They are similar, though a few (probably minor) differences. KISQ and KBEB seem to be a little deeper on love songs from the 70s and 80s (I once caught KISQ playing Diana Ross's Missing You not too long ago), whereas the national Breeze feed would be open to playing songs like Before He Cheats (a song I have yet to hear on either KISQ or KBEB).
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KOST 103.5
- Thread starter 30james
- Start date
I understand the argument Michael, about KMPC, but If I had been a programmer, I probably would have been either a total success, or an absolute dismal failure. I have always felt that music programming should be almost entirely Music driven, rather than just Artist driven, in my mind, to do otherwise sells an audience short. To me, even though the format was technically "Nostalgia" not to play what were then current recordings produced by George Massenburg, and performed by Nelson Riddle, with vocals that just happen to be by Linda Ronstadt, is almost the same as programming a station centering on the Beatles, but refusing to play any of the their solo projects simply because they were recorded a few years after their core material.
Tomas, I programmed for ten years and learned a lot of things the hard way.
Even after I moved on to news, I learned a lot about programming. And a lot of it was disheartening.
About 15 years ago, someone put an Adult Standards format on an FM station in Phoenix. I was living there at the time, having a brief go in management on the TV side.
This station was fantastic sounding---programming truly great songs from the Great American Songbook without regard to chart performance at the time of release, and it blended in the more contemporary artists who were doing that material---Linda Ronstadt, Carly Simon, Rod Stewart, Barry Manilow, even Harry Nilsson from 1973's A LITTLE TOUCH OF SCHMILSSON IN THE NIGHT album.
I went out to lunch with clients a lot in those days, usually at the Capital Grille. At 50, I was usually the youngest person at the table. My boss was 12 years older than I was and it was rare to have clients under 55 (these were the people running local companies).
The subject of that radio station came up at more than a few of these lunches. Both my boss and I were curious about how well a station targeting a 55+ audience could do in the mid-aughts.
What I heard most often were two things:
"What's with all the deep cuts? I don't want to hear the sixth best track on an Ella Fitzgerald album. They should stick to the biggest and the best."
And:
"If I want to hear "That's All", I want to hear Mel Torme sing it, not Rod Stewart."
That last would vary by song and artist, but ultimately, it was the same message. They wanted to hear hits, not deep tracks and not covers of hits.
Despite there really not being another radio station to compete with it, it failed...gone in 14 months. It moved into what it thought was a hole in the market when the AM standards station folded. That AM station had solid ratings that it just couldn't sell because of demographics. It played the hits.
These guys had a better signal, higher-quality audio, and a strategy for selling locally that would have avoided the AM station's demographic problem with agencies. But they never got a chance to test it, because they couldn't get the numbers.
I guess we should all dream of having deep pockets so we can program a station the way we think should sound and not have to worry about advertisers...do the initials SL ring a bell?
Sure, but even Saul needs to be able to at least have his AM station pay for its own power bill, which is what killed Unforgettables and K-SURF---they couldn't. His moneymaker, KKGO, isn't revolutionizing Country radio---it's just playing the hits.
Deep pockets wouldn't have helped the guys in Phoenix. They needed listeners and what they were programming didn't attract and hold them.
If I had unlimited resources, I'd probably just spend the $9.95 a month I spend now for my Apple Music subscription. What comes out of my car radio speakers sounds terrific, to me. If I tried to put it on the air, I'd probably be 32nd on everyone's top five favorite radio stations list.
That is too bad. Would have made the station better (and please save the "but less profitable because no one wanted to hear it in 1999" replies. I know.). Something else nobody wanted to hear in 1999: "My Girl" played five times a day, but they did do that.
That was idiotic thinking on their part which no doubt helped contribute to the demise of the station. Old people love it when younger people embrace their music. Linda did a great job with those standards that the old folks did accept (judging by record sales) while simulataneously turning rockers (like me) onto some different, more mature music as they grew older. She could have done wonders for their format and station if they would only have let her, just like Rod Stewart drove listeners to KLAC in their Martini Radio (or whatever it was they were calling it) days when he took on some standards. I simply can't imagine a better ambassador for the music than Linda.
