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Westwood One Adds Classic Hits Gold to 24-Hour Formats

Y2kTheNewOldies

Y2kTheNewOldies

https://news.****************/articles/n37709/Westwood-One-Adds-Classic-Hits-Gold-to-24-Hour-Formats

Cumulus Media's Westwood One is now offering a third version of its Classic Hits format, for stations that desire a gold-based pop radio format with more 60's music. "Classic Hits Gold" complements the company's modern Classic Hits format, which has evolved to be a core '80s format with some '90s, and its "Classic Hits Rock," which features rock classics.

Classic Hits Gold will feature proven hit music from the mid/late-60s through the early/mid-80s, from artists such as The Eagles, Elton John, Stevie Wonder, Fleetwood Mac, The Rolling Stones, Michael Jackson, Billy Joel, Hall & Oates, Queen, The Beatles and Chicago.
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I argue that Classic hits might want to consider making classic hits a core 90's format with some early 2000's. 60's and 80's are still viable but might be fading out due to demos.
 
RadioPatrol said:
I argue that Classic hits might want to consider making classic hits a core 90's format with some early 2000's. 60's and 80's are still viable but might be fading out due to demos.
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Most of the stations that would carry this format are small wattage, small audience AMs or HD2s.
 
TheBigA said:
Most of the stations that would carry this format are small wattage, small audience AMs or HD2s.
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I bet at least 80 percent of its playlist duplicates Scott Shannon's True Oldies, which still plays some early rock 'n' roll (Elvis, Buddy Holly, Spector's girl groups, etc) and doesn't touch the '80s.
 
CTListener said:
I bet at least 80 percent of its playlist duplicates Scott Shannon's True Oldies, which still plays some early rock 'n' roll (Elvis, Buddy Holly, Spector's girl groups, etc) and doesn't touch the '80s.
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Could be...for a time, Cumulus syndicated that format via the former ABC Radio Network when Scott was at WPLJ.
 
Perhaps this new Classic Hits formats replaces Good Time Oldies.
 


I bet that website has not been updated. I can't imagine a Classic Hits format today playing 60% 1960s hits. Unless that service was specifically targeting AM stations. But even AM stations don't want to play 60% 1960s hits. If you graduate high school in 1965, you are more than 70 years old. Even for an AM station that wants to include some Beatles and Motown, you don't want to spend too much time there.

And I can't imagine they are playing 15% 1950s. Even Westwood One's "America's Best Music" doesn't do that, and that was formerly an Adult Standards format. Now its a Soft Gold format with an occasional Sinatra or Nat King Cole song, but mostly their hits from the 60s, not 50s.

 
Here's a few titles played on WW1 Good Time Oldies tonight, as heard on the stream of WWIZ in Youngstown:

Smoke from a Distant Fire - Sanford Townsend Band
Sugar Shack - Jimmy Gilmer (or Del Shannon?)
Daniel - Elton John
Live For Today - The Grassroots
Come and Get Your Love - Redbone
Lonesome Loser - Little River Band
Take Me Home Country Roads - John Denver
 
Gregg. said:


I bet that website has not been updated. I can't imagine a Classic Hits format today playing 60% 1960s hits. Unless that service was specifically targeting AM stations. But even AM stations don't want to play 60% 1960s hits. If you graduate high school in 1965, you are more than 70 years old. Even for an AM station that wants to include some Beatles and Motown, you don't want to spend too much time there.

And I can't imagine they are playing 15% 1950s. Even Westwood One's "America's Best Music" doesn't do that, and that was formerly an Adult Standards format. Now its a Soft Gold format with an occasional Sinatra or Nat King Cole song, but mostly their hits from the 60s, not 50s.

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Actually, the 15 percent is the playlist's '50s and '80s titles combined. But even 7.5 percent sounds like too many songs for a classic hits station to be playing just months from 2020. I can only think of two or three Elvis tunes, a couple from Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry and maybe Little Richard's "Tutti Frutti." Elvis had plenty of '60s and '70s hits, and you could add a couple more from Buddy in the '60s as well if you wanted to. Sam Cooke? Play "Chain Gang" and "Shake" -- both '60s -- and let the man rest in peace. And who really wants to hear more from Berry and Richard at this point?
 
Gregg. said:


I bet that website has not been updated. I can't imagine a Classic Hits format today playing 60% 1960s hits. Unless that service was specifically targeting AM stations. But even AM stations don't want to play 60% 1960s hits. If you graduate high school in 1965, you are more than 70 years old. Even for an AM station that wants to include some Beatles and Motown, you don't want to spend too much time there.
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That's called oldies, and yes, I know of one station that plays that much 50s and 60s. If 63 Big WAYS outside Charlotte NC (daytime only for all practical purposes) doesn't play 60 percent 60s that's only because it's more than 40 percent 50s. I don't know the percentages.
Gregg. said:

And I can't imagine they are playing 15% 1950s. Even Westwood One's "America's Best Music" doesn't do that, and that was formerly an Adult Standards format. Now its a Soft Gold format with an occasional Sinatra or Nat King Cole song, but mostly their hits from the 60s, not 50s.

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It's not all gold. Michael Buble, Harry Connick Jr. and the others doing recent recordings of the same kind of music are played a lot. That includes Tony Bennett duets. Sinatra and Nat aren't played as much as they once were but during commercial breaks when some stations don't run commercials, that kind of music is somewhat more frequent.
 
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CTListener said:
And who really wants to hear more from Berry and Richard at this point?
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Why not? Rock & Roll lives forever. Even "It's All in the Game" by Tommy Edwards or some Paul Anka records would sound great. Just because the demos are aging, doesn't mean these gems should be ignored and lost. Some folks would appreciate it. Did you see the Price is Right on Halloween this year? a 1950's based theme, and a restored vintage '56 Chevy up for grabs, so there's an interest still.
 
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RadioPatrol said:
https://news.****************/articles/n37709/Westwood-One-Adds-Classic-Hits-Gold-to-24-Hour-Formats
I argue that Classic hits might want to consider making classic hits a core 90's format with some early 2000's. 60's and 80's are still viable but might be fading out due to demos.
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I think that there's another factor at play, which is that Top 40 radio (under the "CHR" name) was pretty strong through most of the eighties, with a revival that started around 1982 and carried through to the end of the decade. In contrast, much of the nineties was musically fragmented, with a pretty bad "doldrums" period for Top 40 in the early nineties where the format got rather soft in mushy as a result of an anti-rap backlash, splintering from alternative in the mid-nineties, and then the split into "rhythmic" and "mainstream" variants.

The result is that I suspect that the 80s-based format will remain viable for a relatively long time for the simple reason that there's a larger audience that shared the same music during that time than is the case for the 90s.
 
oldies76 said:
Did you see the Price is Right on Halloween this year? a 1950's based theme, and a restored vintage '56 Chevy up for grabs, so there's an interest still.
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Lots of people attend renaissance fairs, too. But that does not mean we are going to be playing period music on the radio.

You still have the mentality that if a song made it to mid-charts 60 years ago, lots of people will want to hear it now. The truth is that few will remember it and even fewer will want to hear it again.
 
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