Occasional 80s on Oldies 103

[raccoonradio]

Kinda nitpicking here but what the heck: Some 80s songs creep into WODS' playlist even though they have jingles and liners saying "The Greatest Hits of the 60s and 70s". Just yesterday I heard them playing Naked Eyes' version of "Always Something There to Remind Me", from...1983. Followed by Karen Blake reading the liner, "The greatest hits of the 60s and 70s!" Maybe the fact that it was a Bachrach-David song, and we think of that songwriting team being very popular in the 60s and 70s...

See their website: there's that "60s-70s" slogan in the upper right hand corner.
http://oldies1033.com/

Other 80s tunes that pop up: Kokomo, Beach Boys; Uptown Girl, Billy Joel (another '83 tune; has that Four
Seasons feel to it); You Got It, Roy Orbison, etc.

And of course even though they do say "60s and 70s", where are the pre-Beatles 60s? I guess the 60s
really didn't begin musically till '64, and maybe the 70s extended into the early 80s. Sometimes early 60s
tunes do pop up on all-request Friday night or Elvis Only.

The generation that grew up in the 60s and 70s (or at least, say, mid-60s to early 80s) is a fairly big
demographic chunk, and they're going after them. OK, so they say 60s/70s and they toss a few 80s
tunes in...maybe some more 80s tunes would be fun (or some pre-Beatles oldies, but the eradication
of those songs is a sign that "if you went to high school before Beatlemania started, you're ...old...
and aren't in the demo we want!" So what happens in a few years when people like me (born in '62)
get to be too old for their demo? Is it hits of the 70s/80s or '75-90 instead? Who knows.

 

[Eli Polonsky]

So what happens in a few years when people like me (born in '62) get to be too old for their demo? Is it hits of the 70s/80s or '75-90 instead? Who knows.

Eventually it may be. In many major markets, 80's-heavy "Adult/Variety Hits" stations (IE: "Mike", "Jack", etc...) have replaced the Oldies station. I think many consultants expect those stations to become like the Oldies stations for the next younger generation after traditional Oldies listeners. In many other areas, Oldies stations have gone Classic Hits, which is late 60's up to the 90's. WODS has been more sucessful here than Oldies stations in many other markets, so they don't want to change it significantly or rebrand it, they'll just sneak in the 80's stuff that has an Oldies "sound" bit by bit.

I think that to a large degree they're already catering to some younger people who actually discovered catchy 60's pop hits, Motown hits, etc... when they were already Oldies in the 70's. There are a lot of people who love 60's music who grew up after the 60's and caught it later.

 

[radiodouble]

Kinda nitpicking here but what the heck: Some 80s songs creep into WODS' playlist even though they have jingles and liners saying "The Greatest Hits of the 60s and 70s". Just yesterday I heard them playing Naked Eyes' version of "Always Something There to Remind Me", from...1983. Followed by Karen Blake reading the liner, "The greatest hits of the 60s and 70s!" Maybe the fact that it was a Bachrach-David song, and we think of that songwriting team being very popular in the 60s and 70s...

See their website: there's that "60s-70s" slogan in the upper right hand corner.
http://oldies1033.com/

Other 80s tunes that pop up: Kokomo, Beach Boys; Uptown Girl, Billy Joel (another '83 tune; has that Four
Seasons feel to it); You Got It, Roy Orbison, etc.

And of course even though they do say "60s and 70s", where are the pre-Beatles 60s? I guess the 60s
really didn't begin musically till '64, and maybe the 70s extended into the early 80s. Sometimes early 60s
tunes do pop up on all-request Friday night or Elvis Only.

The generation that grew up in the 60s and 70s (or at least, say, mid-60s to early 80s) is a fairly big
demographic chunk, and they're going after them. OK, so they say 60s/70s and they toss a few 80s
tunes in...maybe some more 80s tunes would be fun (or some pre-Beatles oldies, but the eradication
of those songs is a sign that "if you went to high school before Beatlemania started, you're ...old...
and aren't in the demo we want!" So what happens in a few years when people like me (born in '62)
get to be too old for their demo? Is it hits of the 70s/80s or '75-90 instead? Who knows.

yea and no. the beatle generation also had kids who grew up with listening to 60's and 70's and 80's parents' music on car and home radios so are very familiar with the songs/artists. the kids are now adults in 20's,30's and early 40's who will be the core of the 25-54 group for years to come. see, it's not about selling the older but the younger listener. wods somedays runs a liner 'the soundtrack of the most powerful demographic in new england' which pretty much spells it out who they're after. i think mike has been quetly eating their lunch for the past year. they're finally waking up and smelling the stockyard's steak over at leo birmingham's pwarkway.

