There was some exceptional small market radio back in the day but if you dig deep in your memories, many of those great small town stations were not anywhere close to exceptional. Too many were along the lines of as long as I have local news and some needed features and can sell spots, I’m good.
Where I began in 1978, the weekenders were told ‘don’t cuss and play the commercials on the log’. There was a guy at night on Saturday from 6 to 10 who played all his spots when he came on and then played Blue Oyster Cult an REO Speedwagon non-stop until 10pm sometimes cracking the microphone to sing along.
At this same station, the former GM trained me on the board for the morning show. It was country music 6 to 9am. He didn’t cue up records saying he was too busy. Really? News at 7 and 7:30. Weather at :15 and :45. His plan was play a song, then a commercial and talk until the song began. Time was, for example, 6 minutes after in the ho-hum. He really didn’t do much more than song title and artist.
This same station was ‘oldies’ during the day meaning 2/3rds oldies; 1/3rd currents. Who Are You by The Who (unedited mind you) was hot at the time and because of automation requirements was the first song at 9am for a couple of weeks as well as 1pm. We were automated 9 to noon and 1 to 5pm.
The engineer was to change the reels by 4pm when they would run out but he just would rewind the reels a bit and the same songs from 45 minutes prior would repeat.
At night and on weekends we were top 40 (no music wheel or rotation). We were to do weather at :15 and news at :20 (5 minutes) but I just read the AP headlines and Texas Headlines…2-2.5minutes because people didn’t want to hear the news on top 40 radio at night.
Commercials all sounded out of place. The GM, an old school guy that preferred the station be beautiful music, made sure lush strings and a 1950s style delivery was on all the spots (he always wrote and produced as the GM). 1950s style to me is about like this “When you walk in to Eagle Pass Drug you see aisle after aisle of merchandise and take note of the calm and relaxing atmosphere. Eagle Pass Drug has a glad you are here friendly sales staff ready to assist you with any questions you might have…” These spots used lots of words to actually say virtually nothing.
A nearby town of 12,000 had an AM country at the time where the DJ by 9am would just play a song and dead into a commercial and dead into another song, sometimes through the entire hour before abruptly cutting the last song for network news at :55. The GM didn’t care as the jock chatted on the phone. There was an automated AM country in another town that played a song, commercial, repeat, with no liners except after network news at :55 when they ran a legal ID. Both stations were popular and never at a loss for commercials.
Up until 15 years ago, one station ran all their spots 6am to 1pm which was mostly talk and news. Then at 1pm they ran a cable TV music feed of wall to wall country music void of any liners or legal ID on the hour until sign off.
There was the easy listening FM that started with 5 albums they played over and over (one track from each, then repeat) with quarter hour breaks. They did expand the music library over a few months but you heard the same song by the same artist about every 2.5 to 3 hours.
I have to admit I really enjoyed the listen to an AM/FM simulcast of a station in Illinois that left the air not long after my listen. It sounded like a high school kid running the shift. He was having a blast. He mentioned the station’s last CD deck had died so all he could play were records. He was playing sides of scratchy albums mostly country but a few were MOR/Pop style. He played Chariots of Fire all the way through. Commercials were nil except for a McDonald’s spot and a couple of those spots from a Chicago telemarketing firm in the 4+ hours I listened. They played the National Weather Service on the hour and turned it off when it began to repeat. The jock said he got in trouble for forgetting a legal ID so he had a cassette recording of several voices doing a legal ID complete with the click sound when you turn off the recording and the quick sound of the automatic level control adjusting on each one. He said the extras were for any he forgot in the past. I liked that bit of creativity. This was a very primitive studio with two turntables and a dual cassette deck and battery operated cassette deck. The mixer, I think, was a handmade one. I noticed he would turn off the album on the last song’s fade and you’d hear a fleeting stop of the song. You heard him drop the needle on the records. It seems there was no way to cue records. Per the Chamber, the station had languished several years in this condition with no local sales people, broken equipment never replaced and no repairs to the old building or maintenance to broadcast equipment. An engineer died trying to make a repair and then the FCC visited and shut them down.
