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Sayonara Oldies on Buffalo's KB!

L

LexLuthor

Guest
The last bastion of classic oldies (on AM, no less)
is now history. Entercom pulled the plug on Buffalo's
killer 50kw KB radio 1520. They dumped Jack Armstrong
for liberal talk! There's a ratings magnet!
 
> The last bastion of classic oldies (on AM, no less)
> is now history. Entercom pulled the plug on Buffalo's
> killer 50kw KB radio 1520. They dumped Jack Armstrong
> for liberal talk! There's a ratings magnet!
>

It is sad, but what can you do? The wheels of bad management roll on. Another AM that might as well be dark.
 
Re: Farewell; no comment

I'll miss Classic KB. As far as the new format and Entercom... I have nothing positive to say. It is not even worth my time and effort to comment...

>
> It is sad, but what can you do? The wheels of bad
> management roll on. Another AM that might as well be dark.
>
 
Re: Farewell; no comment

> I'll miss Classic KB. As far as the new format and
> Entercom... I have nothing positive to say. It is not even
> worth my time and effort to comment...
>
> >
> > It is sad, but what can you do? The wheels of bad
> > management roll on. Another AM that might as well be
> dark.
> >
>


For the life of me, I cannot fathom the logic behind many of these flips. I'm still waiting for Infinity to explain the reason behind replacing WCBS 101.1 FM and a consistent 3.0+ rating for the JACK format, which hasn't even done half of that since the change last June.
 
Re: Farewell; no comment

> For the life of me, I cannot fathom the logic behind many of
> these flips. I'm still waiting for Infinity to explain the
> reason behind replacing WCBS 101.1 FM and a consistent 3.0+
> rating for the JACK format, which hasn't even done half of
> that since the change last June.
>

Certain people keep claiming that the reasons for the demise of oldies stations are "all about the demos." This is bull....

Numerous people who I know post to this board, and who have complained about this change and the CBS-FM change are all around my age....born in the early to mid 70's.

Oh, you want to say that we're radio people and we don't count? Sorry.....I have friends my age back on Long Island and in the city who were NOT "in the biz", and they listened to CBS-FM constantly. This whole garbage about the Demographic dying off is just absurd.

A quick euolgy for KB, if I may......I attended a railroad show in Springfield, Mass, just last Sunday, and had KB on all the way home to near Saratoga. Booming. I almost drove off the road when they played about 35 mins of "left-field" oldies in a row...all of them great....not a clunker in the bunch.

I'll also miss driving up to the Lake Placid region late at night with darkness surrounding me and KB blaring in on the radio. So long, you old blowtorch.
 
Re: Farewell; so what?

Fanatical oldies fans are so blind. I grew up on WABC. I loved CBS-FM back when it really sounded like an oldies station. But radio companies have zero imagination and most younger listeners are just not as adventurous as the fanatics are. Nobody really has the passion for this music. It all just begins to sound dated after awhile. Those big rock n roll oldies shows that were guaranteed sell-outs at Madison Square Garden now play at high school auditoriums. You just can't sustain a format on what are now your grandfather's memories. People who were teenagers in 1959 are 60 years old now-- they ARE unattractive to advertisers--no matter what you and your small circle of friends may believe. Have you listened to that awful Mark Simone show on WABC sat nights? First of all, he was never a top-40 jock. Second, kill the phone calls-- just sounds pitiful hearing these people grasp for the "good old days". And don't forget: I enjoy oldies.
 
Re: Farewell; so what?

> Fanatical oldies fans are so blind. I grew up on WABC. I
> loved CBS-FM back when it really sounded like an oldies
> station. But radio companies have zero imagination and most
> younger listeners are just not as adventurous as the
> fanatics are. Nobody really has the passion for this music.
> It all just begins to sound dated after awhile. Those big
> rock n roll oldies shows that were guaranteed sell-outs at
> Madison Square Garden now play at high school auditoriums.
> You just can't sustain a format on what are now your
> grandfather's memories. People who were teenagers in 1959
> are 60 years old now-- they ARE unattractive to
> advertisers--no matter what you and your small circle of
> friends may believe. Have you listened to that awful Mark
> Simone show on WABC sat nights? First of all, he was never a
> top-40 jock. Second, kill the phone calls-- just sounds
> pitiful hearing these people grasp for the "good old days".
> And don't forget: I enjoy oldies.
>

It has nothing to do with being a "fanatical oldies fan", which I'm not. I'm a fanatical "music" fan, meaning I listen to all genres covering the last 40 years, and my tastes don't end at the same year The Beatles broke up. It's all about listenting to good "product" on the radio, and when you combine great music with great jocks, you get great product. Sadly, that's a hard combination to come by nowadays.

And I agree....The WABC Saturday night thing needs help...QUICKLY. And I agree 150% that the phone calls should be dumped...THOSE are fanatical oldies fans....they're too blinded by the sound of anything pre-75 coming from their speaker that they'll accept ANYTHING and say it's great. THAT is sad.
 
