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WBLS changes weekend lineup

R

Rollo-Smokes

On the one-year anniversary this week of the announcement of the WBLS/WRKS consolidation (and the subsequent conversion of 98.7 into WEPN-FM), New York's lone remaining Urban AC is changing its weekend lineup effective next week.

  • Rhythm Revue with Felix Hernandez, on Sundays from Noon to 3 PM, will run Saturdays from 8-10 AM beginning April 27. This means his WBLS show will run back-to-back with his WBGO program, where it airs from 10 AM to 2 PM.
  • Open Line, the Sunday morning public affairs show, has been shortened to one hour and moved to 8 AM from 10 AM. Also, longtime Open Line co-host James Mtume departed after this morning's program.

Both Open Line and Rhythm Revue were inherited by WBLS from Kiss after a loud outcry from listeners. Now, one year later, both programs are being downgraded. I would assume Mr. Mtume's decision to leave Open Line is directly tied into the changes.

There is no word on what WBLS' new plans for Sunday programming as of next week are, but messages left on the station's Facebook page show that listeners are clearly not happy about them.
 
Open Line shouldn't be touched. Love that show.

Good move with 1960s/1970s show Rhythm Revue. The show targets 50 years old to dead.
 
Which means that Imhotep Gary Byrd's GBE Experience is either moving also, or is off WBLS altogether. (It still runs on WLIB from 6 to 8 PM).

So, WBLS now has 10 am to 5 pm open on Sundays...we'll see what they use to fill those hours. But isn't weekends the best time to run specialty shows? Especially for a station like WBLS which has always played on its heritage?

BTW, "JerseyDude", both Sunday Classics and Rhythm Revue are very similar in the demos they reach. Though I wouldn't use "50 to dead" because they both play a good amount of '80s songs as well.
 
UPDATE: WBLS's new Sunday lineup as of April 28:

8:00 AM - Open Line (new time, reduced to 1 hr.)
9:00 AM - Hour of Power with Rev. Al Sharpton
10:00 AM to 5:00 PM - OPEN
5:00 PM - Sunday Classics (new time, reduced to 2 hrs.)
7:00 PM - Express Yourself with Imhotep Gary Byrd (new time)
9:00 PM - Caribbean Fever with Dahved Levy (new time, reduced to 3 hrs.)

And again, Rhythm Revue with Felix Hernandez loses an hour and goes to Saturdays from 8 to 10 AM.
 
My concern that in the not so far distant future shows like Rhythm Revue and Sunday Classics will be history on WBLS. There will be no place for Classic R&B/Soul.

WBLS has dropped the pioneers like Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Billye Holliday and their like years ago.

When it comes to Open Line, some critics do feel that this cuts back on talk shows that address the Black community.



Thanks,
Kevin L. Sealy
 
The station is playing less music from 35 years ago (the 1970s). They are starting to play more music from the 1990s (Brandy/D'Angelo).

I wonder what prompted the change.
 
JerseyDude said:
The station is playing less music from 35 years ago (the 1970s). They are starting to play more music from the 1990s (Brandy/D'Angelo).

I wonder what prompted the change.
Click to expand...

People who are in to the 1970s music have more or less aged out of the money demo. Bringing more 90s cuts should bring the demos down a bit making it a more desirable buy for advertisers.

Same things as what's happened at CBS-FM. Gone are most of the 60s cuts....
 
luperm said:
JerseyDude said:
The station is playing less music from 35 years ago (the 1970s). They are starting to play more music from the 1990s (Brandy/D'Angelo).

I wonder what prompted the change.
Click to expand...

People who are in to the 1970s music have more or less aged out of the money demo. Bringing more 90s cuts should bring the demos down a bit making it a more desirable buy for advertisers.

Same things as what's happened at CBS-FM. Gone are most of the 60s cuts....
Click to expand...

One of the arguments about WBLS over the past year has been exactly that. Heritage has played a huge role in the station's identity (I remember when, about 15-20 years ago, Sunday Classics ran pretty much all day from 8 AM to 4 PM), but the Frankie Crocker days are long gone, the Suttons are out, and Hal Jackson is no longer with us. It may be time to move on from that template, but what I would hate to see happen is WBLS sound like every other cookie-cutter Urban AC. The station has to modernize while keeping some kind of New York flavor to its sound.

And I don't know about any of you, but I have a problem with any kind of gospel music being played on a mainstream urban station. I know this is big outside of NYC (especially in the South), but I've never liked it. That's what WLIB is for, just my opinion.
 
I guess you are gonna have those problems (the 70s crowd/55 year olds vs 35 year olds/1990s crowd) when there is only one music station serving blacks over 30. 98.7 Kiss played nothing but R&B Oldies with almost no currents. The older folks had their own station.

Is the New York flavor just the NY regional R&B sounds of the 1970s? Is there a contemporary NY R&B sound? If there is, Skip Dillard isnt giving it any play.
 
One of these days, WBLS-FM should devote their Sunday evening programming to Old Timers Night. You know...play Ella, Billy Erckstine, Nat King Cole, Basie, Ellington, Miles Davis and the old school quiet storm artists.
 
Rollo-Smokes said:
luperm said:
JerseyDude said:
The station is playing less music from 35 years ago (the 1970s). They are starting to play more music from the 1990s (Brandy/D'Angelo).

