WDRC-FM Comes Back To Life!!??

[DJ Jim Wayne]

Point taken.

 

[4dude]

If and when BIG-D 103 starts streaming,i hope some1 lets us know!

 

[DJ Jim Wayne]

So I'm taking the long way home from Portland (CT) to Manchester so I had the opportunity to listen to Big D for almost an hour. What a pleasant time it was. Little Richard, Danny & the Juniors, Dave Clark 5, Vanity Fare, 5th Dimension & Jefferson Airplane are just a few that come to mind. Little Richard sounded real clean, Danny & the Jr's, too. Even "Somebody To Love" sounded more wholesome. My point? I know this is an "Instant Request" weekend, but if you asked for a 50's tune a few months ago, I'm confident the response would've been something like, "Sorry, it's not on our play list." There now appears to be a healthier selection of 50's as well as early 60's once again on 102.9; and everything sounds great! Could this be the dawn of a new era for Good Time Rock 'N' Roll??

 

[GlennO]

In the eighties, an oldies show could pack Hartford Civic Center. In the nineties, oldies delivered a very desirable demographic of baby boomers for ad buyers, but even then most of the fifties songs were not testing well with a mass audience. In this decade, mainstream AC and classic rock include the sixties music that still matters to most adults. For oldies or an updated classic hits to survive, you have to be consistently relevant to people 54 and under. DRC has regained some focus that was really lost over a year ago, and I'm glad you enjoy the "oh wow" factor, but most songs from the "I Like Ike" era or even the JFK early sixties do not stand the test of time with audiences that advertisers want. If DRC's happy with it, then fine, but the format's updating or fading nationally because 55-plus doesn't change its buying habits as easily as younger adults. Just thought I'd inject a dose of commercial realty. Don't mean to spoil the Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis party! I like them, too, but a station's gotta do what a station's gotta do.

 

[CTListener]

So I'm taking the long way home from Portland (CT) to Manchester so I had the opportunity to listen to Big D for almost an hour. What a pleasant time it was. Little Richard, Danny & the Juniors, Dave Clark 5, Vanity Fare, 5th Dimension & Jefferson Airplane are just a few that come to mind. Little Richard sounded real clean, Danny & the Jr's, too. Even "Somebody To Love" sounded more wholesome. My point? I know this is an "Instant Request" weekend, but if you asked for a 50's tune a few months ago, I'm confident the response would've been something like, "Sorry, it's not on our play list." There now appears to be a healthier selection of 50's as well as early 60's once again on 102.9; and everything sounds great! Could this be the dawn of a new era for Good Time Rock 'N' Roll??

The pre-British Invasion titles reappeared last spring, shortly after the "Big Hits" format was abandoned. According to yes.com, DRC-FM is running through 900-plus songs a week (including the requests on Saturday and Sunday nights), so there's definitely more music from all the "oldies" eras being played on DRC than on your typical oldies station, but the weekday dayparts with the highest listenership (I assume) are kept fairly tight.

DRC-FM's playlist expands every weekend, special promotion or no special promotion -- although certain oddball songs seem to get played just about every other day (Robin McNamara's "Lay a Little Lovin' On Me"? Mouth and McNeal's "How Do You Do"? Tommy James and the Shondells' "Sweet Cherry Wine"? Clarence Carter's "Patches"?). Mike Stevens also seems to have the freedom to play more pre-Beatles and "oh wow" oldies during his shifts, weekday and weekend, than the other jocks. There was a noticeable difference in playlist depth when he was filling in for Doug Taylor (or was it Larry Wells?) recently. Middays and afternoons on 102.9 are usually pretty predictable and very late '60s/'70s-heavy, albeit with the idiosyncratic DRC-FM favorites referenced above.