In this thread and on other boards, we all lament the passing of standards radio, but a related form of radio passed into history besides this music...and maybe revisitng it might be the answer. Ready? Personality MOR or Personality driven A/C.
My favorite stations of this type were Metromedia's WIP in Philadelphia, and, WNEW-AM in New York, This is where you had a polished relavent and smooth personality who was equally important as the music. The personality actually chatted instead of jocked, was a real "companion", and no matter how aggressive the new and recent music became, the audience level remained consistent month to month, book to book, year to year. The conversational and personality-driven approach and execution was the glue that held it all together.
The closest thing we've had to that here has been the old WARM from about '70 to '76. Most recently, Terry Mc Naulty's mornings on WNAK. A lot of subsequent upper demo radio stations have been juke boxes. There are all kinds of alternatives to this, many now without commercials...but as listeners mature, there's never been a replacement for what was always a leading market position for a radio station.
Does revisiting this make sense...or is this sorta like the idea of Westerns on TV, where once seven of the top 10 shows were westerns and now there are none, and all of that has passed into history.
What do you think?