In fact, she tuned me on to some standards that I didn't really know that well. One day when I have more time, I am going to buy her CDs with Nelson Riddle and really give them the time they deserve. I am looking forward to it.
C'mon, Flip---nobody HEARD "My Girl" five times a day. That rotation ensured a typical listener in the demo heard it maybe once every three weeks. KRTH was a top ten station in '99 despite the recent deaths of both Robert W. Morgan and The Real Don Steele.
KLAC flopped with "Martini Radio". Gone in two and a half years. And KMPC managed to get ten years (eight of which were very good) out of what they did.
All of this reminds me of a discussion I had a few months ago with my Dad, who is now 80 and produced rock and roll records in the early 1960s. I'm 52 and worked Top 40 from 1985-89, then soft rock, then Rock 40 and a few years later did a unique smooth jazz/R&B and Dance formatted station and finally AAA. My music radio career ended in 1998 but I am still very much into all kinds of music, including pop hits of today.
I heard a 60s Motown song online and started thinking...when I was a kid in the 70s and a teen in the 80s, there was a good amount of "Oldies" stations in many markets playing the hits of the 50s and 60s..music that was around 20-30 years old. AC stations tended to dip back into selected songs from the 60s a couple of times an hour, which at the time were about 25-30 years old. Today, some AC and Hot AC stations delve into the 80s which is now pushing 40 years old, and there is still quite a bit of 70s music to be found on the radio, which is now 50 years old. Even Classic Rock is still getting away with one or two songs from the 60s, which is now around 55 years old. I won't go into the few "Classic Oldies and Standards" stations that are still out there pushing a few pre-1964 tracks because they are getting to be less mainstream and harder to find.
My point (and what I asked my Dad) is that today there are stations in the mainstream that are still playing songs up to 55 years old. But I was born in 1969 and was a child of the 70s. How come I don't remember mainstream stations playing songs regularly from the 20s and 30s? Standards stations of the era were playing songs from the 40s, but kids didn't listen to that. My dad said that the "invention" of rock and roll in the 50s changed the landscape for everybody. It's probably why kids today love the 80s, the 70s and even the Classic Rock of the 60s.
On the flip side, and I know I'm going off on tangents here... when I listened to Top 40 radio in the 70s and 80s, it was fairly typical for the gold titles to go back ten to fifteen years. When I started in Top 40 in 1985 the Power Currents were rotated about every three and a half hours and we regularly played hits going back to the early 70s, about 12 years max. By the time I left the station in 1989, the rotations were as tight as 1 hour 50 to 2 hours 10 for the Powers and the Golds went back about 5-7 years max. Today with PPM, rotations are even tighter and a song that's more than a year old on a Top 40 is extremely rare.
I heard a 60s Motown song online and started thinking...when I was a kid in the 70s and a teen in the 80s, there was a good amount of "Oldies" stations in many markets playing the hits of the 50s and 60s..music that was around 20-30 years old. AC stations tended to dip back into selected songs from the 60s a couple of times an hour, which at the time were about 25-30 years old. Today, some AC and Hot AC stations delve into the 80s which is now pushing 40 years old, and there is still quite a bit of 70s music to be found on the radio, which is now 50 years old. Even Classic Rock is still getting away with one or two songs from the 60s, which is now around 55 years old. I won't go into the few "Classic Oldies and Standards" stations that are still out there pushing a few pre-1964 tracks because they are getting to be less mainstream and harder to find.
My point (and what I asked my Dad) is that today there are stations in the mainstream that are still playing songs up to 55 years old. But I was born in 1969 and was a child of the 70s. How come I don't remember mainstream stations playing songs regularly from the 20s and 30s? Standards stations of the era were playing songs from the 40s, but kids didn't listen to that. My dad said that the "invention" of rock and roll in the 50s changed the landscape for everybody. It's probably why kids today love the 80s, the 70s and even the Classic Rock of the 60s.