Re: Farewell; so what?

> Have you listened to that awful Mark
> Simone show on WABC sat nights? First of all, he was never a
> top-40 jock. Second, kill the phone calls-- just sounds
> pitiful hearing these people grasp for the "good old days".
> And don't forget: I enjoy oldies.
>

I agree. There are very few who know how to do it right. The Simone show is a joke

"It's Saturday Night, It's WABC"
"Check out our message board"
"We're gonna take a few calls"
"It sounds so good on an AM radio"
"Don't you just love this music"
"The best oldies show on the radio"

See how many times he says any or the above. They need a better host and a producer that was actually born BEFORE the demise of Musicradio WABC

That being said, there is a chance to get people on who DO know what it's supposed to sound like and trust me they are out there.

Boyce is probably the joker who is pushing the phone calls and talk segments. It's basically a talk show playing oldies.

As for demos, sales departments are full of morons who can't sell with so much competition, so they need all the crutches they can get. Demo breakouts are one way to manipulate the truth about underperforming stations to get monetary results.
 
Re: so what? It was a stupid move...

What perturbs me is not the new format, or even the lack of the old format, but rather the intent behind the whole maneuver. They killed something that was truly unique and replaced it with something so common, all in the name of screwing over the little guy across town, WHLD. So in a knee-jerk move, they say F.U. to the Staff, Advertisers, and listeners of their radio station, just so they can have "Braggin Rites" to claim they had a format before someone else. A format that ain't exactly picking up tons of momentum either. Lets see how long Liberal Talk lasts on WWKB. My guess is that this 50 kW blowtorch goes back to the "New loser format flip every 6 months" like it was before Classic KB. Think their ratings were low recently, you should have seen how bad they were before the oldies format.

What is sad, is that they could likely have easily flipped this to a local talk format. Danny Nevreath and Tom Donohue did a lot of talk segments during the morning. Sometimes the music was a distraction to their banter. They could have gradually removed music from that daypart. Jackson Armstrong, actually had been doing Talk Radio before KB, so he could have likely made the shift too, albeit that would have been a more abrupt transition. The thing is, that they could have kept the listeners that were loyal to these personalities while building a new talk audience. Eventually they could replace some of the midday music with syndicated talk. And they could have kept music on the weekends, like other successful Talk stations do, and I'm not just talking about the Mark Simone thing.

If this move had been well thought out and executed with finesse, then I wouldn't have a problem with it. Sure I would have missed KB anyway, but you move on. This move though was done for all the WRONG reasons, and that is what I have a problem with. Not neccesarily mad at the end result, but rather mad at the reasoning, or lack therof, behind it. I have my doubts as to whether Buffalo will support one Liberal talk station, let alone Two? This is just plain olt textbook BAD MANAGEMENT. Look, small signal is going to jump off a cliff. Lets push our way in front of him and jump to our demise before he can!
 
Re: so what? It was a stupid move...

> What perturbs me is not the new format, or even the lack of
> the old format, but rather the intent behind the whole
> maneuver. They killed something that was truly unique and
> replaced it with something so common, all in the name of
> screwing over the little guy across town, WHLD. So in a
> knee-jerk move, they say F.U. to the Staff, Advertisers, and
> listeners of their radio station, just so they can have
> "Braggin Rites" to claim they had a format before someone
> else. A format that ain't exactly picking up tons of
> momentum either. Lets see how long Liberal Talk lasts on
> WWKB. My guess is that this 50 kW blowtorch goes back to
> the "New loser format flip every 6 months" like it was
> before Classic KB. Think their ratings were low recently,
> you should have seen how bad they were before the oldies
> format.
>
> What is sad, is that they could likely have easily flipped
> this to a local talk format. Danny Nevreath and Tom Donohue
> did a lot of talk segments during the morning. Sometimes
> the music was a distraction to their banter. They could
> have gradually removed music from that daypart. Jackson
> Armstrong, actually had been doing Talk Radio before KB, so
> he could have likely made the shift too, albeit that would
> have been a more abrupt transition. The thing is, that they
> could have kept the listeners that were loyal to these
> personalities while building a new talk audience.
> Eventually they could replace some of the midday music with
> syndicated talk. And they could have kept music on the
> weekends, like other successful Talk stations do, and I'm
> not just talking about the Mark Simone thing.
>
> If this move had been well thought out and executed with
> finesse, then I wouldn't have a problem with it. Sure I
> would have missed KB anyway, but you move on. This move
> though was done for all the WRONG reasons, and that is what
> I have a problem with. Not neccesarily mad at the end
> result, but rather mad at the reasoning, or lack therof,
> behind it. I have my doubts as to whether Buffalo will
> support one Liberal talk station, let alone Two? This is
> just plain olt textbook BAD MANAGEMENT. Look, small signal
> is going to jump off a cliff. Lets push our way in front of
> him and jump to our demise before he can!

Well said. And hard to argue with (LL)
>
 
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