Unusual Song Selection for KTWV The Wave

No no no the champ HAS to be "I Melt With You"

You got to also add "Don't You (Forget About Me)" to the list.

Even though the songs of the 60s are becoming a thing of the past [no pun intended] in my area someone at iheartradio must have a "heart" on for The Foundations' "Build Me Up Buttercup". They play that damn song at least once a day on my local oldies......ooops....I mean "classic hits" station.

Yabadabado1 said:

Even though the songs of the 60s are becoming a thing of the past [no pun intended] in my area someone at iheartradio must have a "heart" on for The Foundations' "Build Me Up Buttercup". They play that damn song at least once a day on my local oldies......ooops....I mean "classic hits" station.

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I was just up in New York's Capital District, where iHeart's WTRY is still playing plenty of '60s/early '70s alongside the newer classic hits. Got in the car this morning and heard "Lookin' Out My Back Door" segueing into "Lights." Earlier, it was "Oh, Pretty Woman" into "Down Under." Could WTRY be your local iHeart classic hits station, or are there others in the chain still hanging onto a lot of "aged-out" songs?

Gregg. said:

As I write this, I'm hearing "Freedom Overspill" by Steve Winwood. Great song. But I don't know of any other station, other than a Classic Rock outlet, which would play this song that peaked at #20 in 1986. Certainly not a Rhythmic AC.

I also hear plenty of vocal songs left over from the old Smooth Jazz years... by Sade, Anita Baker, Norah Jones, Phil Collins, Gloria Estefan, etc. Most AC stations have long abandoned these artists as being too soft, especially Rhythmic AC stations. While KTWV isn't always soft, it certainly goes softer than any other station on the dial. (Now I'm hearing "By Your Side" by Sade.)

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I suspect that Freedom Overspill would be another one of those vocals they found in the waning days of Smooth Jazz that they can still get to test, so they play it.

KTWV is unique.

CTListener said:

I was just up in New York's Capital District, where iHeart's WTRY is still playing plenty of '60s/early '70s alongside the newer classic hits. Got in the car this morning and heard "Lookin' Out My Back Door" segueing into "Lights." Earlier, it was "Oh, Pretty Woman" into "Down Under." Could WTRY be your local iHeart classic hits station, or are there others in the chain still hanging onto a lot of "aged-out" songs?

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Nope. Mine's in NE Ohio. "I think most of Iheart's "classic hits" playlist is being dictated by someone from HQ. Oh, and they play "Pretty Woman" about once a day also. There playlist was so predictable at one point that I would amaze friends by telling them what song would be played next.....and 99% of the time, I was correct. They've changed things up since then but still it's the same old songs over and over again that I very rarely listen to the radio anymore unless I'm on the road traveling to other areas of the country.

Yabadabado1 said:

Nope. Mine's in NE Ohio. "I think most of Iheart's "classic hits" playlist is being dictated by someone from HQ. Oh, and they play "Pretty Woman" about once a day also. There playlist was so predictable at one point that I would amaze friends by telling them what song would be played next.....and 99% of the time, I was correct. They've changed things up since then but still it's the same old songs over and over again that I very rarely listen to the radio anymore unless I'm on the road traveling to other areas of the country.

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I'm guessing that since Albany and Cleveland (and other NE Ohio markets) have older than average populations, the stations there keep 50-60-year-old songs around longer than stations in the Sun Belt and other places where the average age is younger, even if the songs may be turnoffs to younger listeners and, thus, to the advertisers.

DavidEduardo said:

Markets the size of Cleveland do their own local music research.

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How about Albany, which I assume is demographically similar to Cleveland? And is the aging population a factor in WTRY's keeping 1964-74 songs in the rotation long after most classic hits stations have deleted them? (I wrote 50-60-year-old songs before; that was an error -- pre-Beatles songs get zero spins on WTRY, as far as I can tell.)

CTListener said:

How about Albany, which I assume is demographically similar to Cleveland? And is the aging population a factor in WTRY's keeping 1964-74 songs in the rotation long after most classic hits stations have deleted them? (I wrote 50-60-year-old songs before; that was an error -- pre-Beatles songs get zero spins on WTRY, as far as I can tell.)

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A market that size is more likely to either fake it by looking at Mediabase monitors of other stations or is taking a feed like Premium Choice.

LKellerIII said:

Winwood's Valerie (released 1982) was a staple of Classic Hits stations for years. It seems like it would fit fairly well in this format.

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https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Chz4V6OOZ90

Interestingly KTWV's first song 30 years ago was Sting and Set them free the song at the time. Sting is a staple on AAA radio though and KTWV in its early years was Just taking over the 94.7FM frequency from KMET at the time. I seen some bumper stickers at the time showing that the Police was also on the old KMET though. Sting has to be one of a few artists who managed to have their songs on both the Old KMET 94.7 and the then infancy of KTWV at the time.

RadioPatrol said:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Chz4V6OOZ90

Interestingly KTWV's first song 30 years ago was Sting and Set them free the song at the time. Sting is a staple on AAA radio though and KTWV in its early years was Just taking over the 94.7FM frequency from KMET at the time. I seen some bumper stickers at the time showing that the Police was also on the old KMET though. Sting has to be one of a few artists who managed to have their songs on both the Old KMET 94.7 and the then infancy of KTWV at the time.

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We think of music radio formats and stations as temporary - coming and going within a few years. But it occurs to me that by now, The Wave has lasted about a decade longer than "The Mighty Met." And KIIS-FM has lasted probably 3 times as long as the "legendary" KHJ. Within these formats, I realize there is a lot of evolution and adjustment.

Then there's K-Earth - about 45 years, I'm guessing.

