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Transtar Format 41

J

Jay F

Does anybody remember the old Transtar Format 41? I loved just about every song them played circa 1986. It was fun to see a Format 41 affiliate come on in a maket and do damage to a heritage AC which was playing music that was too hot.

I realize there have been lot's of satellite merges through the years. What company that exists today can trace part of it's roots to Transtar?
 
I haven't heard of Format 41 in years! It was pretty good.

It's a looooong story what happened to the company that format was with, what that format replaced, then was replaced by, then what it was morphed into, but...

The short answer to your question is;
Dial-Global is the company that can directly trace it's roots to Format 41. The format that they're currently carrying that's got a direct 'blood-line' to Format 41 would be Adult Standards.

Bob
 
I did like Format 41. Joy 100 was the first station to do it. I later heard Peter Doeblin, the same DJ that was on Joy 100, on Lite 102 in Charlotte. What was really amazing, though, was when I discovered them on W-Lite 96 in Raleigh. I set three buttons on the car radio, and near where I live now I could hear the SAME music on three different stations!

Chick Watkins was the creator of both Format 41 and AM Only. But he moved to AM Only in 1987. Now they call it Dial Global Adult Standards.

The former Format 41, which was named for its median target age (28-54), evolved into a soft adult contemporary format and was dropped in 2006, replaced with rhythmic AC. Yeah, real smart. Look at how well THAT format is doing now.

Amazingly, one would have thought the adult standards format would evolve to reach the former audience. During the early years of this decade, they were doing what Timeless is doing now, sort of. But they went more traditional around the time Dial Global took over. Maybe that's because of what Timeless did. Now they're even more traditional than they were since the merger with Jones. Except they can't get rid of some that pesky AC that they were doing years ago.
 
Transtar>Westwood One>Dial Global. I think there was a Unistar somewhere in there, too.

I remember when Format 41 went on the air in the late 80s in Sioux City, replacing a beautiful music format. The other FMs were CHR, AOR, and religion. The AMs were talk, country, and oldies. Format 41 took off, number one 25-54 despite being all satellite, nothing local except a few news updates. Their dominance lasted for two or three years until a new country FM went on the air, live 24/7. The Format 41 station took a major dive, the owner decided what was needed was Imus In The Morning. Of course, this was incompatible. Imus stayed, several other satellite music formats were tried, none worked. Under different owners, Imus was dropped, it went Classic Rock and is doing very well.

Format 41 (I think it was called Soft AC at this point) later returned to Sioux City on a new FM, and did OK. Later CC bought the station, did their own lite AC for awhile, and it's now CHR. Right now the only AC in the market is CC's Hot AC. I think there's a pretty big hole for a lite AC again.
 
Was this the format that used to go by "Your Original Hits Station"?
 
vchimpanzee said:
Chick Watkins was the creator of both Format 41 and AM Only. But he moved to AM Only in 1987. Now they call it Dial Global Adult Standards.
Click to expand...

Chick Watkins has added a ton of what I would term "stiffs" to a format with hopes of maintaining a younger audience, but has failed miserably at keep its base. Format 41 was great, but the AM Only is awful these days. Not a Chick Watkins fan.
 
I think original hits was the standards format.

I recall hearing what was Format 41 in 1989-90. Pretty soft but I also remember songs like "Down Under" by Men At Work. Like all formats, it evolved over time.

I also recall an off shoot of Format 41, done by the same folks called "Special Blend." It was an even softer version of Format 41 used by some stations early on that were transitioning away from beautiful music. Jerry Lee's WBEB, back in the WEAZ days, actually used SB at one time.
 
jh said:
Transtar>Westwood One>Dial Global. I think there was a Unistar somewhere in there, too.
Click to expand...

Correct. Started with Transtar. Became Unistar after the merger of Transtar with the first incarnation of the United Stations Radio Network (Remember Dick Clark's "Rock, Roll and Remember"?) Then the merger with Westwood One. Now Dial Global.
 
elchupacabras said:
vchimpanzee said:
Chick Watkins was the creator of both Format 41 and AM Only. But he moved to AM Only in 1987. Now they call it Dial Global Adult Standards.
Click to expand...

