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Markets With A 50s/60s Oldies Station

Now, the question is: are these stations connected to another station, an FM or two.

A guy I knew owned an AM and FM. On his FM he went Hit Country. On the AM he went 50s & 60s Oldies. His salespeople sold the stations this way: buy the FM for $6 and pick up the AM for 60 cents. This was a good decade back. The AM always lost money no matter what was tried. The FM made a tidy profit. The AM goal was to lose the least amount of money. Not sure how the 50s and 60s Oldies did but the AM is now Sports Talk and seems to make a tiny profit

In a small town, they might do okay just because of the relationship with the station owner or GM. I have a few accounts that advertise just to support the station in our county of 40,000+.
 
b-turner said:
Now, the question is: are these stations connected to another station, an FM or two.

A guy I knew owned an AM and FM. On his FM he went Hit Country. On the AM he went 50s & 60s Oldies. His salespeople sold the stations this way: buy the FM for $6 and pick up the AM for 60 cents. This was a good decade back. The AM always lost money no matter what was tried. The FM made a tidy profit. The AM goal was to lose the least amount of money. Not sure how the 50s and 60s Oldies did but the AM is now Sports Talk and seems to make a tiny profit

In a small town, they might do okay just because of the relationship with the station owner or GM. I have a few accounts that advertise just to support the station in our county of 40,000+.
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63 Big WAYS is co-owned with another oldies station with more recent songs and a rock-leaning classic hits FM that seems to do well with 12+ numbers.
 
vchimpanzee said:
63 Big WAYS is co-owned with another oldies station with more recent songs and a rock-leaning classic hits FM that seems to do well with 12+ numbers.
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Two things:

First, though, oldies (60's core) gets listeners in their llater 60's, 70's and older. Agency radio buys don't go for this demo... the don't even look at those ages.

Point One: local accounts don´t look as much at ratings as they do at sales. So they advertise where they get results.and that may sometimes find older consumers are worthwhile reaching. But they pay "what it's worth" and will give tiny rates to an AM oldies station... as b-turner showed.

Point Two: There is a difference between classic rock or classic hits and "oldies". The first two get good 25-54 numbers, and get good rates. The oldies format gets none of those demos, and gets very low rates if anything.

Finally, agency ad buyers don't look at 12+. At all. Those numbers are deceptively worthless, which is why they are given away for free.
 
radiofan2023 said:
The advertisers I’ve heard on WJEJ’s Phone Party are a funeral home, an insurance agency that also helps people with Medicare, some county agencies, a model railroad club Christmas event and an estate auction company. Plus the station is right across from the graveyard, so the DJs can wave to all the former listeners. However there is one WW2 veteran who calls in all the time that’s 101 and still pretty with it. I always laugh when he calls the 70 year old host “young man”!
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Is that funeral home ad from Ferryman Funeral Home? (For those who didn't click on the link, it is from an episode of "WKRP in Cincinnati" where they record an upbeat radio spot for a funeral home.)
 
AMRadioGuy said:
50s/60s station near me has ads from a chocolate shop, some home improvement companies, a furnace company...

There are definitely other businesses interested in advertising on oldies stations than funeral homes.
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You aren't wrong, but funeral homes are more than just for the old folks radio stations. My 60's oldies station's biggest client was a cremation/funeral home but they also spent money on the classic hits and country stations in town. They wanted their message to be heard by the kids of those that would need their services soon.
 
mrradioguy said:
You aren't wrong, but funeral homes are more than just for the old folks radio stations. My 60's oldies station's biggest client was a cremation/funeral home but they also spent money on the classic hits and country stations in town. They wanted their message to be heard by the kids of those that would need their services soon.
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Oh definitely. And, as radio's audience as a whole continues to age - FM and AM... funeral home ads are going to probably become even more common in general.
 
Typically someone talks about a station they know about that has plenty of commercials. It is always a small town station where advertising is sold direct to the business. In a small town there are businesses that will support the station no matter what because they want to support the community. Businesses buy because of relationship. They might have known the owner, having gone to school together or whatever.

There are stations like WPAQ in Mt. Airy, NC that plays Bluegrass music (and it's the current stuff) but 10 to noon is set aside for preachers. This was something the owner insisted upon back in February 1948 when WPAQ signed on. From 6 to 9pm WPAQ plays 'Sundown Serenade' songs of the 1900s up to World War II, a program the owner felt was important. It remains today although the demographic is 90 to 120 years of age. They keep those two blocks in respect and memory of their long gone relative. Quite frankly if the company didn't have two FMs that have conventional formats and sell lots of commercials, I'm guessing WPAQ might not be around.
 