On the flip side, and I know I'm going off on tangents here... when I listened to Top 40 radio in the 70s and 80s, it was fairly typical for the gold titles to go back ten to fifteen years. When I started in Top 40 in 1985 the Power Currents were rotated about every three and a half hours and we regularly played hits going back to the early 70s, about 12 years max. By the time I left the station in 1989, the rotations were as tight as 1 hour 50 to 2 hours 10 for the Powers and the Golds went back about 5-7 years max. Today with PPM, rotations are even tighter and a song that's more than a year old on a Top 40 is extremely rare.
Yes and no. I'm 13 years older than you. My parents, if they were still alive, would be 104 and 99. I grew up with KMPC, Los Angeles playing as a kid.
For the most part, stations like that, targeting adults with middle-of-the-road music, played only one or two old songs an hour (KMPC called them "recall" tunes). And rarely were they more than ten years old.
The earliest Top 40 stations played just the current hits. As time went on, programmers like Chuck Blore essentially did what KMPC was doing---one or two oldies (KFWB called theirs "flashbacks") an hour, and rarely more than two or three years old.
It wasn't until Bill Drake came along at KHJ in 1965 that Top 40 started going back further and more often. Two or three "goldens" an hour---most two to five years old, but some going back ten years to Bill Haley, Chuck Berry and Little Richard. Eventually "Golden Weekends" came along---every other song an oldie.
When all-oldies stations started in the early 70s, AM Top 40 stations, especially those who owned an FM oldies sister (KHJ and KRTH, for example), tightened back up...going back only to the British Invasion and leaving the pre-Beatles stuff to the pure oldies outlets.
When KRTH launched in 1972, it was limited by the birth of rock and roll...it really could only go back 17 years. And given that they were trying to get 18-34 year olds, that was perfect.
The problem came as the Boomers aged. They calcified in their musical tastes in a way no modern generation before had. For a long time, they resisted music from the 1970s. When that barrier fell, it only fell partially. Oldies radio became largely stagnant, playing music from 1955-1972 and the listener base got older as time went on. Where KRTH launched as an 18-34 station, by the 1990s, they were a 35-54 station...and eventually the demographics became unsalable.
Younger generations (post-Boomer) didn't do that. The first wave of FM CHR stations in the 80s (KIIS, KKHR) launched as very nearly all-currents. And since then, CHR has added gold and taken it away, depending on the tastes of the people currently occupying the target demographic. They do it very skillfully. It's worth remembering that KFWB had ten years as a Top 40, KRLA had 11, and KHJ 15----but KIIS-FM has been in the format for 40 years.
As I mentioned in other posts, being a child of the 60s, KMPC, KGIL, and KFI were my parents favorite stations, and I liked a lot of the music. But the first station I listened to and would remain a favorite of mine for years was KFWB. Just hearing those call letters give me a warm feeling. In fact, they were the first radio station call letters I ever heard! When I was about 6 or seven, everyday I had to walk over to an after school day-care center and they had 'WB cranked up on PA speakers throughout the facility.
If I remember correctly, in an ancient interview I think I heard Chuck Blore mention that from around 1958 through 1962, during some of that period KFWB was the most listened to station in the United States. During certain day-parts the overwhelming majority of households with radios in the LA Market were tuned to KFWB.
That's true. They lost the local ratings crown to KRLA in '63.
That was a few years before I flew from Quito to LA just to listen to KHJ, which I had read about in the trade magazines I got. I was not old enough to rent a car to drive to the station, and I thought that they would not believe that a 19-year-old had his own Top 40 station back home. So I found a hotel near the airport (back when there were still no nice ones around there) and listened, took notes and recorded on my very early Philips cassette machine.
My model stations had been WIXY in Cleveland, WABC in New York and WQAM in Miami. But I found the energy and briefness of Jacob's implementation of Drake's concepts to be fascinating. I flew back home and worked to enhance the excitement and stress brevity on my own station.
I never imagined that, 30 years later, I'd be working with Ron Jacobs and Tom Rounds, the original Top 40 PDs of KHJ and KFRC.
There were quite a few "Color Radio" clones back then, and I grew up on WHK, Color Channel 14, one of John Kluge's stations in Cleveland. But around the year you mention, that concept which had jingles that were kinda' MORish and looser more mature jocks and lots of MOR songs on the playlist was fading. Some adapted, but most never made a comeback.
