Two Cents on KRTH

[calguy]

Nope, sorry, the station still sounds like a non-stop advertisement for the state of Hawaii. How long has this promo been going, five years? I'm so sick of it. Just play some damn music, or at least get a different prize package. It's been nothing but Hawaii, Hawaii, Hawaii on that station for years now.

KRTH has been promoting Hawaii for it's contests since the late 80's I believe.

Right, but how long have they been giving away the same prize every weekday, and branding themselves "Your Hawaiian Vacation Station"? Every weekday night Christina Kelley picks a caller to be entered in a drawing (maybe the morning show does that too, I can't remember), and every weekday afternoon Shotgun Tom picks someone from the drawing to go to Hawaii. And in between, of course, they remind you to tune in to Shotgun Tom's show "to see if you're the winner!", and afterwards they remind you to tune in to Christina's show for a chance to call in and be entered in the next day's drawing. It's the endless repetition over years that annoys me. Come up with something different is all I'm saying.

That "reminding" is a form of recycling your listeners. Force them to tune in again, get them to make that appointment.

Gotta agree, the prize has stayed the same for a long time there, might be time to a change up if only for a few months. KTWV does their Trip Anywhere contest too and have been for a very long time. You have to wonder if a fatigue factor could be at work here...

 

[oldies76]

I still think WCBS sounds better than K-Earth when I stream and compare the two at work (..but just my opinion). WCBS seems to have a wider playlist with songs I haven't heard in ages. Also, K-Earth plays a lot of those "lowrider" oldies type hits.

I remember when K-Earth used to play "Earth Angel" all the time..haha. But that was in the 80s when they played oldies all the way back to the 50s.

WCBS today (especially with their Sunday night countdown shows and weekend specials), does sound similiar to the KRTH of the mid 80's (Bob Hamilton). When it comes to playlists, WCBS does have K-Earth beat. On the other hand though, KRTH has made bigger strides to sound much better than they used to, at least since the 90's.

 

[LKellerIII]

Sean Ross mentioned last week a lot of worn out "work horses" are not testing well anymore, most notably "Do Wah Ditty".

[/i]That's the Manfred Mann version, right? I'm not surprised it's not testing well now. Aside from being overplayed, it was released in June 1964, which makes it almost 48 years old. But I'll take it every time over Manfred Mann's song Blinded by the Light. Hate that song. I always did like The Mighty Quinn, which I don't think I've heard on the radio in decades.

Jon - last time I was in PS, I thought your station (KDES) sounded damn good, too.

I agree with the comments on Manfred Mann. I never could understand the lyrics in Blinded by the Light and it still drives me crazy! I have Do Wah Diddy[ and The Mighty Quinn[on my iTunes, that is all the Manfred Mann I ever need!/i]/i]

So you're the other guy that paid itunes 99 cents for Mighty Quinn ;D

"Blinded by the light,
revved up like a deuce,
another runner in the night"

Of course, a couple decades before you could get lyrics on-line, it sounded to me like "wrapped up like a ******"...though that made no sense whatsover...not that "revved up like a deuce" makes sense either...

 

[SimiRadioListener26]

Sean Ross mentioned last week a lot of worn out "work horses" are not testing well anymore, most notably "Do Wah Ditty".

[/i]That's the Manfred Mann version, right? I'm not surprised it's not testing well now. Aside from being overplayed, it was released in June 1964, which makes it almost 48 years old. But I'll take it every time over Manfred Mann's song Blinded by the Light. Hate that song. I always did like The Mighty Quinn, which I don't think I've heard on the radio in decades.

Jon - last time I was in PS, I thought your station (KDES) sounded damn good, too.

I agree with the comments on Manfred Mann. I never could understand the lyrics in Blinded by the Light and it still drives me crazy! I have Do Wah Diddy[ and The Mighty Quinn[on my iTunes, that is all the Manfred Mann I ever need!/i]/i]

So you're the other guy that paid itunes 99 cents for Mighty Quinn ;D

"Blinded by the light,
revved up like a deuce,
another runner in the night"

Of course, a couple decades before you could get lyrics on-line, it sounded to me like "wrapped up like a ******"...though that made no sense whatsover...not that "revved up like a deuce" makes sense either...

