Do you know any non DXers who listen to out of market stations?

DavidEduardo said:

Yeah, it's horrible how only 93% of people between 18 and 34 listen to the radio any more, and they only listen an average of 11 hours a week.

And to think that way back in 1985, a huge 95% of people in that age group listened to the radio.

(Good example of how fake news gets started).

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Part of my statement got cut off.

I actually stated that no one I know who is under 25 listens to radio. I didn't say that no one in the US who's under 25 listens to radio. I've read the statistics here numerous times.

I was relating the habits of the people I know.

rbrucecarter5 said:

The local top-40 station KCRS was censored by the tastes of the Scharbauer family...
KOMA from Oklahoma City was not censored...
A few of us expanded our horizons further to WLS...

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WLS? Speaking of censorship,
of Janis Ian's Society's Child, Wikipedia writes,
"But some radio stations, such as Chicago's WLS, refused to play the song.

DavidEduardo said:

(Good example of how fake news gets started)

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The absolute amount of fake news tends to cancel the fake, fake news from the unfake, fake news.
Alternative news sources bring us what the mainstream media omits.
As Professor Noam Chomsky professed,
Mainstream media will encourage very lively debates on everything from A to B.

ai4i said:

WLS? Speaking of censorship,
of Janis Ian's Society's Child, Wikipedia writes,
"But some radio stations, such as Chicago's WLS, refused to play the song.

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Was that just WLS or all ABC O&Os, including WABC?

Yeah, as good as it was, WLS wasn't exactly where you went for "cutting edge". "Double Shot of My Baby's Love", "Annie Fanny", and "Pata Pata" come to mind as tunes that were not hits in Chicago because they couldn't pass muster with WLS. But if you lived north or northwest like me, there was always WOKY or even WRIT and listen to them. At least in the case of "Society's Child, you needn't look any farther than WCFL. Although on balance, WCFL with its tight playlists typcally wasn't much more adventurous than WLS..

WLS could even be slow with local product. I recall Chicagol singer, Barbara Acklin's moderate hit "Love Makes a Woman". KIOA (Des Moines) had it in regular rotation for a couple of weeks before it finally turned up on "The Big 89".

And then there's the matter of a little ditty from '67 or thereabouts called "Acapulco Gold" by Rainy Daze. Banned on lots of stations...WLS and WCFL included... for obvious reasons. But perfectly okay for 1kw KSTT in Davenport , Iowa!

cyberdad said:

Yeah, as good as it was, WLS wasn't exactly where you went for "cutting edge". "Double Shot of My Baby's Love", "Annie Fanny", and "Pata Pata" come to mind as tunes that were not hits in Chicago because they couldn't pass muster with WLS. But if you lived north or northwest like me, there was always WOKY or even WRIT and listen to them. At least in the case of "Society's Child, you needn't look any farther than WCFL. Although on balance, WCFL with its tight playlists typcally wasn't much more adventurous than WLS..

WLS could even be slow with local product. I recall Chicagol singer, Barbara Acklin's moderate hit "Love Makes a Woman". KIOA (Des Moines) had it in regular rotation for a couple of weeks before it finally turned up on "The Big 89".

And then there's the matter of a little ditty from '67 or thereabouts called "Acapulco Gold" by Rainy Daze. Banned on lots of stations...WLS and WCFL included... for obvious reasons. But perfectly okay for 1kw KSTT in Davenport , Iowa!

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I remember my cousins from New Orleans telling me about this great record "Double Shot of My Baby's Love" which I had never heard at the time. Apparently WLS & WCFL didn't play it.
Also, WLS didn't play many R&B tunes that were popular on other Top 40 stations in different markets. I don't know if it was because of competition with WVON or if there was another reason.
I do believe that WCFL played "Acapulco Gold", but that was a long time ago and my memory may be fuzzy. No doubt WLS didn't play it.

Sometimes, the reasons for not playing songs seemed to be ridiculous. However, there were also songs that flat out weren't that good but edgy enough to create a demand for airplay. "Louie Louie" flat out wasn't that good. Sometimes, they were good, but deliberately edgy to the point that you wonder why they wanted to push the envelope like that. "Timothy" by The Buoys, written by Rupert Holmes, is an example of one that was controversial but apolitical, unlike some mentioned. But why bother? Why not just make good products that don't push the envelope? ARSA, oldiesloon, and CT30 will answer a lot of questions about who played what.

Another that really wasn't that good but had a repeated phrase that was interpreted by many as a double entendre that probably explained it's popularity with immature young boys like characters on "South Park" was "Let It Out" (Edited Title on 45 along with Unedited) by The Hombres. WLS and WCFL inexplicably both played them till they wore out the grooves.

That and songs which were too long like "MacArthur Park", "Alice's Restaurant" and "American Pie." That's why you don't hear those songs much today on radio. They take up too much time.

690 from Jacksonville still has a significant reach as far as the NC beaches near Cape Hatteras. In Charleston in the 60s and 70s it was the #2 top 40 behind WTMA, and probably one of the top 6-7 stations overall. There weren't many stations though at that time, compared to now.

KeithE4 said:

Was that just WLS or all ABC O&Os, including WABC?

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I have no idea, but I loved and still love that song.

Several years ago when I was working in Terre Haute, the market didn't have a native news/talk station. And in every ratings period, WIBC out of Indianapolis or WLS from Chicago, or both, would appear in our book. Usually a 1 share, but that's not bad for WLS at 160 miles or WIBC's directional 67 miles.

This was before WIBC was moved to FM. But much more recent than people listening to Super CFL 1000!

I'm from a town called Nutley which is about 10 miles North West of New York City, in New Jersey. I prefer to listen to 100.7 WHUD out of Peekskill, NY, which serves Westchester and the Hudson Valley area. Located 38 miles North, it puts out a great signal in my area, with little static. The music has more variety and sounds more like what 106.7 Lite Fm used to be. Only interference is WZXL from Wildwood, that smothers WHUD, during tropo. 100.7 WLEV from Allentown, PA isn't present, even nulled, due to the Watchung Mountains.

In my first job as a cub broadcaster in SE Iowa some 35 years ago, I had to move the station owner's car one summer morning from in front of the station. We could park there early in the morning but had to scram by 8 AM or get a parking ticket.

In his car, the radio was tuned to 780 WBBM Chicago...I can only hope it wasn't an editorial comment about the quality of the half-hour of farm news heard on his own station

KeithE4 said:

Was that just WLS or all ABC O&Os, including WABC?

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It first broke out big all over Southeast Michigan in September, 1966. WLS didn't play it. WCFL did. WABC did. It took almost a year to reach all the stations. Seems like there was an article about the whole controversy in Newsweek.

As you can see, this is an excellent source (ARSA). More information at a glance than painstakingly going through breakouts and prime movers in record trade publications.

http://www.las-solanas.com/arsa/charts_item.php?hsid=9618

Charts that end in 00-00 are Year End Station Charts. PHs are a good indicator of when the stations added, but some might have been played as soon as they showed up in research.

Thanks for pointing this out. The first time I heard the record was in the spring of 67 when a friend played it for me. I had never previously heard it.

660 WFAN still has a bunch of listeners on their AM signal in the Philadelphia and Hartford markets especially, plus they are one of the top stations in New Haven, CT, and in fact through much of the state. New Haven has several well-known callers to the station, even though it is out of range of many of the New York FMs. That is why WFAN keeps their AM signal.

In west TN in the 70's a lot of listeners switched to WLS after WHBQ in Memphis turned down their power at night.