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Where Oldies Music Still Lives

gr8oldies said:
Really the same with me. I got unexpectedly blown out of an independently owned 100,000 watt with a wife who was 8 months pregnant, and we were 400 miles away from home. No eeee-vil corporate broadcaster there. I did not find that Utopia some have claimed.
If you went to work at CKLW for Paul Drew in the 1970s, you had a very good chance of being blown out. Some seem to remember a broadcast industry that was the equivalent of working for General Motors in the 1950s...I'm not sure where that was.
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KHJ went through 33 jocks in 8 years. They fired two of Drake's hand-picked original Boss Jocks (Roger Christian and Dave Diamond) in the first six months. Gene Autry's KMPC had a reputation as a "gig for life", but while you had Dick Whittinghill making 30 years, that was in spite of efforts to replace him from year 13 on, and there are a lot of guys few remember now who were dumped along the way. It's radio. You're always one bad book, bad quarter or station sale away from the door, no matter where you are.

I've worked for one of the smallest mom and pop radio stations in the country (KIBS, Bishop---population 3,000) as well as for a single owner who made his fortune selling for Gordon McLendon (KSLY, San Luis Obispo), a small regional chain run by another former McClendon guy (KUKI, Ukiah), a larger regional chain (KOLO, Reno), and for majors like Bonneville, Nationwide, Hearst-Argyle, Emmis, the old Clear Channel and now iHeart (and in TV, Journal, Belo and Scripps). They all have their strengths and weaknesses. And it's not easy being any of them, big or small.
 
The main difference between radio companies today and 50 years ago was back then, you had huge non-radio corporations that owned radio stations, like General Tire or Nationwide Insurance or RCA or Westinghouse or General Electric. People whine about corporate radio today, but imagine being a small division of a non-radio company. All of that basically went away when the FCC did Docket 80-90 and diluted the spectrum. The biggest radio companies today are only a fraction of the size of the kinds of companies that owned radio in the old days.
 
TheBigA said:
The main difference between radio companies today and 50 years ago was back then, you had huge non-radio corporations that owned radio stations, like General Tire or Nationwide Insurance or RCA or Westinghouse or General Electric. People whine about corporate radio today, but imagine being a small division of a non-radio company. All of that basically went away when the FCC did Docket 80-90 and diluted the spectrum. The biggest radio companies today are only a fraction of the size of the kinds of companies that owned radio in the old days.
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OK, bare with me for a moment. Are you saying that The Radio Corporation of America was not a radio corporation?
 
I couldn't tell you...though the billboard still sits on Chapman Highway.
Which brings me back to the main point about the format and the chances for its success. How many oldies geeks and record collectors live in that limited strong signal area?


K.M. Richards said:
Well, that pretty much clinches my opinion of the situation. We pretty much know from previous discussions in other threads that the R-L approximations of coverage are generous at best, so if the "good coverage" area is covering that few people WKCE's best hope is that enough people in areas with less-than-ideal signal will like the station and support it.

I think I understand better the owner's statements in this thread about previous formats not lasting long. A daytimer news-talk station with what has to be an interference-laden signal over the largest city in the market? I'd love to know what thought process (obviously not the current guy's) went into the decision to try that.
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I think the point might be that in the past the corporations that owned radio stations were not in the radio oriented businesses and therefore the radio stations were fairly insignificant compared to the corporation's other holdings. In today's world it might be akin to Walmart or Google owning a few stations around the nation. Imagine how much attention a handful of radio stations owned by Walmart or Google would receive and how difficult it would be for those stations to get the ear of the folks at the top. If that was the case, it would be logical that they would get little attention and the decision makers would not truly understand the radio business. Remember, there were ownership limits then. I'm thinking that might have been 7 AM and 7 FM stations nationwide with not more than 1 AM and 1 FM within a market. Those markets could not overlap as I understand it.

If I recall correctly, it was Fairchild that bought KLIF from Gordon McClendon. As an example of not understanding radio, Fairchild was offered KNUS, KLIF's FM station as part of the deal, but as I understand it, Fairchild had no interest in the FM. Presumably in the sale, Gordon McClendon was not allowed to compete on the AM dial, not the AM and FM dial in Dallas. McClendon took KNUS from obscurity to a major player very rapidly, robbing KLIF of many of their core listeners. It was Fairchild's lack of understanding of radio that certainly played in McClendon's favor. One of KLIF's jocks, I read, said it was significantly different after Fairchild bought KLIF, implying the station had seen its glory days and that those glory days would be gone forever.
 