A deuce is a kind of car, as in the "deuce coupe" that the Beach Boys sang about. I'm guessing that's where you're confused? Interestingly enough, Bruce Springsteen's version goes "cuttin' loose like a deuce", which actually rhymes. But then, Manfred Mann's Earth Band is British. Does "cuttin' loose" mean something else to Brits, or was it changed to "revved" because "deuce" is an unfamiliar term and they wanted to make it more obviously a car reference?

 

[LKellerIII]

Thanks, SimiRadioListener - I didn't make that connection. I should have guessed that - as both a childhood fan of The Beach Boys and the 32 Ford Deuce Coupe (it was a favorite hot-rod in the 60s).

 

[emailfailed]

I still think WCBS sounds better than K-Earth when I stream and compare the two at work (..but just my opinion). WCBS seems to have a wider playlist with songs I haven't heard in ages. Also, K-Earth plays a lot of those "lowrider" oldies type hits.

I remember when K-Earth used to play "Earth Angel" all the time..haha. But that was in the 80s when they played oldies all the way back to the 50s.

Well, now I would think that the "Lowrider Oldies" would be a bid to get more hispanic lsteners and up the ratings in a hispanic heavy market. I remember KRLA 1110 would even lean toward lowrider type songs and did decently in among hispanics, or at least that is what I have read. I know that the "Huggy Boy Show" on KRLA was extremely popular right up until the station dropped music in favor of talk, a move I can see why, but still yet another blow to heritage radio in Southern CA, which KRTH is the only station left with any link to that heritage by starting out as KHJ-FM. Ok, rant over ;D

As I recall KRLA went full-time "Lowrider Oldies" in 1994; prior to that they were a pre-Beatles oldies/"Lowrider Oldies" hybrid, and mainly the "Lowrider Oldies" were in the evening with Huggy Boy.

 

[michael hagerty]

Sean Ross mentioned last week a lot of worn out "work horses" are not testing well anymore, most notably "Do Wah Ditty".

[/i]That's the Manfred Mann version, right? I'm not surprised it's not testing well now. Aside from being overplayed, it was released in June 1964, which makes it almost 48 years old. But I'll take it every time over Manfred Mann's song Blinded by the Light. Hate that song. I always did like The Mighty Quinn, which I don't think I've heard on the radio in decades.

Jon - last time I was in PS, I thought your station (KDES) sounded damn good, too.

I agree with the comments on Manfred Mann. I never could understand the lyrics in Blinded by the Light and it still drives me crazy! I have Do Wah Diddy[ and The Mighty Quinn[on my iTunes, that is all the Manfred Mann I ever need!/i]/i]

So you're the other guy that paid itunes 99 cents for Mighty Quinn ;D

"Blinded by the light,
revved up like a deuce,
another runner in the night"

Of course, a couple decades before you could get lyrics on-line, it sounded to me like "wrapped up like a ******"...though that made no sense whatsover...not that "revved up like a deuce" makes sense either...

A deuce is a kind of car, as in the "deuce coupe" that the Beach Boys sang about. I'm guessing that's where you're confused? Interestingly enough, Bruce Springsteen's version goes "cuttin' loose like a deuce", which actually rhymes. But then, Manfred Mann's Earth Band is British. Does "cuttin' loose" mean something else to Brits, or was it changed to "revved" because "deuce" is an unfamiliar term and they wanted to make it more obviously a car reference?

Probably.

A Duece, by the way, is a '32 Ford.

And the lyrics were deliberately bizarre. Columbia was positioning Springsteen in 1973 as "The Next Dylan"...and "Blinded" fit right in. It really wasn't until Bruce found his own voice that he took off.

 

[RadioStarOne]

Speaking of the Beach Boys, have any of you heard the single from their new CD to be released shortly? "That's Why God Made The Radio."
Radio? It really is a pretty cool song! Listen for it!

