Creativity is not the actual special at hand, but the ideas the PD's come up with that change the mood of a station and connect to its listeners and offer variety. Playing songs in chronological order is not creative....anyone can do that. It doesn't matter who listens to it, because weekend shows rank low in listenership anyways. The IDEA of doing that from a PD's standpoint, in this case, geniuses Phil Hall and Bob Hamilton, and then being successful for 13 years in a row is my point. Listeners enjoyed it and were very disappointed when they were cancelled after 1990. They were known as a "Southern California's Music Tradition". THAT'S creativity. Today's KRTH is not creative. Do you see the difference or do I need to explain it again?
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The old KRTH
- Thread starter David Shapiro
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Creativity is not the actual special at hand, but the ideas the PD's come up with that change the mood of a station and connect to its listeners and offer variety. Playing songs in chronological order is not creative....anyone can do that. It doesn't matter who listens to it, because weekend shows rank low in listenership anyways. The IDEA of doing that from a PD's standpoint, in this case, geniuses Phil Hall and Bob Hamilton, and then being successful for 13 years in a row is my point. Listeners enjoyed it and were very disappointed when they were cancelled after 1990. They were known as a "Southern California's Music Tradition". THAT'S creativity. Today's KRTH is not creative. Do you see the difference or do I need to explain it again?
Jhani retired after 8 years (you were part of the discussion about it on this board at the time). One of the longest runs as a program director in modern times---equal the length of time Bill Drake oversaw KHJ.
Jhani did his job. He stopped the car from going over the cliff, backed it up, and turned it around. His successors have found and are applying the gas pedal.
After the ratings rundown I posted earlier this morning, are you still suggesting that Phil and Bob were "geniuses" and "successful for 13 years in a row"?
This is actually a LOL funny take. Thanks for the laugh. I understand the sentiment completely. This is why when I discuss classical music on a classical music thread, I say, "Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Tchaikovsky...Don't bring that <stuff> around here. That is over 200 years old! Time and Place and I've moved on!"
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KayJayJay
Guest
Not sure where your argument is...or if there is one. I was trying to answer Oldies and Vinnie's complaints of a "creative" disconnect from a personal perspective.
But I'll try to take what you've written a step further, Big A. I see very little that was ever truly creative about top 40 or oldies radio countdown shows or number one weekends. The roots of those are in the "Hit Parade" shows from radio's golden age. Vocal delivery styles may have changed from era to era, but a disk jockey show is largely derivative of the job of an MC hosting any of a Big Band show in 30s and 40s radio.
I used to question where's the "art" in radio. It's certainly not in executing another derivative "more music-less talk" record show...or even in some "tune-in" point oldies request lunch or weekend countdown. That's how I ended up in the production room and doing voice-over at radio. That's the one place where, for me at least, I could practice the "art" of finding just the right combination of words or the "creative" in finding that unique style to deliver those words.
For me, those breaks between the music sweeps that most people tune out from are where radio still can shine at creative. It's certainly where we best satisfy those persons paying the bills.
About a year ago I received an invite from the Sound to take part in a music focus group to be held on a Saturday in Pasadena. I enthusiastically accepted right away even though my personality is such that I am the last type of person who would normally give up their hard-earned Saturday to help them focus their playlist, but (1)I wanted to get a first hand view into how the test was performed in person and (2) I wanted to be that "guy" who does exactly what you described. Even if I answered the questions "truthfully" I would still probably be considered an "outlier", but I was going to go for the gusto a vote down every Who, Pink Floyd, Aerosmith and the rest they tested whether I liked them or not and vote up anything that was not already on the playlist or some otherwise novelty record. But as Billy Joel sings, something happened on the way to that place. My second invitation, you know the one where they actually tell you exactly where and when it was, got "lost" in the electronic email. I even emailed them asking why I was omitted since I live nearby and "as a fan of the station, I really wanted to participate". No response.
How did they know? I didn't tell anyone, not even Mrs. Flipper my plans. Foiled Again! Somehow they knew. I don't know how they knew, but I am convinced they knew:
"He is the oddball. Not worth the invite, we'll just be cleansing his data later".
I'll never know just how they knew, just like I'll never know how they got my name and mailing address when I had never given it to them in the first year they were on.
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KayJayJay
Guest
Please. Hold to your rose colored idea that Mr. Hall and Mr. Hamilton were somehow creative geniuses. The rest of us will go on knowing that there is very little new under the sun and that creatively those weekends you loved were little more than a derivative of concepts others in radio had created fifty years earlier. Were either to post here, I strongly suspect they'd thank you for your support and admiration but also admit to very much the same.
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One person's "creativity" is another's self-indulgence. One thing audiences have zero time for today is other people's self-indulgence. It simply doesn't work. I agree that good talent can make a break creative, but the rewards are strictly personal. I know of no advertiser who pays more for creativity.
On the other hand, if you want "the art of radio," go to your local NPR station, and you'll hear very artsy approaches to news coverage, with lots of sound and theater of the mind.