AMRadioGuy said:
Oh definitely. And, as radio's audience as a whole continues to age - FM and AM... funeral home ads are going to probably become even more common in general.
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Funeral homes have advertised on stations for years - before my grandpa worked for his hometown's station in the 1940's, his interview was in a funeral home that the station was doing a remote from. He only worked there a few weeks before the station couldn't pay him any more, because the local paper told the advertisers that if they advertised on the station, they would be blacklisted from advertising in the paper (which isn't legal now due to a case called Lorain v. Ohio, but was back then).
 
radiofan2023 said:
Funeral homes have advertised on stations for years - before my grandpa worked for his hometown's station in the 1940's, his interview was in a funeral home that the station was doing a remote from. He only worked there a few weeks before the station couldn't pay him any more, because the local paper told the advertisers that if they advertised on the station, they would be blacklisted from advertising in the paper (which isn't legal now due to a case called Lorain v. Ohio, but was back then).
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There were funeral home ads on a local station I listened to. I haven't heard any lately on that station, but the funeral home ads were running when the station was doing ABC's Unforgettable Favorites and then Westwood One's America's Best Music. They switched to Good Time Oldies nine years ago and recently started playing 70s and 80s.
 
radiofan2023 said:
Funeral homes have advertised on stations for years - before my grandpa worked for his hometown's station in the 1940's, his interview was in a funeral home that the station was doing a remote from. He only worked there a few weeks before the station couldn't pay him any more, because the local paper told the advertisers that if they advertised on the station, they would be blacklisted from advertising in the paper (which isn't legal now due to a case called Lorain v. Ohio, but was back then).
Click to expand...
Often they sponsored the local obituaries. When I was a college kid working summers at KWRE in Warrenton, Mo., this caused a little stumble when I first started, thanks to the many names of German origin in that area. Sure, I'm German-American myself, but my family stopped speaking German back in the 19th century; besides, you know how Missourians can mangle names of various origins (Auxvasse, anyone?). Anyway, I had to read the obits one day, sponsored by a funeral home in Hermann, which makes a big deal of its German heritage. I had to guess at the pronunciation of the sponsor's name. So I read this: "This is the KWRE Chapel, sponsored by the FINK Funeral Home of Hermann". Not just once, either.

The GM, John McMasters, a wonderful and kind man, called me into his office. "Um, Mark, um, you know about the Chapel? The name of the sponsor is
FINK-ee". Yep, it was spelled "Finke". I certainly never forgot it after that.

Much later, after marrying a fluent German speaker, I learned that "finke" means finch. Not that such knowledge would have helped in the moment.
 
Been crankin' 770 WKFB today while doing some cooking. Lots of great tunes - Bob & Ashley Stevens really know how to program a station!

Ads included two different chocolate/candy stores, a furnace company, and a furniture store... No funeral homes on here today (and I don't think there usually are on that station).
 
Would anyone like to see last songs played for 63 Big WAYS? I heard commercials for two separate funeral homes and a shoe store.

"JOLLY GREEN GIANT" KINGSMEN
"CLOSE YOUR EYES" FIVE KEYS
"RHYTHM OF THE RAIN" CASCADES
"JENNY JENNY" LITTLE RICHARD
"THE GREAT IMPOSTER" FLEETWOODS
"A LOVER'S QUESTION" CLYDE MCPHATTER
"SHAKE RATTLE & ROLL" BILL HALEY & COMETS
"SUSPICION" ELVIS PRESLEY
"A LOVE SO FINE" CHIFFONS
"WORDS OF LOVE" BUDDY HOLLY
"WIPE OUT" SURFARIS
"BIRD DOG" EVERLY BROTHERS
"QUARTER TO THREE" GARY US BONDS
"A THOUSAND MILES AWAY" HEARTBEATS
"PARTY LIGHTS" CLAUDINE CLARK
"LITTLE TOWN FLIRT" DEL SHANNON
"HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY" TUNE WEAVERS
"YOUNG WORLD" RICKY NELSON
"AT THE HOP" DANNY & JUNIORS
"SUMMERTIME SUMMERTIME" JAMIES
"SEARCHIN'" COASTERS
"LET ME IN" SENSATIONS
"YOU ARE MY DESTINY" PAUL ANKA
"KANSAS CITY" WILBERT HARRISON
"A WONDERFUL DREAM" MAJORS
"THE FOOL" SANFORD CLARK
"BREAK IT TO ME GENTLY" BRENDA LEE
"IT'S OVER" ROY ORBISON
"LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL" SHIRLEY & LEE
"TONIGHT'S THE NIGHT" SHIRELLES
 


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