KFWB was one of those, and it could not stand up to KRLA and then KHJ. In Minneapolis, WDGY made a comeback only to be later beaten again when Gary Stevens brought KDWB back to the top. And WHK just withered against WIXY while the San Francisco Color Radio station was decimated by Tom Rounds and Drake's KFRC.
Actually, there were "solid gold" stations earlier than that. Barry Richards' WMOD (FM) in DC came on sometime in 1968, and WEEL in suburban Fairfax with local personality Jack Alix did "Million Dollar Music WEEL" in early 1969.
So a few of those oldies stations predated 1970!
Actually, they were on the ropes before KFRC debuted. KYA had them (KEWB) on the run for a few years prior to that. In fact, Crowell-Collier sold it to Metromedia before KFRC went Top 40 and Billboard March 26, 1966 issue has a piece about KFRC going Top 40 and KEWB likely going MOR---which they did under the calls KNEW.
Speaking of KIIS, it's kind of interesting that they play songs like All The Small Things and I Write Sins Not Tragedies as gold tracks. I know for a fact that KIIS circa 2007 was not very fond of these songs; KIIS then was more hip hop-laden than KIIS now, even though hip hop has increased in prominence since then.
For the most part, KIIS always kept one foot in mainstream CHR, even as Power 106's Dance, and later Hip Hop and R&B formats competed heavily in LA. I was always happy that the originals like KIIS and Z100/NY always kept some semblance of mass appeal to their format and presentation. There were times in the 1990s and early 2000s that many markets did not have a true Top 40 station, including the heritage station in my market that I had worked for during its last mass appeal years. I think that CHR opened up to a more mainstream sound starting around 2008 and stations started loosening their styles of music to reflect that.
In the case of KIIS being light on the Blink-182 and Panic! tracks in 2007, that might have been because those songs were being covered well enough by KROQ, Star, and maybe even Jack FM and KBIG (well, maybe NOT KBIG, but I'm not sure) and with stations like Power and The Beat, etc, KIIS was still staying light on the mainstream tracks, dayparting more to times when adults and not kids would be listening more. Now these songs work a little better when mixed with what's playing today, and still have enough familiarity from KIIS and the other stations that played them that they just work.
Thank you for your explanation, Michael! I really learned a lot from some of this. I remember that originally KRTH started out as an AC station that played quite a bit of Gold, but not exclusively, until I think 1982 or so. I do remember that KIIS in the early and even later 80s did occasionally reach back to the late 70s. (I'm thinking like Commodores, Blondie...groups that were mostly classified as 80s artists even though they actually began in the 70s). When I was at KDON/Monterey from 1985-89 we started out with some Beatles oldies and a lot of 70s rock and pop played a couple of times an hour, but by the time I left four years later, the station was in transition to its current rhythmic format and didn't play anything older than early 80s and even that was just the Rhythmic dance and pop that would work well with the current format (and only during midday and overnights, I might add).
Let me gently correct your memory of KRTH. It started out all-oldies, in October of 1972, and it was a huge hit. In the November-December ratings, it was tied for 4th with a 4.3. One year before, as KHJ-FM, playing a 60/40 mix of gold and currents, it was tied for 15th with a 2.5.
The novelty wore off, though. By Nov/Dec '73, KRTH was 13th with a 2.7, and it bobbed between a 2.4 and a 3.1 for Nov/Dec '74 and Nov/Dec '75.
In the fall 1976 book, it fell to 18th place with a 1.9. That's when it was retooled into an AC station with maybe (only maybe) a little more Gold than most others. In fact, there's honest dispute about whether KRTH was even an AC. Radio & Records refused to buy it and listed them as a CHR station during that entire period, which lasted ten years.
By fall of '77 KRTH was within 0.1 of KHJ, and it passed its AM sister in the fall of '78. When KRTH ran out of gas in '86, the decision was made to take it back to oldies, but it didn't really find its way until Bill Drake began consulting in '91 and brought Robert W. Morgan and the Real Don Steele aboard in '92.
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