I need to explain the specifics of this situation. The same man is running the station, and another one as of April 1, who owned the station from 2002 to 2014 (and only that station). He played music similar to America's Best Music on the station he used to run but didn't own, though it was the station owner that liked the music on that other station. When he bought this station, Unforgettable Favorites was chosen. When other stations in the area had Timeless Favorites after that replaced Unforgettable Favorites, America's Best Music replaced it. And I've been hearing for years how much people liked the station. It is true that the morning show leaned a little more toward oldies even during the decade that America's Best Music was played the rest of the day (but you know he liked the music too; many days, the final hour began with "Nothing But the Best" by Sinatra and the morning show still ends with "May Each Day" by Andy Williams and used to end with "Mr. Lucky Theme" by Mancini), and the most-requested songs at the end of the morning show when requests were played leaned more oldies than standards. Although these days those most-requested songs are not the oldies that weren't being played before. Those people requesting the songs, I'll bet, are people not hearing that style of music except in the morning.As long as it can be marketed to the same advertisers as the old format, there was probably very little thought given to what the new format would be. Station managers were probably saying "just put something on the air".
Or, given that this mostly affects AM stations, which are going to be the weakest in any cluster of co-owned stations, they just picked whatever seemed the same, without even listening to it beforehand. There would be no press release for the news media to pick up on, and I bet calling the station would get you either a meaningless answer or something along the lines of what I just said.
At some point you will have to accept the fact that this is going to keep happening, until you are eventually left with nothing on the air that pleases you.
The local college bought both radio stations in town intending to train students (and only owns those stations). But they decided not to make changes on the America's Best Music affiliate and don't seem to have had the students do much on that first station. Asked what kind of music should be played on the station they bought this year (prviously political talk, which was judged inappropriate for a college station), those surveyed apparently chose country over oldies. There was no hint of a change on the first station until October 1, long after the DJs left. And I did talk to someone on the phone and was told the station was "still oldies", which indicates there are people who don't know the difference. It is a BIG difference.
Meanwhile, the second station, as far as I know, hasn't been doing much on the air to indicate they are training students. The country music has satellite DJs. I haven't heard the morning show.
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