Oldies Upgrade?

[chitchatjf]

With CBS Fm in New York back and doing 60s 70s AND 80s is it time for Oldies 103.3 to update its soind to do that or do we have to stick with the same 300 songs over and over and over?

Or do we already have a Classic hits station in WROR?

 

[Varulven]

WROR is getting interesting, they played "Bad Blood" by Neil Sedaka tonight which we hear on Oldies Nortshore 104.9 WBOQ but not on Oldies 103.

Northshore 104 has an extended playlist if you can get them.

 

[Retro]

WODS still has a formula that works, but change is inevitable though. I am sure that they will add more 80's song as the years go on.

 

[Neggy]

There is no way that the listener response via recorded/aired phone calls that I heard during the A to Z Fourth of July week were not heard by management. Almost unanimously the callers were commenting how they liked hearing songs that were not normally played on the station. I would agree that the same 300 songs gets boring, which is why I have XM radios in the daily drivers. The Sixtys on 6, and Seventies on 7 play thousands of songs,including regional hits.

Maybe a slight tweak is in the works. I'd love to hear a 50's song once in a while.

 

[Eli Polonsky]

There is no way that the listener response via recorded/aired phone calls that I heard during the A to Z Fourth of July week were not heard by management. Almost unanimously the callers were commenting how they liked hearing songs that were not normally played on the station. I would agree that the same 300 songs gets boring

I would too, but unfortunately, the people who call stations are usually the "vocal minority". The "silent majority", who aren't music aficionados and just want to hear their 300 (if that) favorite songs over and over in the background to their workday or other activities, are passive listeners who don't bother calling radio stations, though they make the bulk of the ratings for terrestrial stations.

Satellite radio listeners are aficionados willing to pay to hear something different, so the channels cater to them, but they rely on a national specialty audience cumulated from all markets across the country, though their numbers for each channel within each individual market are very small. The numbers of listeners to individual satellite channels broken down to within individual cities/markets are much smaller than those for the successful terrestrial stations in the market.

 

[cjf68]

I know That I am in the minority on this one, but I think they should change the call letters---To
WBZ-103.3 FM.......Playng the hits of the 60`s, 70`s and the 80`s. and expand theif format some.

I just am not a big fan of call letters that narrow their scope of music.

 

[chitchatjf]

I like the BZ call letters. They can call it the Buzz.

I would toss in an occasional 50s tune a few pre 64 tracks (the Twist for one),extra album tracks like "Stairway to Heaven" and the LP versions of Light My Fire. Some RnB chestnuts like "Wishing on a star","Grace of God" and some 80s tunes including Tana Gardner's "Heartbeat" and perhaps D TRain's You're one one for me (both #1 hits at Kiss twhen they were the closest thing to a CHR station in Boston,which means they were #1 pop hits in the hub.

There are even some 90s and recent tunes that I would add.

 

[spt87]

Forget the Buzz - just bring back the old WBZ jingles and promote it as WBZ 103 alternating with Oldies 103.

 

[BRNout]

WROR is getting interesting, they played "Bad Blood" by Neil Sedaka tonight which we hear on Oldies Nortshore 104.9 WBOQ but not on Oldies 103.

Northshore 104 has an extended playlist if you can get them.

You are right about North Shore 104.9 - they have a nice, big playlist and are much more interesting to listen to than WODS. In fact, I really enjoy listening to that station, even though they aren't very strong in my original home area of Nashua.

Oldies 103.3 is getting really stale and, aside from a couple of specialty shows, sounds dull. Even when compared with sister stations in NY (WCBS-FM) and Philly (WOGL).

 

[Oldbones]

I know That I am in the minority on this one, but I think they should change the call letters---To
WBZ-103.3 FM.......Playng the hits of the 60`s, 70`s and the 80`s. and expand theif format some.

And in what way would changing call letters help them? The WODS calls have been on 103.3 for 20 years now...they're definitely well-established. Add to that the fact that WBZ has not been a Top 40 station in 40 years...the demo that remembers them as such is all 55+...not exactly advertiser-friendly territory.

 

[Retro]

I like North Shore 104.9, you can always tell when a station is an independent as they are the ones without the standardized playlist.

As far as Oldies, playing Heartbeat would be a mistake as it would be vearing from their "Top 40 Oldies" format. I agree that maybe throwing ina pre-64' tune would be a good idea as well. Not so sure about digging into classic rock and playing Stairway To Heaven.

