HarrytheK1 said:
I'm not really surprised that there aren't many comments from listeners on this board. As Tom says, how would listeners even know about this board? Plus, if a listener actually does post on this board, I think, by definition, that would make them more than just a "casual listener" and put them in the category of someone with more than just a passing interest in radio. Also, even though many listeners do have favorite radio personalities, radio people come and go very fast and frequently (in the old days as well as now), so I believe that the average listener doesn't really develop a deep-seated allegiance to a radio personality, much less remember that allegiance 20 years later. Is that good or bad? Who knows? It depends on one's perspective. Personally, I would love more posts from listeners, because, if for no other reason, it gives another point of view to our walks down memory lane, rather than the board being just a sharing of "inbred" memories of those of us who were a small part of what was. However, I think this board ends up being primarily for those (who were) in the biz and who discover it by googling to find anything having to do with radio.
If you’re really interested in hearing from a listener… (Viewer discretion advised)
Living in the Blackwood/Turnersville area of South Jersey, my listening was mainly confined to the Philadelphia stations, but I do have some memories of Jersey stations. As a kid in the ‘60s, our day trips to the shore down the Black Horse Pike were always highlighted by what we called the “Halfway Bridge.” It probably wasn’t halfway and it wasn’t really a bridge, but an overpass at Route 54 near Folsom. That was the point we could change the car radio to the shore station, WMID. For some reason, we always thought the shore stations had a different tone to them, which we could never exactly tell why. The music was the same; maybe it was the commercials for the fun shore places. Whatever it was, they definitely had a different quality. I also remember the call letters WSLT, which may had been an easy listening station my parents listened to.
In more recent years, a powerful shore station we could easily listen to at home was WRDR, Unforgettable 105. I don’t remember what their format was when I was in school in the ‘70s, but I do recall listening to a high school scoreboard show every Saturday at 5:30 during football season. Stations don’t do this sort of thing anymore, do they? We used to listen to George Moore’s high school sports reports on WSNJ, but the FM is gone now.
WRDR was fun to listen to in the ‘80s & ‘90s. Most of the music was before my time, but they had great radio personalities. I remember Bob Canavan in the morning, Dan Morrow during the day, and Ivory Blackwood in the evening. I liked Ivory’s commercials – “Who’s been barbecuing on my car!!?” WRDR had some great features, too… the Customs of Christmas, Easter in the Air, and one where they would spotlight a particular time in the past, such as “the Winter of 1946,” and tell some of the top news stories from the period followed by a hit song. So you could get a history lesson, too.
When WRDR signed off in 1999, they mentioned on their farewell show that The Unforgettables would be back on the air at some other spot on the dial. Well, the call letters WRDR now belong to a noncommercial religious station in North Jersey, right? And since it’s been 9 years, I guess any ideas of bringing back The Unforgettables have been forgotten.
So, what am I doing on a radio industry website? I stumbled upon this website by accident 4 or 5 years ago during a Google search for Joe Donovan. He was the overnight DJ on WHAS in Louisville for many years until the station dropped music and his show in 1997. I wanted to see if he ended up on some other station, but it looked like he retired.
Joe’s overnight show was one of a kind. It seemed like anything that ever made the Billboard Hot 100 from the ‘50s through the ‘80s was fair game. I remember how I got hooked… while scanning the AM dial, I heard “Pata Pata” by Miriam Makeba and “Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep” by Mac & Katie Kissoon. To hear music at all on AM was a bit of an anomaly, but hearing those two songs firmly established that you weren’t listening to another run-of-the-mill oldies station. (I couldn’t tell you if Joe never played “Respect” or “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” but if I heard them while scanning the dial, I would have kept right on scanning).
Joe Donovan’s mannerism recalled that bygone era when you looked forward to hearing your favorite DJ as you would a best friend. Yes, the music he played brought me to the station, but his in-depth knowledge of the songs and artists, as well as features like his “Odd or Obscure” hour and the lighter side of the news secured my return night after night.
This was how I remember radio, and it’s this listener’s opinion that the compelling reason to listen today is gone. I’m reminded of deff junction’s thread on this board a few months ago (“A Sign of the Times?”) in which a twenty-something – radio’s prime demographic – expressed no interest in radio and even called it boring. That one spot on the dial you return to time after time, for the most part, has all but disappeared. We’re too quick with the scan button. Why? Everything sounds the same. If a song comes on we don’t like, we just move on to the next spot until we land on one we do like. The point is, we’re not missing anything anymore when we
aren’t listening. So what if one station plays today’s hits with fewer interruptions, or 10 songs in a row, or more music and less talk? All the other stations do, too. I miss the days when I had a favorite station that wasn’t just another seek-n-scan stop in an endless hit parade.
So, to those in the industry… keep on posting your thoughts here. We outsiders enjoy reading them. We may not always respond because we don’t get your inside jokes, but I’ve learned many of us share the same views on what radio has become… Thanks.