I wonder what prompted the change.
Click to expand...

People who are in to the 1970s music have more or less aged out of the money demo. Bringing more 90s cuts should bring the demos down a bit making it a more desirable buy for advertisers.

Same things as what's happened at CBS-FM. Gone are most of the 60s cuts....
Click to expand...

One of the arguments about WBLS over the past year has been exactly that. Heritage has played a huge role in the station's identity (I remember when, about 15-20 years ago, Sunday Classics ran pretty much all day from 8 AM to 4 PM), but the Frankie Crocker days are long gone, the Suttons are out, and Hal Jackson is no longer with us. It may be time to move on from that template, but what I would hate to see happen is WBLS sound like every other cookie-cutter Urban AC. The station has to modernize while keeping some kind of New York flavor to its sound.

And I don't know about any of you, but I have a problem with any kind of gospel music being played on a mainstream urban station. I know this is big outside of NYC (especially in the South), but I've never liked it. That's what WLIB is for, just my opinion.
Click to expand...

And Vaughn Harper is no longer there and Lenny Green (Which I listened to on Kissing After Dark on 98.7) is there continuing the tradition of 30 years of The Quiet Storm even before Melvin put the name to the format when Vaughn hosted his show after Frankie.
 
One week later and WBLS still hasn't updated their website to list the changes. So the updates have to come from listening or reading FB posts.

From there, we now know that Eddie Love's House will be filling 10 A-1 P on Sundays starting tomorrow. No word yet on the 1 to 5 PM spot.

JerseyDude said:
I guess you are gonna have those problems (the 70s crowd/55 year olds vs 35 year olds/1990s crowd) when there is only one music station serving blacks over 30. 98.7 Kiss played nothing but R&B Oldies with almost no currents. The older folks had their own station.

Is the New York flavor just the NY regional R&B sounds of the 1970s? Is there a contemporary NY R&B sound? If there is, Skip Dillard isnt giving it any play.
Click to expand...

I don't know about a "contemporary New York R&B sound" these days, but how about giving more airtime to other subgenres of R&B, to older artists still putting out quality recordings (other than 72-year-old Ronald Isley and 59-year-old Charlie Wilson) but who get little love from mainstream radio, and leave anything that sounds/smells like hip-hop to Hot and Power?

blackgold said:
One of these days, WBLS-FM should devote their Sunday evening programming to Old Timers Night. You know...play Ella, Billy Erckstine, Nat King Cole, Basie, Ellington, Miles Davis and the old school quiet storm artists.
Click to expand...

The idea is to move away from that, not go backward. As much as I'd like to hear those artists and the Motown and disco and funk, it just skews too old now. Unless you want to deal with a 'CBS-FM-like "demos issue", it's time to modernize and broaden the playlist. Maybe what WBLS should do is fire up an HD-2 stream (for those who care) and devote it to classic artists.

And besides, Dahved Levy has Sunday nights locked up with his show, which is one of the few (if the only) on the commercial dial devoted to Caribbean music.
 
AllAccess reports that WBLS will have a classic hip-hop show on Saturday mornings, from 9 to 11 am.
The article states it will be hosted by a rapper named Doug E. Fresh.
I am not too familiar with the station, but I thought it has played relatively little hip-hop, at least in recent years. I recall reading that their famous former PD Frankie Crocker did not much care for it.
 
blackgold said:
One of these days, WBLS-FM should devote their Sunday evening programming to Old Timers Night. You know...play Ella, Billy Erckstine, Nat King Cole, Basie, Ellington, Miles Davis and the old school quiet storm artists.
Click to expand...



That would be my biggest dream for WBLS. If this happens,then we could dream for the return of the original WNEW-AM 1130 with their Pop Standards.

But the way radio has gone in the past 15 years, stations that specialized in playing older (oldies) musio have cut back on the oldest they played as the years moved on. CBS-FM is an excellent example. The 50s are gone. Lite-FM (WLTW) plays very few hits from the 70s.




Thanks,
Kevin L. Sealy
 
Barry said:
AllAccess reports that WBLS will have a classic hip-hop show on Saturday mornings, from 9 to 11 am.
The article states it will be hosted by a rapper named Doug E. Fresh.
I am not too familiar with the station, but I thought it has played relatively little hip-hop, at least in recent years. I recall reading that their famous former PD Frankie Crocker did not much care for it.
Click to expand...

Doug E. Fresh is a legend from hip-hop's first generation. Even though he is years removed from being a hitmaker, he is ambassador for the "real" hip-hop (not the mainstream stuff heard now) and his name still holds a great deal of weight in these parts.

WBLS has flip-flopped with playing rap so many times that I've lost count, but they have generally stayed away from the hard stuff.

JerseyDude said:
Fresh is on from 9am-11am and Felix Hernandez is on from 8am-10am. Something is wrong here.
Click to expand...

Most definitely...sounds like Felix has lost another hour unless he's now on 7 to 9. He mind as well leave the station at this point.
 
Has WBLS switched formats?

More RadioInfo Career Moves. YMF Media’s hip hop WBLS, New York welcomes rap legend Doug E. Fresh to the air staff with a weekend program dubbed, “The Show” that airs on Saturday mornings from 9:00 am to 11:00 am…
 
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