 million worth of research over the last 15 years or so... thus the conclusions I make are based on actual facts.

 

[oldies76]

There are thousands upon thousands of so called DE "anomalies" in every radio market. Maybe he should do a bit of research and find out exactly how many...He'll be surprised.

I've done more than $40 million worth of research over the last 15 years or so... thus the conclusions I make are based on actual facts.

Do you know then how many "anomolies" are there in say, the L.A. radio market wanting change on KRTH? More music selections?

 

[SolidGold16]

There are thousands upon thousands of so called DE "anomalies" in every radio market. Maybe he should do a bit of research and find out exactly how many...He'll be surprised.

I've done more than $40 million worth of research over the last 15 years or so... thus the conclusions I make are based on actual facts.

No offense, David - and I sincerly mean that - I have my own "facts". I'm an individual, like everyone else, and $40M of your research won't change this fact - I don't like constant repetition and boring, shallow playlists. Before recently, I listened to radio for several hours a day, and what do I hear? Constant repetition of the same songs. KOLA is responsible for making me nearly hate one of my all time favorite songs "More Than A Feeling". Because of them, it's going to be several years before I want to hear it again. I'm beyond burnout.

I really do respect your opinion and enjoy the conversation with you, I just happen to disagree with you. Don't take anything I say as disrespecting your viewpoint, I just can't agree with your methods as being the end-all of what is viable and best for every station. Research is good, but it isn't everything. Maybe being daring and different can work too. It worked when Fox Network first started - remember Married With Children was an absolute stinker in the ratings for at least a season or two. Fox stuck with it and in the end had a huge hit. If they'd given up early, and cancelled it (like most major networks would have done) the entire Fox network might not even exist today. Changing a format to have more variety can't be a one-off, but sticking with it for enough time to make it successful could surprise everyone. Maybe not, too. But isn't it worth doing something different for a change? Isn't life in general all about variety and doing different things? Life sure would be boring if all we did was the exact same thing day after day without trying something different!

 

[davideduardo]

There are thousands upon thousands of so called DE "anomalies" in every radio market. Maybe he should do a bit of research and find out exactly how many...He'll be surprised.

I've done more than $40 million worth of research over the last 15 years or so... thus the conclusions I make are based on actual facts.

Do you know then how many "anomolies" are there in say, the L.A. radio market wanting change on KRTH? More music selections?

Not enough to warrant changing the programming.

What surprises me is that they still play any 60's stuff, and they sound more like an AC than a classic hits station in tempo and flow.

 

[oldies76]

What surprises me is that they still play any 60's stuff, and they sound more like an AC than a classic hits station in tempo and flow.

Well, 60's music is just timeless music that won't disappear for a long time. It still has much appeal. I'll give them a thumbs up, even if it's just a handful of 60's music.

 

[davideduardo]

What surprises me is that they still play any 60's stuff, and they sound more like an AC than a classic hits station in tempo and flow.

Well, 60's music is just timeless music that won't disappear for a long time. It still has much appeal. I'll give them a thumbs up, even if it's just a handful of 60's music.

In LA, the Spanish language classic hits station, on a vastly inferior signal, gets nearly 50% more 18-49 listening than KRTH.

At that station, we eliminated the 60's songs about 5 or 6 years ago.

 

[radio-darn]

You have - what - thousands of stations on the internet to listen to at home or even in the car on a smartphone (I plug mine into the car sound system using a cassette adapter). Why depend upon an early 20th century technology like AM radio to satiate your music tastes? It's like connecting a black-and-white 13-inch TV to your DVD player.

 

[Jay Walker]

It's like connecting a black-and-white 13-inch TV to your DVD player.

That's a bad thing? ;D

Seriously, way back in the early 70's I remember how the air staff reacted with shock when the PD announced we would no longer play any music older that 10 years. This knocked out all the pre-mid 60's product at the height of 50's and 60's oldies resurgence due to the popularity of movies such as "Happy Days" and movies like "American Graffiti"

The station quickly went to number one 18-34... Time marches on.