 

[AM FM listener]

Back to K-Earth, I probably listen to them more than any LA station. I am not a fan of the "moldy oldies" (pre-Beatles) they play but I love their selection of 70's and 80's music. I would say the 3 best oldies / classic hits stations in the US would be WCBS, KRTH and KOOL.

 

[DAVEedwards]

Back to K-Earth, I probably listen to them more than any LA station. I am not a fan of the "moldy oldies" (pre-Beatles) they play but I love their selection of 70's and 80's music. I would say the 3 best oldies / classic hits stations in the US would be WCBS, KRTH and KOOL.

72 To About 1980 Is Difficult To Get A Handle On.
If You Listen Closely, It Became "Relationship" Music Soft And Mellow, With Hard Rock--thrown In.
Top 40 Crossed Over To Hard Rock, Relationship, And Disco During That Period.
And Killed Grand Funk's Reigh

 

[oldies76]

I am not a fan of the "moldy oldies" (pre-Beatles) they play but I love their selection of 70's and 80's music.

What few pre-64's KRTH does play, is very limited and repeated, that it can sound "moldy" I suppose. How many times have we heard 1961's "Stand By Me"??

Agreed on the 70's & 80's though, that's a plus! The selection in those decades has improved a lot these past few years.

 

[dagrudt]

Jhani Kaye has done a great job with the station, but still TOO much repetition - example last week during 'Shotgun's' shift over a 3 day period I heard 'Midnight Train to Georgia' each day. I do like the song but a minimum of once a week (for this song and others) would be enough for me.

 

[calguy]

Oldies or not, rotations are still going to be noticeable to someone who listens religiously. The beauty of a Jhani Kaye station is that he does a good job of maintaining the library. What repeats one week may not be there in a week or two. Then it may return to a higher rotation in a month or so.

 

[oldies76]

True, but another issue to avoid repetition (if listened religiously), is to expand more songs into rotation, so that the repetition factor is less, with more songs in between. It's true that we don't need to hear "Midnight Train..." every day. Another song that is seldom or rarely heard can fill that slot and to others as well. That's how rotations expand to include more hits.

 

[calguy]

True, but another issue to avoid repetition (if listened religiously), is to expand more songs into rotation, so that the repetition factor is less, with more songs in between. It's true that we don't need to hear "Midnight Train..." every day. Another song that is seldom or rarely heard can fill that slot and to others as well. That's how rotations expand to include more hits.

While I agree with you, I don't see that happening. But it would make fro a better sound. One of the things that distinguish Jhani from many modern PD's is how he works to maintain his library. While it may not be what you or I want, he puts more effort into it than most. He does move his packets around, so you should hear a different set of songs in rotation the next week. When I consider what KRTH sounded like before Jhani Kaye got there I think to myself that KRTH sounds pretty darn good now.

 

[davideduardo]

While I agree with you, I don't see that happening. But it would make fro a better sound. One of the things that distinguish Jhani from many modern PD's is how he works to maintain his library. While it may not be what you or I want, he puts more effort into it than most. He does move his packets around, so you should hear a different set of songs in rotation the next week. When I consider what KRTH sounded like before Jhani Kaye got there I think to myself that KRTH sounds pretty darn good now.

Just for reference, there are quite a few programmers who do not packet their library at all.

For those unfamiliar with computer assisted music scheduling, packeting is essentially taking sets of songs and resting them while others become active.

Packeting can seriously speed up the rotation of songs when they return to active rotation, so that they seem to appear way to often for a while, and then they go away again. The alternative is to have all songs active, and to make sure that very strict rules about horizontal rotation are in play: that means no play in a daypart or "window" until all others have been played in and no play in the same hour until all other hours in the daypart have been played in. Vertical rotation rules are also necessarily strict, or one hit wonder artists will play very often compared with artists with multiple hits which are, de facto, harder to schedule.

In my experience I've always been able to beat a station using packeting by using strictly enforced rules on when a song can repeat at or close to the same time.

 

[airpab]

KOOL-PHX.....Better music...Easier to listen too for longer periods! Good jocks too!

And their numbers show it!!