 

[raccoonradio]

Eli said:
>>In many major markets, 80's-heavy "Adult/Variety Hits" stations (IE: "Mike", "Jack", etc...) have replaced the Oldies station. I think many consultants expect those stations to become like the Oldies stations for the next younger generation after traditional Oldies listeners.

Yes, that's true.

In the past, I was sent tapes of "Classic Gold", a station from England that played pop from the 60s
right through the 90s, usually with no DJs. I thought it was interesting because they were able to cover
so much ground and somehow it all fit in, and I liked a lot of it. (They also played some songs I hadn't
heard before, like Dick James and the Robin Hood theme, spoofed by Monty Python as "Dennis Moore".
That's why I don't mind hearing oldies from a British or Canadian station because there are those
UK-only, Canadian-only hits I get to hear. When I was into shortwave I enjoyed the Vintage Chart
Show on BBC Worldwide, and I still get some tapes of the Sunday morning oldies show from CHUM
Toronto.)

Anyway, this "classic gold" station was pre-Jack, pre-Mike, etc., and I liked its approach

>>In many other areas, Oldies stations have gone Classic Hits, which is late 60's up to the 90's.

WROR sometimes seems like classic hits, though sometimes it just seems like oldies reaching through the 80s.
Nothing TOO hard (go to WZLX for that) but still some songs you won't hear on WODS. I had suggested they
call themselves Classic Hits because WZLX, which used to use that term, had ditched it for "Classic Rock"

>>WODS has been more sucessful here than Oldies stations in many other markets, so they don't want to change it significantly or rebrand it, they'll just sneak in the 80's stuff that has an Oldies "sound" bit by bit.

Exactly...they don't mind saying Oldies. Maybe we grew up thinking "Oldies" meant 50s and 60s music,
then 60s and 70s, but let's face it: now Oldies is technically 80s or even 90s as well. Oldies isn't
just Paperback Writer, it can be Do You Really Want to Hurt Me or even Smells Like Teen Spirit; it's an oldie
technically but the word usually isn't used...

 

[raccoonradio]

>>i think mike has been quetly eating their lunch for the past year. they're finally waking up and smelling the stockyard's steak over at leo birmingham's pwarkway.

Yes, true.

I remember working for Building 19 in Lynn in the early 80s and they used to pipe "Blue Suede Radio" WCGY over the speakers...hits of 50s, 60s, and 70s...and after awhile they started adding 80s and eventually I believe
they went classic rock (right?)...gradual adding of songs from later years. So yes, the smell of Mike's steak
coming from the New Balance Building is heading over to 'ODS in the old Ch 38 building!

 

[radiolover78]

That seems to be the trend with the oldies stations that still exist.

To keep up with the 25-54 demo, they have slowly sprinkle in newer music (80s) and slowly stop playing certain songs of the 60s.

It's all about the advertisers and unfortunately, they are not interested in 55+ (which makes no since to me)

 

[Garrett]

What's wrong with WODS playing 80's songs? Why shouldn't those us who grew up in that era be allowed to listen to our own oldies as welll?

I like the radio is getting back to its roots of playing a bit of everything. Remember, it's ALL Top 40...

That seems to be the trend with the oldies stations that still exist.

To keep up with the 25-54 demo, they have slowly sprinkle in newer music (80s) and slowly stop playing certain songs of the 60s.

It's all about the advertisers and unfortunately, they are not interested in 55+ (which makes no since to me)

 

[Eli Polonsky]

WROR sometimes seems like classic hits, though sometimes it just seems like oldies reaching through the 80s. Nothing TOO hard (go to WZLX for that) but still some songs you won't hear on WODS. I had suggested they call themselves Classic Hits because WZLX, which used to use that term, had ditched it for "Classic Rock"

Yes, but even though they are listed as a Classic Hits format everywhere, they haven't said it on the air for a few years or so. They always call themselves "The Songs You Grew Up With" or something similar. I'm guessing they may not want to risk listener ratings diary confusion with WZLX by using the word "Classic", just the same as they never used the word "Oldies" when they really were an Oldies station when they first came on in the mid-90's. They were "The Songs You Remember".

 

[raccoonradio]

True, WROR hasn't used "classic hits" name for a couple years though I may still think of them as a classic hits station. And yes, I wasn't saying it was wrong for WODS to add 80s songs, not at all...just pointed out that they still say Hits of 60s and 70s even though they do play 80s--even to the point of saying it right after a song
from '83!