What is the deal with WCBS 101.1 these days?

[fordranger797]

I don't live in the New York City listening market, so bare with me if I am wrong.

As I recall, years ago WCBS used to have a "true oldies" music format, with music focusing on the 60's, with select 50's tracks and select 70's tracks. I looked at their playlist today, and I saw nothing but 70's and 80's 'burnt to a crisp" music. I think its a shame because WCBS used to play a lot of great oldies and motown from the 1960's. From what I saw on the playlist, there was not a song from that decade to be found.

What gives?

 

[tjolsen]

following Jack WCBS returned as a classic hits format, and seeing as the 70s are now very much the long end of the classic hits sound, it makes sense for such a formatted station to only fit in to those decades.

 

[davideduardo]

What gives?

Short answer:

60's with a touch of 50's appeals to people over 60 years old... mostly well over 60.

There is essentially no ad money being spent to reach people over 55 on the radio in New York.

There is no money to be billed targeting anything over 55, and it's worse for 65+.

 

[kevtronics]

There is no money to be billed targeting anything over 55, and it's worse for 65+.

On radio, yes, but if I had a dollar for every TV commercial I see that ends with the phrase "ask your doctor about ..." and shows scenes of happy, carefree, gray-haired senior citizens, I'd be rich.

 

[davideduardo]

On radio, yes, but if I had a dollar for every TV commercial I see that ends with the phrase "ask your doctor about ..." and shows scenes of happy, carefree, gray-haired senior citizens, I'd be rich.

TV has a great advantage in several areas in grabbing whatever money there is that is targeted at seniors.

It's visual. Many of the products marketed to seniors require "appetite appeal" visuals. Those walk-in bathtubs are a good example; without the video there is little to make people call.

TV can comply with the extensive product warnings using a combination of audio and video for drugs; in many cases, the drugs are promoted by scenes of a lifestyle that less-than-perfect-health people wish they could return to.

Many TV ads are PI and only paid based on response. This is not as common with radio as it is so hard to track logistically.

And the big one: TV is programmed "by the slice" and different shows even on the same channel have different demographic appeal. Radio, on the other hand, generally programs by 24/7 formats and can't use specific hours to cater to different demos.

I read somewhere that more money is spent reaching 55+ just in the AARP magazine than in all radio.

 

[Bruce Slutsky]

I wish WCBS-FM would have a "Heart of Rock n Roll" show on Sunday night with Norm N Nite and Don K. Reed alternating as hosts. It will just not happen since demographics will rear its ugly head.

 

[davideduardo]

I wish WCBS-FM would have a "Heart of Rock n Roll" show on Sunday night with Norm N Nite and Don K. Reed alternating as hosts. It will just not happen since demographics will rear its ugly head.

There is really no reason why they couldn't do that...

Saturday night and Sunday night have very, very little listening. So, zero ratings or high ratings, old listeners or younger ones, it makes no difference to the 6 AM to 7 PM M-F period where most sales are generated.

The effect of Saturday and Sunday 7 PM to Midnight on overall full week ratings is essentially none.

Stations can actually used these dayparts to enhance their image with a particular group of listeners and to build weekly cume, too.

In today's radio, the reason why more weekend evening specialty shows are not done is likely related to cost... no direct benefits, and additional costs.

 

[oldies76]

I don't live in the New York City listening market, so bare with me if I am wrong.

As I recall, years ago WCBS used to have a "true oldies" music format, with music focusing on the 60's, with select 50's tracks and select 70's tracks. I looked at their playlist today, and I saw nothing but 70's and 80's 'burnt to a crisp" music. I think its a shame because WCBS used to play a lot of great oldies and motown from the 1960's. From what I saw on the playlist, there was not a song from that decade to be found.

What gives?

Radio, is what's giving out, simple as that. Playing the same "burnt to a crisp music" daily doesn't help either. Thankfully most of us are not suckered into believing that the same hundreds of songs "burnt to a crisp" playing daily are not the only songs that ever existed. There's much more to music than just a few hundred out of tens of thousands of possibilities. Although CBS-FM is a better station than most others out there, I have noticed the change as well and do not listen to them as much as I used to. Radio is a dying breed, declining since it's peak in the 1980's and will never recover, unless they go back to the roots of how radio really should program and operate, complete with true weekend specials, much bigger playlists and requests taken.

