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The Famous WALL Radio

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davefrmn2019

I have heard the voice guy on WALL Radio, Howard Hoffman mention during the station legal ID that WALL Radio is. Famous Worldwide. This may be true but doesn't justify their Classic Hits format today. The station today has a limited playlist playing same artists every hour.
Back in the 1960s & 1970s when radio was good they like other area stations had talented djs on the air who ad lib a lot during their shows. Good examples of this was Randy West and Howard Hoffman. You can also say the radio trend back then was to produce this kind of radio.
 
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That was a long time ago. Credit PDs Larry Berger and Dave Pound. Dave was the one who hired Howard. Howard was the one who voiced the famous NINE tape that radio geeks still talk about. That tape may be what made WALL famous. After that, the station was bought by former WABC DJ Cousin Brucie. He was partners with Robert F.X. Sillerman, who went on to build a media empire.

My view on what you said is that music radio at that time was new & had no real competition. The minute it did, it got diluted. A lot of those WALL DJs went on to fame and fortune elsewhere. You're talking about things that happened 50 years ago.
 
davefrmn2019 said:
My point was WALL shouldn't. be classified as a famous great station when their current format doesn't justify such a format.
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People say the same thing about KROQ in LA. My take is the word famous is for what you've done in the past, not necessarily about the present. Heritage is what makes something famous, and those stations have heritage. Truthfully, it's a thousand watt AM. The fact that it's still on the air is amazing. Most similar stations from that era are either religious or conservative talk.
 
I hate ANY songs that are repeated over and. over again. This is true for Billy Joel, The Police, Elton John, etc. It seems every time I tune in I hear a Billy Joel or Police song. What could WALL be thinking on this kind of playlist ?
 
davefrmn2019 said:
I hate ANY songs that are repeated over and. over again. This is true for Billy Joel, The Police, Elton John, etc. It seems every time I tune in I hear a Billy Joel or Police song. What could WALL be thinking on this kind of playlist ?
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Radio is not made for people who don't like music repetition. That was true 50 years ago, and it's true now. The old WALL played far fewer songs a lot more often. That's what format radio is all about. The playlist now is likely 4 times the size it was in the 70s.
 
davefrmn2019 said:
I hate ANY songs that are repeated over and. over again. This is true for Billy Joel, The Police, Elton John, etc. It seems every time I tune in I hear a Billy Joel or Police song.
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Stations don't program artists. They program individual songs that people still want to hear. The artists you name just happen to have lots of songs that are still liked by listeners.
davefrmn2019 said:
What could WALL be thinking on this kind of playlist ?
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They are likely playing the songs that, today, listeners still want to hear. Radio programs "one for many" and can't play every song that once upon a time was a hit.

Some songs just died after a month or so of airplay "way back when". The Singing Nun, the Green Berets, any song about CB radio and the like. Others burnt out and are no longer relevant... often they are almost uniformly hated today: "Feelings" comes to mind. Others were just not big and memorable enough to resonate with today's listeners.

And then there are bigger hits that some like and others hate. So they can't be played as each song will drive a percentage of listeners away, likely to never come back.

Gold and Oldies and Classic Hits stations only play hits. That means songs that are still favorites... "hits"... with their target listeners. Not songs that just were hits 40 years or so ago. Radio stations are not museums. There is no gain in playing songs just because they were popular so long ago.
 
TheBigA said:
Radio is not made for people who don't like music repetition. That was true 50 years ago, and it's true now. The old WALL played far fewer songs a lot more often. That's what format radio is all about. The playlist now is likely 4 times the size it was in the 70s.
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And we have to remember that, during the first 12 to 15 years of Top 40, stations simply played 40 songs and a few "hitbounds" and nothing more.
 
This is all true and I agree with your statements; I guess I'm a little bias because I don't like a lot of songs played on their classic hits station. I guess I should of expected it. On the other hand I keep hoping they change their playlist to more oldies from 60s. & 70s. That's what I like. and I guess they don't feel this kind of format justifies their listeners music choice.
 
DavidEduardo said:
Stations don't program artists. They program individual songs that people still want to hear.
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Interestingly, for a time WALL's sister station WKOJ allowed its DJs to do just this. Once an hour, the jock was allowed to deviate from the playlist by selecting another track from the same album.

It led to a lot of good music discovery, and the audience responded to it pretty well.

Won't work for every format, but for those that thrive on deep tracks, it keeps everyone on their toes.
 
MTNProductions said:
As you know, Howard Hoffman was the guy who produced the legendary “Nine” tape. This was where it’s at.

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Yes he did! He produced this back in the 1970’s and it was a parody of the WOR-FM/WXLO tape where it talks about the history on 98.7 FM called “How The ‘X’ Came To New York”. It was on Reelradio and I couldn’t listened to it, because I need to pay for it to listen to it. I hope it will show up on one of the sites at some point.
 
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