Didn't RCA own the NBC radio and television networks?
Westinghouse Broadcasting (Group W) was a class act.
 
frankberry said:
Didn't RCA own the NBC radio and television networks?
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Yes. When GE bought RCA in 1988, the new owners sold all of the radio stations and the radio network. GE also sold it's owned & operated radio stations.

A few years later, CBS merged with Westinghouse and got their radio stations as part of the deal. This was before the 96 Telecom Act, and as a result had to sell off a number of stations to comply with ownership limits.
 
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b-turner said:
I think the point might be that in the past the corporations that owned radio stations were not in the radio oriented businesses and therefore the radio stations were fairly insignificant compared to the corporation's other holdings. I
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Big A already mentioned the large companies that used radio to promote sales of electronics that they produced.

RCA built a radio network so there would be content that would in turn sell radios. They did it again with TV.

Others who built or bought stations to promote radio set manufacturing were companies like Crosley (WLW), and Stromberg-Carlson (WHAM).

Then you had the non-associated companies using radio for image or promotion. WSM and WLAC were owned by major insurance companies, just as Nationwide and Jefferson Pilot owned stations later.

Major retailers owned stations. WLS (World's Largest Store) and WFIL (Lit's in Philly) were examples. Car dealers like Don Lee and Earle C. Anthony were in radio. And of course, the newspapers with too many examples to even try citing them.

There was even Storer Broadcasting that started out as Fort Industries, a gasoline company in Ohio. When they reached the cap in radio and TV, they bought an airline.

And a failing Columbia Broadcasting System found its future with a guy who got into radio to better sell his cigars.

Because regulations limited the number of stations, companies either had radio as a high return investment or as and extension of another business, like newspapers or retailers. Today, with very open ownership caps, it can be a major business on its own.
 
I was living in the Kansas City metro, Sugar Creek to be exact, when a station called KBIL 1140 signed on in Liberty, Missouri as a 500 watt daytimer. As I understand it, the studios were in the furniture store that put the station on the air, at least for a short time from what i was told. As I recall there was 5 minutes of news at :55 and headlines on the half hour, always sponsored by that furniture store. There were few commercials otherwise but I suspect the furniture store's sales showed a nice increase. The station began as 'Town and Country' meaning the lighter side of top 40 with a country tune about every 15 minutes. In a short time, maybe 1968, the station became what would later be called an adult contemporary station. Later they had some success with country.
 
frankberry said:
Very well explained. Thank you, David.
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Thanks!

On the international side, there is a fascinating story, too.

There was a guy who started out in business selling radios to riders of the trains from Texas to Mexico City in the late 20's. He loaded new radios in Texas, and often sold them all before arriving in Mexico.

So successful was he that he managed to get an RCA distributorship for Mexico. The folks at RCA encouraged him to help deliver local content so consumers would want radios, just as NBC did in the US. This seemed to be a good idea, so the salesman turned dealer became a broadcaster when he built XEW in Mexico City.

As XEW grew to a national network originating at a 250,000 watt facility in Mexico City, selling radios became secondary to selling advertising on the nation's leading radio operation. Radio operations were supplemented by TV in the 50's.

That traveling salesman's initiative is now Televisa (NYSE: TV), one of the world's largest TV networks and an international content provider that sells to over 80 countries.
 
landtuna said:
After several days of almost constant listening I am humorously reminded of the consistency of worn out Country classics. It seems they had but half a dozen melodies and just changed words and instruments on occasion. Very early RnR also fits that description.
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I've always believed that Chuck Berry and Johnny Cash each started their careers by recording one song 13 hours long and cutting it into 3-minute pieces to release for the rest of their lives. :D

People who can tell Chuck Berry songs apart can probably also tell one Road Runner cartoon from another... :D :D (MEEP MEEP!!)
 
JeffM said:
People who can tell Chuck Berry songs apart can probably also tell one Road Runner cartoon from another... :D :D (MEEP MEEP!!)
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I can tell the cartoons apart but not always the songs. :p
 
JeffM said:
I've always believed that Chuck Berry and Johnny Cash each started their careers by recording one song 13 hours long and cutting it into 3-minute pieces to release for the rest of their lives.
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Barry White and Donna Summer both did the same thing. :)
 
TheFonz said:
If you are a '50s/'60s music programming consultant, then that is understandable.
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I don't think that there are any consultants specializing in 50's and 60's music formats any longer. Even Scott Shannon was dropped from the syndicated True Oldies format, and he was likely the last consultant to deal with music of that era.
 
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