I was visiting relatives in Peoria this past weekend and found that my old hangout (Big Oldies 93.3) is now "The Drive" Classic Hits. When did this happen and what happened to all the great guys that worked at Big FM? The station put on the big July 4th fireworks every year at Peoria's riverfront and John Riley did his big charity thing every year, plus the station was heavily involved in a lot of promotions and charitable work. Now its the bland, generic, sterile 'corporate' radio with no personality that a lot of stations have switched to. Several years from now, after all of Bobs, Jacks, Eagles, Foxes, Wolves, etc. FM's have run their course, some programmer will have the bright idea of hiring personalities. They say things go in cycles...we can only hope!
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Peoria's Big FM
- Thread starter radioman1380
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radioman1380 said:
Is John still there? Or, where did he go?????
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Deleted member 76036
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Everybody is supposed to return in a month except Mitch Allen. Rick Hirschmann (sp?) will take his place.
Chris
Chris
netchris said:Everybody is supposed to return in a month except Mitch Allen. Rick Hirschmann (sp?) will take his place.
Chris
I'm not familiar with either of those two. I remember John Riley doing mornings, the Real Scott Wheeler (Rob Brown, the PD), Dr. Chris Michaels, Ken Cook, and others. When you say they return in a month, do you mean that they'll return on another station that is switching to oldies or as on-air personalities on 'The Drive'?
radioman1380 said:
The personalities will return to The Drive. The station that has taken over the oldies format is WPMJ 94.3, and it runs Scott Shannon's True Oldies format off of satellite. I'm not sure who was working at WPBG at the time of the flip, but I seem to remember hearing Scott Wheeler/Rob Brown went to a Christian station a few months ago.
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bigdude9192
Guest
I wonder why they would give up oldies? didn't they have good revenue.
In way of total market share, 93.3 Big FM was one of the most successful oldies stations in America, maybe even the most successful. However, I'm sure it was starting to encounter the same issues so many other oldies stations have had over the last few years. As the baby boomers continue to age, they become less relevant to the advertisers. Many of them have "No 55+" dictates and won't buy oldies stations anymore. When you consider that more than half of all products on the market today are sold to those over 50, ignoring half of your audience seems like a stupid move. However, there's not much the radio stations can do about it, and I can understand advertisers feeling like they have to draw the line somewhere. After all, the wealthy senior citizen is the exception, not the rule. Somewhere around 80% of seniors live solely on Social Security, and it seems like I read defined contribution retirement plans are presently averaging only around $35,000 total value upon retirement. With life expectancies rising dramatically, $35,000 is pretty tough to survive on for 10-20 years. Normally, you don't spend as much time going after the low income audience.
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