 

[Time Traveler]

I know That I am in the minority on this one, but I think they should change the call letters---To
WBZ-103.3 FM.......Playng the hits of the 60`s, 70`s and the 80`s. and expand theif format some.

And in what way would changing call letters help them? The WODS calls have been on 103.3 for 20 years now...they're definitely well-established. Add to that the fact that WBZ has not been a Top 40 station in 40 years...the demo that remembers them as such is all 55+...not exactly advertiser-friendly territory.

Actually 39 years....and I am well under 55 years old...

 

[LegendsGuy]

I like North Shore 104.9, you can always tell when a station is an independent as they are the ones without the standardized playlist.

I would agree that they do have a more expanded playlist. However, they are lacking in personalities. They only have two people on each day. Their morning guy is extremely dry and has a bland sense of humor. The lady they have on middays is just terrible. She will come out of a song babble about stuff no one cares about and then go into another song. They have no one on the rest of the day. It seems the only thing they have going for them aside from an expanded playlist are the Sox. I do like their imaging though. Although, with only two people on each day it seems unlikely they would invest in more talented personalities.

 

[radiorama1]

I have wondered for quite some time if Oldies 103.3 will eventually be playing the same exact music that was on the frequency 25 years ago ... when they were "Hit Radio 103.3" WHTT. What a GREAT station that was!

 

[faderraider]

While they are at it, get Dave Maynard to do voice overs for WBZ-FM.......LOL

 

[dhoule]

Oldies 103.3, WODS, WBZ-FM, WWBZ--so confusing

I was thinking about a change of calls for Oldies 103.3 to WBZ-FM as well. However, the more I thought about it the more I thought against it. Oldies 103.3 and WODS are very well established (20 years). Also, I think that for CBS, they are trying to really brand WBZ as meaning "news" both for TV and radio. Would adding a WBZ-FM add to the confusion of image? Not sure. Would they be able to be WBZ-FM or would it have to be WWBZ (4 calls)? Oldies 103.3 could drop the oldies monikor but just be WODS but ODS still implies Oldies.

After all is said and done, I think there best bet is to play the greatest hits of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s (concentrating from about 1967 till about 1983) and still call themselves Oldies 103 (I think the meaning of oldies is changing). They could occasionally play a song from 58-66 and from 84 to 89. In the long run, I think that Oldies 103 always need to be a station that plays song from about 40 years back till about 25 years back.

 

[radiorama1]

Re: Oldies 103.3, WODS, WBZ-FM, WWBZ--so confusing

After all is said and done, I think there best bet is to play the greatest hits of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s (concentrating from about 1967 till about 1983)

Isn't that what WROR already does now?

They could occasionally play a song from 58-66 and from 84 to 89.

A few weeks ago I heard JJ Wright play "Time Of My Life" by Medley/Warnes (1987)

I still think WHTT was the greatest station ever on that frequency in Boston, even though it lasted for only a few short years.

 

[Runrigger]

Time Of My Life is one of the few 80s songs Oldies 103 plays even though they don't promote that they play anything but 60s & 70s. I'd guess Kokomo & You Got It are played & that it's probably the artists that warrant the airplay (Beach Boys, Orbison, & the Bill Medley connection with The Righteous Brothers).

Funny but I when they were doing their A to Z thing a couple of weeks ago, I heard I Want You, I Need You, I Love You. Obviously I didn't hear every song they played & I'm sure they didn't play every Elvis hit known to man, but I found it odd that they included that particular one...especially being 50s.

 

[chitchatjf]

Re: Oldies 103.3, WODS, WBZ-FM, WWBZ--so confusing

After all is said and done, I think there best bet is to play the greatest hits of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s (concentrating from about 1967 till about 1983)

Isn't that what WROR already does now?

Ror seems to be Rock heavy. I would say just copy what CBS is doing in New York. And don't start Christmas until at the VERY least Thanksgiving. (Watch them cut the playlist to 250 songs and then go XMas on November 1st.)

 

[cjf68]

I was not thinking of the call letter change in terms of nostalga.
I was thinking in terms of alingment. (similar to the CBS setup in New York.)

BTW, WHTT was a very good listen back then. I met Cindy Bailen (SP?)
at Uncle Sam`s Down in Hull in `83. The station was doing a live remote outside
In the parking lot. She was very gracious and nice. Didn`t she also host a local
video show on Channel 5 late on friday nights that was also sponsored by WHTT?