 

[R.F. Burns]

Radio, is what's giving out, simple as that. Playing the same "burnt to a crisp music" daily doesn't help either. Thankfully most of us are not suckered into believing that the same hundreds of songs "burnt to a crisp" playing daily are not the only songs that ever existed. There's much more to music than just a few hundred out of tens of thousands of possibilities. Although CBS-FM is a better station than most others out there, I have noticed the change as well and do not listen to them as much as I used to. Radio is a dying breed, declining since it's peak in the 1980's and will never recover, unless they go back to the roots of how radio really should program and operate, complete with true weekend specials, much bigger playlists and requests taken.

Inn other words, just like you think it should be. Radio really needs a shot in the arm. Let it be local, live and independent. The need to consolidate is one of the many things killing radio. It's become vanilla in a world of endless flavors.

 

[Shredder]

Short answer:

60's with a touch of 50's appeals to people over 60 years old... mostly well over 60.

There is essentially no ad money being spent to reach people over 55 on the radio in New York.

There is no money to be billed targeting anything over 55, and it's worse for 65+.

there was a craig ferguson cold open about this very subject..wish I could refind it.
don't advertisers know old people have grand kids to buy junk for?

 

[TheBigA]

The need to consolidate is one of the many things killing radio. It's become vanilla in a world of endless flavors.

Wrong...it has nothing to do with consolidation. It has to do with advertising. So it's the same motivation that drove WABC to having small playlists in the 60s.

As for vanilla, if you talk to the folks at Baskin-Robbins, they'll tell you that vanilla is still their most popular flavor. Number 2 is chocolate. For radio to continue to succeed, it needs to remain the most popular choice among thousands of other flavors. There are radio stations that get a .2 share, but no one cares. WCBS is top rated because it focuses on playing the hits, and not appealing to the narrow fringe that wants deep cuts. It's obviously working, and they have a radio station that is the envy of people in many other cities, including Atlanta.

Being vanilla is a compliment. It means you're #1. White bread is far more popular than wheat. Wal Mart is more popular than Macys. McDonalds is more popular than Wendy's. The goal is to be #1. That's what advertisers want. That's how you get the money to continue to do what you do. As long as commercial radio is funded by advertisers, it will continue to be vanilla. When that changes, radio might become almond fudge, but then it will also have far less impact than it has now.

 

[davideduardo]

there was a craig ferguson cold open about this very subject..wish I could refind it.
don't advertisers know old people have grand kids to buy junk for?

Advertisers know that there is no ROI on spending money against 55+ on radio.

 

[davideduardo]

true weekend specials, much bigger playlists and requests taken.

The "Golden Triangle" of ratings failure.

 

[davideduardo]

Radio is a dying breed, declining since it's peak in the 1980's

There were, arguably and demonstrably, two golden eras of radio: the network boom years of the 30's and the music boom years of the 60's.

In both cases, the bloom faded due to technology.

By the end of the 40's and into the early 50's, radio was thought to dead due to TV. Radio with pictures would kill the sound only stations.

But radio snapped back with a whole new program design. Yet technology started to erode the new golden age by the 80's with CDs, early computers, the Walkman, MTV and HBO and cable.

The 80's was anything but the golden age of radio. It was the period where the FCC began to overpopulate the bands, driving more than half of all US stations into unprofitability and leading up to, eventually, the act of desperation called consolidation.

 

[Thomps2525]

WCBS-FM was one of many oldies/classic-hits stations that played a (supposedly) listener-selected Top 500 countdown during Labor Day weekend. On the list of almost every one of those stations, there were far more 1970s-80s songs than in previous years and there were only two or three pre-1964 songs. Consolidation doesn't apply just to radio stations---it also, sadly, applies to playlists. Almost every classic-hits station plays the same 500-800 songs. If you "New Yawkers" won't find it too boring, you can read the KRTH discussion on the Los Angeles thread. Here is this year's 'CBS-FM list:

http://wcbsfm.cbslocal.com/2013/09/01/cbs-fms-complete-top-500-labor-day-weekend-countdown-for-2013/

 

[TheBigA]

There were, arguably and demonstrably, two golden eras of radio: the network boom years of the 30's and the music boom years of the 60's.