 

[hm insulators]

My current favorite is a station I discovered when visiting my mom in Florida. It's a LPFM run on a shoestring - no commercials at all, only a few seconds for a weather break every hour. The signal barely goes a couple of miles in each direction, but it reaches my mom's place in Zephryhills. Apparently, they have some kind of record for playing the most songs in a row (still going, BTW): 1,000,000 songs without interruption! The station is WZPH ("The Zephyr") in Zephyrhills/Dade City, FL. They used to play only 50s and 60s, now it's virtually all 60s, 70s, and a smattering of 80s (weighted heavy to the 70s right now, though). This is just the kind of station I've been looking for, the playlist is 10,000 songs deep! You are not likely to hear a song repeated for months. Yesterday, in the course of an hour I heard the Partridge Family, Led Zeppelin, Ray Stevens... Right now, they're playing "Beep Beep" (Little Nash Rambler) by the Playmates. When was the last time you heard that on any station, anywhere? As long as they keep this up, I'm loving it. You never know what you might hear next. Even if some are "clunkers" or there are songs I don't care for, I stay tuned in because if the "surprise" factor and the variety. I'll take a few clunkers if I hear songs I like and haven't heard in years. Yes, DE, I know I'm an anomaly, and don't represent the "average" listener. But I still think there are more people like me out there than you might think.

The website if you want to check out their stream: http://rdray.com/WZPH/index.htm

Here's another similar radio station that broadcasts out of Florence, Arizona. They're trying for the same record, so The Zephyr has competition! ;D This station plays lots of oddball stuff and has a WIDE playlist! I've heard everything from Little Richard rock 'n' rollers to U2 to everything in between! They'll play a mellow Billy Joel or Chicago ballad one minute, the next minute a rocker by AC/DC or Led Zeppelin. They play a lot of "deep" cuts, and NO COMMERCIALS! I'm another anomaly, so when I'm in a part of Phoenix where my car radio can pick it up, I love listening to this station:

www.kcdx.com

 

[hm insulators]

I live in Phoenix now, but I grew up in the Los Angeles area (La Canada Flintridge to be specific) and I remember in the early 1970s when KOLA was a Top 40 station that played the hits of that time! For a few years in the early 1970s, every summer, my parents rented cabins in the Lake Arrowhead area, including 1972, when we rented a big place in Crestline that was my favorite family vacation of all time! We always would have KOLA on the radio, and to this day, whenever I hear "Alone Again Naturally," "Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)" or "The Guitar Man," it takes me back to the summer of 1972 and that cabin in Crestline, listening to KOLA.

 

[Radio Coug]

I'm from outside the market and do not know what the call letters of the "Spanish language classic hits" station. Do they play main stream classic hits? Please share info as I am promoting a national touring early era Beatles tribute band, 1964, concert in Anaheim. Would love some feedback as I'm finding less and less LA stations playing early Beatles or similar songs.

 

[davideduardo]

I'm from outside the market and do not know what the call letters of the "Spanish language classic hits" station. Do they play main stream classic hits? Please share info as I am promoting a national touring early era Beatles tribute band, 1964, concert in Anaheim. Would love some feedback as I'm finding less and less LA stations playing early Beatles or similar songs.

KRCD/KRCV is the simulcast of two Class A FMs in LA that run a Spanish language classic hits station.

The songs are all in Spanish; many sound familiar as there are quite a few that are covers of US or English language hits. The majority are songs that were hits in Mexico and which are still well liked by a large audience group.

The station plays very little 60's music, however, and has cut back on the early 70's to some extent.

 

[michael hagerty]

My current favorite is a station I discovered when visiting my mom in Florida. It's a LPFM run on a shoestring - no commercials at all, only a few seconds for a weather break every hour. The signal barely goes a couple of miles in each direction, but it reaches my mom's place in Zephryhills. Apparently, they have some kind of record for playing the most songs in a row (still going, BTW): 1,000,000 songs without interruption! The station is WZPH ("The Zephyr") in Zephyrhills/Dade City, FL. They used to play only 50s and 60s, now it's virtually all 60s, 70s, and a smattering of 80s (weighted heavy to the 70s right now, though). This is just the kind of station I've been looking for, the playlist is 10,000 songs deep! You are not likely to hear a song repeated for months. Yesterday, in the course of an hour I heard the Partridge Family, Led Zeppelin, Ray Stevens... Right now, they're playing "Beep Beep" (Little Nash Rambler) by the Playmates. When was the last time you heard that on any station, anywhere? As long as they keep this up, I'm loving it. You never know what you might hear next. Even if some are "clunkers" or there are songs I don't care for, I stay tuned in because if the "surprise" factor and the variety. I'll take a few clunkers if I hear songs I like and haven't heard in years. Yes, DE, I know I'm an anomaly, and don't represent the "average" listener. But I still think there are more people like me out there than you might think.