There was an all request/all dedication FM top 40 in a town of about 10,000 with first job jocks who had a blast. The station had sold and the facility had been ransacked of most equipment. The studio was a 4 channel board, a pair of turntables and microphone. Recorded commercials were in a carousel in the next room with a remote control button that sometimes failed to work. The commercials could barely be heard and played one at a time. If the music and DJ was at a 9, the commercials were a 1 in volume. I am not exaggerating. It remained like this for many months and I wondered why an engineer never put in a preamp. When production was done, the station took the board off air and a single 10 inch reel played mostly with more rock oriented older cuts which were not close to the top 40 trends of the time. This poor station had about 50 hits and a few months later, a few recurrents. There was an Eddy Arnold album and Ray Conniff Singers album the morning jock was to play a track from every 15 minutes before 8am. I can say the owner limited spots to 6 per hour, one at a time. That was refreshing. Believe it or not, I was an avid listener because of the interaction with listeners although they couldn’t put calls on the air and they might repeat a song 45 minutes later because they got numerous requests for it (although it was more common at night and on weekends when the kids were on the phone).
And I’ll leave you a couple of stations I really liked: KSEO AM & FM in Durant, Oklahoma running an AC full service format. I personally tuned out news and sports but this station had enough personality to withstand 5 minutes of UPI news on the hour and 5 minutes of Oklahoma News Network on the half hour. In key hours, there was 90 second UPI Sports at :15 and :45. Weather at :20 and :40 with Lake Texoma fishing conditions. Bulletin Board at :50 and about 12 ads in an hour weekdays. There played an oldie out of the news and the rest was currents and recurrents, I suppose.
I really liked KKAJ in Ardmore at it’s inception. We are talking pre-1978. This was FM that opted for a Hot AC with 50% gold during the day and in the evening 100% hits (Top 40) except for a recurrent going into the hour and half hour. It was non-personality live jocked. UPI News on the hour for 90 seconds and weather at :30. Play 2 songs and back announce, then jingle back to music although I heard a midday jock back announce a song as he front announced a song. They called it the New Music Mix. Weather’s outcue was “It’s X degrees in the best (season) of all (winter, spring, etc.). After a couple of years they went country and still are today.
Where I began in 1978, the weekenders were told ‘don’t cuss and play the commercials on the log’. There was a guy at night on Saturday from 6 to 10 who played all his spots when he came on and then played Blue Oyster Cult an REO Speedwagon non-stop until 10pm sometimes cracking the microphone to sing along.
At this same station, the former GM trained me on the board for the morning show. It was country music 6 to 9am. He didn’t cue up records saying he was too busy. Really? News at 7 and 7:30. Weather at :15 and :45. His plan was play a song, then a commercial and talk until the song began. Time was, for example, 6 minutes after in the ho-hum. He really didn’t do much more than song title and artist.
This same station was ‘oldies’ during the day meaning 2/3rds oldies; 1/3rd currents. Who Are You by The Who (unedited mind you) was hot at the time and because of automation requirements was the first song at 9am for a couple of weeks as well as 1pm. We were automated 9 to noon and 1 to 5pm.
The engineer was to change the reels by 4pm when they would run out but he just would rewind the reels a bit and the same songs from 45 minutes prior would repeat.
At night and on weekends we were top 40 (no music wheel or rotation). We were to do weather at :15 and news at :20 (5 minutes) but I just read the AP headlines and Texas Headlines…2-2.5minutes because people didn’t want to hear the news on top 40 radio at night.
Commercials all sounded out of place. The GM, an old school guy that preferred the station be beautiful music, made sure lush strings and a 1950s style delivery was on all the spots (he always wrote and produced as the GM). 1950s style to me is about like this “When you walk in to Eagle Pass Drug you see aisle after aisle of merchandise and take note of the calm and relaxing atmosphere. Eagle Pass Drug has a glad you are here friendly sales staff ready to assist you with any questions you might have…” These spots used lots of words to actually say virtually nothing.