I remember listening to the KMET to KTWV transition and hearing "...Free, free, set them free..." and not knowing what format The Wave was going to be, as that song had a multi-format appeal. After several songs, I got it and was very intrigued. I was a big fan of the old "mellow rock" KNX-FM and recognized some of its elements in The Wave so I kept listening. Over the next 5 years or so, The Wave was my favorite station. I loved the way it blended mellow rock, contemporary jazz and new age music. I even loved its TOH ID, "KT...WV...Los Angeles...Ninety-Four-Seven...The Wave." Aah...the memories...

LKellerIII said:

We think of music radio formats and stations as temporary - coming and going within a few years. But it occurs to me that by now, The Wave has lasted about a decade longer than "The Mighty Met." And KIIS-FM has lasted probably 3 times as long as the "legendary" KHJ. Within these formats, I realize there is a lot of evolution and adjustment.

Then there's K-Earth - about 45 years, I'm guessing.

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You are Correct Kearth 101 originally KHJ-FM outlasted both KMET and KHJ-AM

And KLOS-FM they somehow manage to outlast KMET-FM though. KLOS has to be 50 years old though from the old KECA-FM and KABC-FM.

LKellerIII said:

We think of music radio formats and stations as temporary - coming and going within a few years. But it occurs to me that by now, The Wave has lasted about a decade longer than "The Mighty Met." And KIIS-FM has lasted probably 3 times as long as the "legendary" KHJ. Within these formats, I realize there is a lot of evolution and adjustment.

Then there's K-Earth - about 45 years, I'm guessing.

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Llew: You make a really good point about evolution and adjustment. The branding has stayed the same, but the oldies format KRTH launched with in 1972 was dead by 1976, they went Adult Contemporary (very nearly top 40, if you looked at the playlists at the time---in fact, Radio & Records listed them as a CHR station---with a heavy gold mix for 10 years, and then a middling oldies station from 1986 until Drake, Morgan and Steele lit the fuse in '92. It was all but dead again in 2005, and Jhani Kaye re-invented it, and now, in the past three (ish) years, there's been yet another re-invention.

Same with KIIS, Power, The Wave, and with less success, KLOS.

This'll tick the purists off, but the guys doing music radio today are better at it than we were back in the glory days. Consider:

KFWB was HUGE. But it was only number one for five years and was driven out of the Top 40 format entirely in 10.

KRLA elbowed KFWB out of #1, but only kept the crown for two years, and bailed out of the format either in 1971 when they went so album-oriented that it didn't really qualify as Top 40 to some listeners, or in 1973, when they went AC with two-man teams.

KHJ took #1 away from KRLA, but they came thisclose to having their lunch eaten by KKDJ (the only thing that stopped it was Bill Drake splitting the available audience for Top 40 on FM with K-100) in 9 years...and they did lose the #1 spot in the format in either 1978 (if you agree with R&R that KRTH was Top 40) or 1979 (to KFI). And their overall numbers were in trouble by 1977 (8th place).

KFI? Two years as the Top 40 leader before getting beaten by KIQQ in 1981 and both KIIS-FM and KIQQ in 1982.

By comparison, KIIS-FM is the rock of Gibraltar. 35 years of not just being number one in the format, but almost always in the top 5 overall.

RadioPatrol said:

You are Correct Kearth 101 originally KHJ-FM outlasted both KMET and KHJ-AM

And KLOS-FM they somehow manage to outlast KMET-FM though. KLOS has to be 50 years old though from the old KECA-FM and KABC-FM.

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You can't really count KECA-FM or most of KABC-FM, RadioPatrol. If you do, than any station that doesn't go dark gets to count all the way back to the day they signed on. For KRTH, that's 1941.

I don't know what KECA-FM did, but KABC-FM was a simulcast of KABC-AM until 1967, when a series of automated pop and rock formats concocted by ABC management began airing. The real birth of KLOS came with the call letter switch and the first live "Rock n' Stereo" format in 1971. Still, that's 46 years and nothing to sneeze at.

I have not looked at the KTWV playlist in awhile. Freedom Overspill was in light rotation on our top 40 rhythmic station back when it charted (Churban is what we called it back then). It fits the format in light rotation. Higher love would also work too.

Gregg. said:

I think 94.7 The Wave is a great station, one of my favorites. That was true when the station started as a New Age outlet, then moved to Smooth Jazz and now as a Rhythmic AC/Classic Soul station.

As I write this, I'm hearing "Freedom Overspill" by Steve Winwood. Great song. But I don't know of any other station, other than a Classic Rock outlet, which would play this song that peaked at #20 in 1986. Certainly not a Rhythmic AC.

I also hear plenty of vocal songs left over from the old Smooth Jazz years... by Sade, Anita Baker, Norah Jones, Phil Collins, Gloria Estefan, etc. Most AC stations have long abandoned these artists as being too soft, especially Rhythmic AC stations. While KTWV isn't always soft, it certainly goes softer than any other station on the dial. (Now I'm hearing "By Your Side" by Sade.)

It also goes older than any other station on the dial. One or two 1960s or early 70s songs are heard each hour, often from Motown. Temptations, Marvin Gaye, Gladys Knight & The Pips. Not even a Classic Hits station goes this far back anymore. Yet The Wave also plays a handful of current hits and recent hits. The playlist spans from the 1960s to 2017.

One more unique feature... The three major dayparts, AM, midday and PM, are all staffed by women. Again, I don't know of any station where that is true.

But it works. The station is usually #2 in the ratings, and often makes the top 5 in the 25-54 demo. In LA, that's not easy to do.

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Freedom Overspill by Steve Winwood sounds like that song would have been used when KTWV was born. But sure it would have fit on Classic hits station too though.