The website if you want to check out their stream: http://rdray.com/WZPH/index.htm

Here's another similar radio station that broadcasts out of Florence, Arizona. They're trying for the same record, so The Zephyr has competition! ;D This station plays lots of oddball stuff and has a WIDE playlist! I've heard everything from Little Richard rock 'n' rollers to U2 to everything in between! They'll play a mellow Billy Joel or Chicago ballad one minute, the next minute a rocker by AC/DC or Led Zeppelin. They play a lot of "deep" cuts, and NO COMMERCIALS! I'm another anomaly, so when I'm in a part of Phoenix where my car radio can pick it up, I love listening to this station:

www.kcdx.com

Worth noting: KCDX is run as a personal jukebox by its owner. He's been doing it for more than a decade. There is no attempt made to sell commercials and the station doesn't subscribe to Arbitron.
Even when Arbitron listed ratings for non-subscribers, KCDX was most often a no-show and the few times they got ratings, they weren't anything you can sell.

Before someone suggests that maybe no one knows about the station, it's been covered by every TV station, the big daily and weekly alternative newspaper. Everyone who's been in town knows about it and has listened. But not enough made it a habit to make it an example of how a commercial station could succeed doing what they do.

 

[radioresearcher]

For the second time maybe ever, I am going to argue with David. I think Recuerdo in L.A. versus KRTH in 18-49 isn't fair since the demo for Classic Hits in any market is 25-54.

Now, with that said, here in Phoenix, KOOL - the CBS Classic Hits station has twice the number of that same Recuerdo.

As a matter of fact Recuerdo/PHX has been bleeding nearrly 50% from October to March. Although a couple of years ago, Recuerdo was on both 100.3 and 106.3 and Univision decided to split them up to create their Spanish Contemporary "La Kalle" brand - a format that is fading faster than the Dodgers pitching staff.

I'll also at least go to bat for KRTH and say I bet it bills twice what KRCD bills a year and that is the real judge.

KRTH has been down since KSWD started their marketing too.

BTW, David knows that I am a proponent and fan of Recuerdo and think David's creation was brilliant.

BTW, KOLA has been trending up of late, so whether you like what they're doing or not, it seems to be working.

PPM has shown people do not listen like radio geeks do. Each tune-in is 9 to 10 minutes on average. The most successful stations in most markets now are Top 40. Their spins are now anywhere from 100-130 spins/week -- so I guess repetition doesn't hurt them, does it?

 

[davideduardo]

For the second time maybe ever, I am going to argue with David. I think Recuerdo in L.A. versus KRTH in 18-49 isn't fair since the demo for Classic Hits in any market is 25-54.

I'll cede that point, although at the sales side we are seeing more and more 18-49 buys, particularly in markets driven by Hispanic populations.

But KRTH and KOOL have always been 25-54 with a core 35-54. But, using an average of the last 3 books, KRCD has averaged 6th in LA to KRTH's 15th. And I think that the difference is the virtual elimination of 60's from the Spanish language classic hits station.

Now, with that said, here in Phoenix, KOOL - the CBS Classic Hits station has twice the number of that same Recuerdo.

But KOOL is a full C on South Mountain, with a usable signal over 4.1 million persons, and the Recuerdo signal puts a usable signal over 633,000 persons (65 dbu). As a contrasting curiosity, the Recuerdo in SF was the #1 commercial station in the market, 25-54, in week 1 of the current book. The people programming each of them are different.

...Spanish Contemporary "La Kalle" brand - a format that is fading faster than the Dodgers pitching staff.

A tough format, particularly with 18-24 expanding only due to organic growth. KXOS learned this in a rather difficult fashion.. and they are apparently not content to fall on their face just once, either.

I'll also at least go to bat for KRTH and say I bet it bills twice what KRCD bills a year and that is the real judge.

It's more like 50% better, but much of that is still the "Spanish Discount" and the effect of the format, despite it's average age of around 38, being perceived as "old".

BTW, KOLA has been trending up of late, so whether you like what they're doing or not, it seems to be working.

It is looking much nicer in 25-54. The change of morning show seems to have helped several dayparts. And it's a tighter list than KRTH, too.

 

[davideduardo]

Even when Arbitron listed ratings for non-subscribers, KCDX was most often a no-show and the few times they got ratings, they weren't anything you can sell.

At present, the station is a no-show.