lomax said:
...if there is money to be made in an all big band or forties format..there's no stopping anyone from putting together a business plan and convincing a local owner that it would be a moneymaker.
I doubt that anyone would seriously consider an all big band or forties format. It could be fine in small doses or for a special show on weekends, but that's about it. That said, there is no shortage of really good music out there - a lot of which has been forgotten by most people. It is just waiting for them to rediscover it. A good song is still a good song.
It occurs to me that in the 50's and 60's (when a lot of baby boomers grew up) many of the really outstanding stations were called "MOR" (or "Middle of the Road for those not old enough to remember). They were well crafted institutions with a lot of listeners. As kids growing in that era, these were usually not our favorites, but our parents listened to them. Because we were held captive in the back seat of the family car, we heard and still remember the music, even if we haven't thought of it recently.
Fast forward forty years later, and those of us who preferred listening to Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, and even the Beatles, are a little burned out with a most of that music. We still like it, but how many times can you listen to "Stairway to Heaven?" A lot of this music has been over-played on the radio. I suspect that over-exposure is the reason that Oldies stations have fallen out of favor. You can only listen to the same 400 songs -even really good ones - for so long. Eventually you simply get bored. It might even partially explain the success of Talk Radio with the over 40 crowd. It's about all there is on the radio for them.
The 2000 census says the DFW area is 6.3 million people. That is probably low, since the data is ten years old. If someone came up with a format that resurrected a lot of this "missing music" and combined it with modern artists like Norah Jones, Michael Buble, Bette Midler, Diana Krall, etc, they might have something. If you got 1.5% of the available listeners, that would be huge. If you could get those kind of numbers and still couldn't sell it in a market the size of DFW, then you'd need to take a long hard look at your sales staff.
One of the keys to success is to make the station sound alert and alive, and not sound like it is dwelling in the past. A lot of older people have told me that they don't see an old wrinkled person in the mirror when they look. Instead, they tend to think of themselves the way they were when they were younger. As I grow older, I am beginning to understand that. Gravity isn't fair, so I tend to overlook its effects. This tendency to think of ourselves as being younger than we really are goes a long way to explain why people my age buy motorcycles, boats, collector cars, take trips, jump out of perfectly good airplanes, etc. A radio station that makes the listener think he is an "old fart." is not likely to succeed. A lot of Standards stations make that mistake.
I notice there is a new syndicated format called "Timeless Cool" that seems to have zeroed in on these things. I'm certainly not schilling for them, since I run my own station and by and large, I'm happy with the product. They aren't included in my plans, but I think it is interesting that they seem to have come to some of the same conclusions.
Will anybody try it in the DFW area? Probably not. The fact of the matter is most participants paid way too much for the stations to be interested in experimenting. Just servicing the debt is a major deal and taking the safe route makes good business sense, even if that means selling infomercials for colon cleansing. Still, I can't help but wonder if there's not someone out there who isn't happy with their stations performance and would venture into uncharted territory. They might strike gold. Or they might strike out. As Cary mentioned, nobody has actually tried it.