A nearby town of 12,000 had an AM country at the time where the DJ by 9am would just play a song and dead into a commercial and dead into another song, sometimes through the entire hour before abruptly cutting the last song for network news at :55. The GM didn’t care as the jock chatted on the phone. There was an automated AM country in another town that played a song, commercial, repeat, with no liners except after network news at :55 when they ran a legal ID. Both stations were popular and never at a loss for commercials.
Up until 15 years ago, one station ran all their spots 6am to 1pm which was mostly talk and news. Then at 1pm they ran a cable TV music feed of wall to wall country music void of any liners or legal ID on the hour until sign off.
There was the easy listening FM that started with 5 albums they played over and over (one track from each, then repeat) with quarter hour breaks. They did expand the music library over a few months but you heard the same song by the same artist about every 2.5 to 3 hours.
I have to admit I really enjoyed the listen to an AM/FM simulcast of a station in Illinois that left the air not long after my listen. It sounded like a high school kid running the shift. He was having a blast. He mentioned the station’s last CD deck had died so all he could play were records. He was playing sides of scratchy albums mostly country but a few were MOR/Pop style. He played Chariots of Fire all the way through. Commercials were nil except for a McDonald’s spot and a couple of those spots from a Chicago telemarketing firm in the 4+ hours I listened. They played the National Weather Service on the hour and turned it off when it began to repeat. The jock said he got in trouble for forgetting a legal ID so he had a cassette recording of several voices doing a legal ID complete with the click sound when you turn off the recording and the quick sound of the automatic level control adjusting on each one. He said the extras were for any he forgot in the past. I liked that bit of creativity. This was a very primitive studio with two turntables and a dual cassette deck and battery operated cassette deck. The mixer, I think, was a handmade one. I noticed he would turn off the album on the last song’s fade and you’d hear a fleeting stop of the song. You heard him drop the needle on the records. It seems there was no way to cue records. Per the Chamber, the station had languished several years in this condition with no local sales people, broken equipment never replaced and no repairs to the old building or maintenance to broadcast equipment. An engineer died trying to make a repair and then the FCC visited and shut them down.
There was an all request/all dedication FM top 40 in a town of about 10,000 with first job jocks who had a blast. The station had sold and the facility had been ransacked of most equipment. The studio was a 4 channel board, a pair of turntables and microphone. Recorded commercials were in a carousel in the next room with a remote control button that sometimes failed to work. The commercials could barely be heard and played one at a time. If the music and DJ was at a 9, the commercials were a 1 in volume. I am not exaggerating. It remained like this for many months and I wondered why an engineer never put in a preamp. When production was done, the station took the board off air and a single 10 inch reel played mostly with more rock oriented older cuts which were not close to the top 40 trends of the time. This poor station had about 50 hits and a few months later, a few recurrents. There was an Eddy Arnold album and Ray Conniff Singers album the morning jock was to play a track from every 15 minutes before 8am. I can say the owner limited spots to 6 per hour, one at a time. That was refreshing. Believe it or not, I was an avid listener because of the interaction with listeners although they couldn’t put calls on the air and they might repeat a song 45 minutes later because they got numerous requests for it (although it was more common at night and on weekends when the kids were on the phone).
And I’ll leave you a couple of stations I really liked: KSEO AM & FM in Durant, Oklahoma running an AC full service format. I personally tuned out news and sports but this station had enough personality to withstand 5 minutes of UPI news on the hour and 5 minutes of Oklahoma News Network on the half hour. In key hours, there was 90 second UPI Sports at :15 and :45. Weather at :20 and :40 with Lake Texoma fishing conditions. Bulletin Board at :50 and about 12 ads in an hour weekdays. There played an oldie out of the news and the rest was currents and recurrents, I suppose.
I really liked KKAJ in Ardmore at it’s inception. We are talking pre-1978. This was FM that opted for a Hot AC with 50% gold during the day and in the evening 100% hits (Top 40) except for a recurrent going into the hour and half hour. It was non-personality live jocked. UPI News on the hour for 90 seconds and weather at :30. Play 2 songs and back announce, then jingle back to music although I heard a midday jock back announce a song as he front announced a song. They called it the New Music Mix. Weather’s outcue was “It’s X degrees in the best (season) of all (winter, spring, etc.). After a couple of years they went country and still are today.
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