I really believe we're in the cusp of the third boom IF more stations will embrace technology and use it to augment their on-air approach. There's no question that a multi-platform approach can be both financially and artistically successful if done the right way.

A station can do all the specialized programming and personalized playlist stuff online, as WCBS-FM does, and it won't hurt you in PPM.

 

[Thomps2525]

Mister oldies76 said there should be "requests taken." In 1966-67, legendary Pasadena radio station KRLA-1110 was "All-Request Radio." Once a week they played a countdown of the 40 most requested songs. Mister oldies76 also mentioned "bigger playlists" and the KRLA listeners didn't request just the rock'n'roll hits---The countdowns included songs by Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Dionne Warwick, Lou Rawls, Ray Conniff, Engelbert Humperdinck, and the Tijuana Brass, plus many album tracks (Monkees and Beatles especially) and such obscurities as Elmo & Almo's When The Good Sun Shines (which peaked at #98 nationally), Jonathan King's Round Round (which stalled at #122) and Peter Courtney's Before You Go (which never charted nationally). Unfortunately the radio audience was starting to migrate to FM. How I wish an FM station would do such a format today! Letting the listeners pick the music they want to hear---What a concept!

 

[TheBigA]

Letting the listeners pick the music they want to hear---What a concept!

We do a request show, and I occasionally monitor the incoming calls. A percentage of them are from people who seem to want to play stump the band, because the songs and artists are simply too obscure to even be available for airplay, much less be of interest to the general population. Often it sounds like the person making the request doesn't actually know the song himself. He just wants to see if he can manipulate the station. We ignore these very silly requests. As I said earlier, these kinds of personalized playlists are better handled online, rather than forcing everyone to listen to the requests of a very small few.

 

[Shredder]

There were, arguably and demonstrably, two golden eras of radio: the network boom years of the 30's and the music boom years of the 60's.

In both cases, the bloom faded due to technology.

By the end of the 40's and into the early 50's, radio was thought to dead due to TV. Radio with pictures would kill the sound only stations.

But radio snapped back with a whole new program design. Yet technology started to erode the new golden age by the 80's with CDs, early computers, the Walkman, MTV and HBO and cable.

The 80's was anything but the golden age of radio. It was the period where the FCC began to overpopulate the bands, driving more than half of all US stations into unprofitability and leading up to, eventually, the act of desperation called consolidation.

I would like to see Radio Plays make a come back myself. One of my favorite things to do while stuck in traffic is listen to Audio files of my favorite movies, and TV shows. I've seen them all so many times, I KNOW what's going on in my head, so I don't need the visuals. It'd be fun to see Radio shows bring back cancelled TV Series....this would work especially well with Animated series. You'll have high quality audio and can animate later if it's a hit ;o)...

Imagine all the shows they could bring to radio that might not get green lit on TV..and you'd only have to budget for a voice cast ;o)..

 

[davideduardo]

I really believe we're in the cusp of the third boom IF more stations will embrace technology and use it to augment their on-air approach. There's no question that a multi-platform approach can be both financially and artistically successful if done the right way.

Good point. The difference is that the distribution method is changing. The "radio" concept still works and can be expanded with greater bandwidth available via new media.

A station can do all the specialized programming and personalized playlist stuff online, as WCBS-FM does, and it won't hurt you in PPM.

Some of the big European broadcasters have known this for more than a decade. Chérie FM in France has multiple "side channels" offering niche extracts from the Chérie nostalgia / gold format. For example, the main channel will occasionally play an Italian song or two, and a fair amount of English music. So two of the multiple side channels are all-Italian gold and all English gold. You can pick any one of them and at the same time check out local traffic for any French metro or local weather and headline news interactively while you listen.