Chick Watkins has added a ton of what I would term "stiffs" to a format with hopes of maintaining a younger audience, but has failed miserably at keep its base. Format 41 was great, but the AM Only is awful these days. Not a Chick Watkins fan.
Click to expand...
I disagree. I think they're doing a better job of moving back in a standards direction. Some of the truly bad AC has been kept around from those days when it was still Westwood One and it truly was awful. It doesn't fit. But there's so much good stuff I don't even really mind.
 
elchupacabras said:
vchimpanzee said:
Chick Watkins was the creator of both Format 41 and AM Only. But he moved to AM Only in 1987. Now they call it Dial Global Adult Standards.
Click to expand...

Chick Watkins has added a ton of what I would term "stiffs" to a format with hopes of maintaining a younger audience, but has failed miserably at keep its base. Format 41 was great, but the AM Only is awful these days. Not a Chick Watkins fan.
Click to expand...
Define "stiffs", please.
 
I haven't heard the format for a couple of years, since I live overseas. But I remember hearing Bob Carlisle's "Butterfly Kisses" incessantly. The song did little on AC, although it was big on the Christian charts.
 
elchupacabras said:
I haven't heard the format for a couple of years, since I live overseas. But I remember hearing Bob Carlisle's "Butterfly Kisses" incessantly. The song did little on AC, although it was big on the Christian charts.
Click to expand...
If you haven't heard Dial Global standards for several years, you really don't know what's going on.

Ever since Jones standards was discontinued, they've made some effort to move more toward standards, though they were already doing it as far back as 2006. Jeff Rollins does "Big Bands Remembered" during the 9:00 Eastern hour. This is just one song, but it will usually include some sort of trivia about the song or artist. Like "You Made Me Love You" by Harry James today was accompanied by a description of how Harry's father was a circus bandleader who made his son practice. Other songs are "Satin Doll" by Duke Ellington (I heard a vocal version of that one today), "Patricia" and "Cherry Pink" by Perez Prado, "So Rare" by Jimmy Dorsey, and a couple of other songs I can't remember the artists for. "Cherokee" and "Stompin at the Savoy" were a couple of those. He keeps doing the same ones over and over.

There is no logical reason for the likes of "Foolish Heart" by Steve Perry, "Axel F" by Harold Faltermeyer, "I Can't Tell You Why" by The Eagles or "Baby Come Back" by Player.
 
WYDE said:
I haven't heard of Format 41 in years! It was pretty good.

It's a looooong story what happened to the company that format was with, what that format replaced, then was replaced by, then what it was morphed into, but...

The short answer to your question is;
Dial-Global is the company that can directly trace it's roots to Format 41. The format that they're currently carrying that's got a direct 'blood-line' to Format 41 would be Adult Standards.

Bob
Click to expand...

Actually, the bloodline goes like this.

Transtar/Unistar/ Westwood One....AM Only...morphing into Adult Standards which began to skew younger around 2001-2002 later to become America's Best Music under Dial Global.

Format 41 morphed into Soft AC and then was later discontinued.

I worked for a Format 41 affiliate in Sacramento part-time in 1986-87. It was KSAC 1240 AM, the ancestor of the legendary 1240 KROY.

Ah the day's of babysititing an automation system with the privilege of voicing local weather updates and listening to the likes of Gary Butterworth and Peter Doeblin (SP ?). I found the music to be quite palatable.

Our station later switched to Classical.
 
Michael Rivers Kramer said:
Actually, the bloodline goes like this.

Transtar/Unistar/ Westwood One....AM Only...morphing into Adult Standards which began to skew younger around 2001-2002 later to become America's Best Music under Dial Global.
Click to expand...
But under Dial Global, they have moved in a more traditional direction again.
 
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