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Frank, let me answer that question with a comment and what I hope is some clarification.
I don't believe that Oldies76 or myself (or anyone on here that enjoys specialty weekend programming), really believes that a successful station should ever change their format. That's not to say that every so often they can't implement little tweaks here and there to keep them from stagnating.
I realize we're talking about K-Earth, but another successful station in the market is THE SOUND. Great station in fact. I've heard them devote entire weekends to having KMET jock reunions. Has any of that hurt them? If so, how?
Hey, for the sake of their own successful track record and definitely from a financial standpoint, I would never advocate K-Earth changing what has obviously been working for them. I would certainly not vote to do a 1955-1985 #1's of L.A. weekend --- at least not with the demographic that's been tuning in for the last 20 years. That would go over better with the die-hards once I attempt to upload all those files on to YouTube (if I can get past the potential music licensing issues, otherwise I'll buy both an ASCAP and BMI license and start my own website). I think that particular period of KRTH and the first 30 years of Rock & Roll needs to be preserved for the ages, and it should.
Someone else a few posts back made a point that K-Earth running a special on a holiday weekend where there aren't as many listeners, isn't gonna drive everybody away. I would agree. Back to Frank's question ... I don't think it would harm K-Earth, or its listeners or advertisers or CBS one little bit if they devoted a Labor Day weekend to bringing back Brian Beirne and a few of the legendary air personalities of the past, and played the next 30 years of Rock & Roll, covering 1985-2015, which would fall squarely into their demo. Or if 2015 is too risky for them, then the first 25 years up through 2010, or maybe 20 years covering the music through 2005. I'd even take a 15 year span. I'm not talking about dragging out the old jingles or tapes of old shows. I'm talking about the listeners reconnecting with voices that were recently there, but no longer; and doing it as a one-time thing. Gee, what could it hurt? That's not asking that successful station to change their format. In fact, it's to shine a spotlight on themselves to show listeners what made them so successful. Yes, bring Jhani Kaye on too.
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KayJayJay
Guest
If it is creative that sells, I most certainly do. If it is self-indulgence that sells, I most certainly do.
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There really is no demand for it. To you, it's variety. To someone else, it's breaking format. You want variety? Change the station and listen to CHR. You'll get lots of variety there. Classic Hits is about playing 20 year old hit songs over and over. That's what listeners expect.
Advertisers are buying audience. That's all they want. Cheapest CPM. Go to any client meeting, and that's all you hear.
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KayJayJay
Guest
Conversely, has any of that helped them? Who do you really want on the air? The person the listener knows and is comfortable with or someone the listener may not know or may know but not like simply because some "self-indulgent" programming type or radio-geek gets a thrill from hearing the now raspy voiced old timer once again. The one time in a month I still listen to that old MOR now N/T station is when a favorite former DJ of mine guests on a talk show. I love hearing him on his old station once again. But he's there because the host wants to talk music, not because the radio station holds the mistaken idea that their current listenership has any interest in hearing the man jock the hits he played there in the 1970s.
Last question first: What made them so successful is what they're doing now. I seriously doubt there are that many listeners to KRTH in the demo today who ever heard Brian Beirne.
As to "what harm" holiday weekends would do, I posted this earlier this morning: You won't make a station with what you do on the weekends, but you can break it. If you're playing something a listener doesn't want to hear, they don't say "oh, it's a weekend". They say "ugh" and change the station. Do that enough times and you create the impression that your station isn't playing what they like anymore---even if you are the other five days per week.
Has it hurt "The Sound"? Something has. It was top 10 for a while...now it's 16th and just blew up its morning show (Mark of Mark & Brian) to focus on "more music".
Is it not self-indulgent for station owners and execs to want lots of money, and more and more and more of it?
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KayJayJay
Guest
I've been to more client meetings than I sometime care to remember. But please explain how I've made a living the past 30 years. Sure. I've read a lot of bad and quickly tuned out copy and heard clients ask why the campaign didn't work. I've also read creative that connects with the listener and makes money for the client.
If some deep dime a dozen voice reading "Come to McDonalds and buy our hamburgers. Don't like beef? We have fish sandwiches too." worked, you'd have never heard the words "you deserve a break today."
No. That's the whole purpose of owning a radio station.
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KayJayJay
Guest
But how has that, according to you, self-indulgent station owner or exec ever benefitted from bringing back some old-timer that today's audience has zero connection with?
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Nope. That's how they keep their employees employed and able to feed their families, return value to stockholders and other necessities.
I'm only saying that self-indulgence cuts both ways. As someone recently quipped, and I wish I can remember who said it, but K-Earth still does "Million Dollar Weekends," everytime they blow out their on-air staff.
Point being, K-Earth is still money ahead. Hosting a weekend reunion special may or may not (I'm betting not) cause them to lose a few dollars, but so what. That little bit of self-indulgence on the programming side helps ingratiate themselves with their listening base and bolsters their ego a bit.
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