KBSG is now B 97.3

[radiofan]

Longtime Seattle/Tacoma Oldies station KBSG is now calling itself The New B 97.3.

Sounds pretty much the same musically as it has for the last while, late 60's 70's and some 80's oldies .. (no..you can't say the word Oldies anymore) .. ummm .. music..

[douglasm]

Brings up a question. What can be done to revive "oldies" as a viable format? Kent Philips and Dave Hearld about 8 months ago took a dying country station in Twisp, WA (KVLR), cranked up a ton of translators, and rebranded it KCSY Sunny FM "Playing The Greatest Hits Of All Time". Musically it sounds about as bland as Jones Broadcasting's satelite oldies service. Well, maybe because Jones does the music scheduling.....

Seriously, the oldies format is in deep trouble. Can it be saved? And if so, how?

[OpenMike]

Cancon has destroyed oldies in Canada - how about you Doug?

[douglasm]

Keep something in mind here. I grew up in a small midwest town. Detroit. Thus some references may be out of area. Ready?

The BIG problem i have with "oldies" radio is given the length of time, and only taking the 100 best of each year, let's say a format goes 25 years ('60/'85). That gives you 2500 songs to choose from. Why have a play list of 300, blowing through your list and creating repeats every 23 hours? I hate repeats.

The other BIG problem...Music Directors seem to think that The Contours only did "Do You Love Me". Or Leslie Gore only sang "It's My Party". I'd sure like to hear "First I Look At The Purse" or "California Nights". Go a little deeper. The Supremes weren't the only group to have more than 3 hits.

The third BIG problem is the stations aren't local anymore. I'm assuming that a major market station has the skills and programing talent to do their own thing, but small and mid markets can't afford that kind of help. So Jones does it for them, or ABC, or someone else, so you end up with a Pacific Northwest oldies station with no Sonics, Wailers, Paul Revere (well, not much), Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers and 1 Kingsman song. It would be like programing in Detroit without playing Bob Seger. Makes me wonder if the (assuming they have one) oldies outlet in Denver plays "Don't Call Us, We'll Call You" by Sugarloaf. Probably not.

I'd rather listen to a good Voice Tracked show with an excellent music mix than some of the garbage that passes for Oldies Radio now. An oldies station in Washington should sound different from a similar station in Toledo. They don't. What's sad is that if you change the artist names, you've got the same basic problem within the "Classic Rock" format.

NOW as to Cancon, doesn't that just give a programer an excuse to dust off The Dorians "Help For My Waiting"?

phew. Sorry about the length. I tend to get a bit heated sometimes. I promise though, no VT arguements. Been there, done that.......

[Aerit]

Is it just me, or does 97.3 hardly ever play music anymore?

[skyvalleyradio]

...I keep waiting for the news to end

[Mike Cleaver]

If you follow the "Today in Broadcast and Entertainment History" feature here on the board, you will notice charts from various radio stations.
Look closely at those charts and you will see dozens of songs that you NEVER hear today on ANY radio station.
So there's the solution to the problem, along with dropping CANCRAP on "oldies" stations UNLESS it really does merit airplay.
Add some personalties who know how how to program and mix music properly and "real" news, not entertainment crap and you'll be able to pull some listeners.
Yes, it requires action from the CRTC (don't hold your breath on that one) and money to do it properly.
A recent program on CBC radio traced the origins of some popular hits over the past decades, starting with the earliest incarnations up to the latest.
It was brilliant programming, with discussion on how the lyrics changed over the decades to reflect the changes in society, all done in an entertaining manner, not as if it was a scholarly discourse.
There are some people who do this today, including David Marsden.
Some of the best radio is on the internet, not over the air.

[skyvalleyradio]

be careful Mike - you're making sense again!

[jon]

You actually have to dig pretty deep -- or just have lived through the period, and still retain your memory -- to get Oldies right. Joel Whitburn's Billboard-based Top Pop Singles books are extremely well compiled, in terms of being statistically correct in the way they analyze the Billboard Hot 100 over time. But still, the results are very skewed during certain time periods.

(1) At least through the end of the 1950s, and perhaps beyond, it was heavily influenced by "non-Top 40" stations and non-Top 40 dayparts on stations that did play Top 40. Example - look at how poorly Little Richard charts in Top Pop Singles. "Long Tall Sally" is his biggest hit at #6.

(2) By the late 1960s, a significant number of radio listeners bought albums instead of singles. This meant that sales of Singles was no longer a valid way to measure a song's success. Example - look at how well Bubble Gum charted. Younger teens still bought singles. Many older teens preferred albums.

(3) I'm not so sure about this one, but, from the people I know, the Disco era saw a lot of them turn off their radios. Given there was a smaller pie of Top 40 radio listeners during that period, should a #1 for 6 weeks Disco hit be rated as highly, as a #1 for 6 weeks Beatles song? Admittedly, that argument would also hurt the earliest Top 40 hits, since it took a little time to build the kind of huge audiences that Top 40 Radio had a few years later. Especially when adults joined the ranks when the Twist suddenly became "acceptable". But, I would argue that those '50s hits were so well known as Oldies by that "later audience" that the familiarity is certainly there.

Finally, of course, Billboard does not reflect how well songs did in your Market. But, with all the migration of folks from one area to another over the last 50 years, how many Local or even Regional Hits should be played?

[cart_machine]

Why have a play list of 300, blowing through your list and creating repeats every 23 hours?

Because that's the way consultants think.

cArtie.

[Aerit]

...I keep waiting for the news to end

Same here, and it never happens for me. I'm not about to waste gas in my car just driving around and waiting. Luckily now though, Comcast supports radio stations. So I can tune in, but it seems that every time I do, it's just news, talkshow, or commercials.