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WAVO Charlotte NC asking listeners for donations

V

vchimpanzee

I guess we should have known it would happen sooner or later. I've wondered why more non-commercial standards stations haven't shown up. But as with most stations of this type, they're having trouble selling advertising to people who don't want to reach people over 55.

It's not a community station like the other standards station I listen to. The town where the station is licensed already has a great community station which is news/talk. The owner of WAVO loved this music (though even he gave up on the format for a couple of years in Charlotte and gave it up entirely in other markets), and while some of his stations in Charlotte are Christian and this one was one of the simulcast partners of the original Christian station, they seem committed to this format.

http://www.radiodiscussions.com/sho...O-asks-for-donations-to-maintain-radio-format
 
If you're just now turning 55, then you were born in '59, and your parents are probably a lot more familiar with WAVO's playlist, while you didn't hit adolescence until after the Beatles broke up, and if you knew about Elvis at all pre-mortem, he was just (from your perspective) some fat old guy. The loss of your virginity may even have involved disco.

Chances are it wasn't until years later that you learned of the existence of Frank Sinatra, or, for that matter, Nancy.
 
Here's how it is for me personally. I'm not that old,and I never heard of Elvis Presley until Dennis the Menace in a comic strip collection I had bought said his Mom's bird was Caruso, named for the singer. "You know, like Elvis Presley". I heard the name on the radio and while it wasn't one of his better-known songs, it was pretty good. Not until after he made everyone think he died (the incident happened when I was a teenager, but you know he's still around) did I really appreciate his music, and as I started listening to radio formats that included him, I really liked him. Now, he can do no wrong.

Sinatra was a different matter. I don't recall what I knew about him. All I know is all those great artists performed on the variety shows and appeared on Lucille Ball's sitcoms, so I knew a lot of the names and had listened to the music for many years. That's part of what makes the music so special to me now. That and my parents' Christmas albums.
 
unitron said:
If you're just now turning 55, then you were born in '59, and your parents are probably a lot more familiar with WAVO's playlist, while you didn't hit adolescence until after the Beatles broke up, and if you knew about Elvis at all pre-mortem, he was just (from your perspective) some fat old guy. The loss of your virginity may even have involved disco.

Chances are it wasn't until years later that you learned of the existence of Frank Sinatra, or, for that matter, Nancy.
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That's one of the most ridiculous pieces of bullshit I've read in here. The assumption that people only listen to newly recorded music while growing up is one of the most pernicious myths of radio programming. While growing up, I heard the music my parents played on the radio and on the family's stereo system. I grew up visiting my grandmother's house where she'd play piano and the whole family would sing songs. I never cared if the songs we sang were from the 20's and 30's or the 50's and 60's. Good songs were good songs. On television, I'd watch the variety shows that had all the great lounge singers on, so I was very familiar with the music of Robert Goulet, Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, and all the rest of them. I was a Peggy Lee fan because she was hot even before I really understood what "hot" meant. And as I got older, I appreciated Dusty Springfield for the same reason. That didn't mean I wasn't also a fan of the Beatles, Dylan, the early folk music fad of the early 60's, the Doors, the Dead, the Airplane, and all the great album artists of the late 60's and into the 70's. I also appreciated the Mormon Tabernacle choir, the New York Philharmonic, and the 1812 Overture. Only small-minded idiots limit the music that they encounter and appreciate to just what was on the top 40 when they were in high school.
 
I think it's a great idea, and I think it's good for more radio stations to free themselves from the limitations of advertiser support.

The problem will be to get subscribers to renew year after year. That's a problem for Sirius, newspapers, and magazines. The way they get around it is through auto-renew via credit card. So my advice to this station: Have all donors fill out auto-renew forms.
 
Avid Listener said:
That's one of the most ridiculous pieces of bullshit I've read in here. The assumption that people only listen to newly recorded music while growing up is one of the most pernicious myths of radio programming. While growing up, I heard the music my parents played on the radio and on the family's stereo system. I grew up visiting my grandmother's house where she'd play piano and the whole family would sing songs. I never cared if the songs we sang were from the 20's and 30's or the 50's and 60's. Good songs were good songs. On television, I'd watch the variety shows that had all the great lounge singers on, so I was very familiar with the music of Robert Goulet, Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, and all the rest of them. I was a Peggy Lee fan because she was hot even before I really understood what "hot" meant. And as I got older, I appreciated Dusty Springfield for the same reason. That didn't mean I wasn't also a fan of the Beatles, Dylan, the early folk music fad of the early 60's, the Doors, the Dead, the Airplane, and all the great album artists of the late 60's and into the 70's. I also appreciated the Mormon Tabernacle choir, the New York Philharmonic, and the 1812 Overture. Only small-minded idiots limit the music that they encounter and appreciate to just what was on the top 40 when they were in high school.
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I'm older than just turning 55, and most of my contemporaries knew a lot less about music from before we were born than I did, and I suspect that's still true.

If your playlist is heavy on Big Band and the stuff from the '50s that wasn't Rock and Roll, like Sinatra, Jack Jones, Steve and Eydie, Bennett, Lee, Page, Paul & Ford, et cetera, you're more likely to draw 75 and up than 55 and up.

Face it, if you're reading and posting here you aren't "normal, average, or representative of your age group", you're one of those weird kids that went into radio at some point.

The music to which you're exposed during adolescence and immediately afterwards is usually in what you have the most emotional investment, and for most people that's whatever was new at the time because peer pressure.
 
A public that grew up on Cold Susan and Sweet Sister Cocaine, and never outgrew it, says a lot about why America is screwed. A good book about this is Diana West's "Death of the Grownup."
 
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unitron said:
The music to which you're exposed during adolescence and immediately afterwards is usually in what you have the most emotional investment, and for most people that's whatever was new at the time because peer pressure.
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I don't know. Stations of this type do play many of the songs I liked as a teenager, but those songs weren't really what I like now. It feels good to hear some of those songs again, and others I didn't really like much when they were new.

I actually enjoy songs that I never heard before stations like these came on the air more than the stations that played mostly new songs.
 
I heard "Elmer's Tune" on "A Moment of Musical History". It's amazing songs with the characteristics found in this song were on standards radio as recently as ten or fifteen years ago, when Stardust was still Stardust.

Tom Gentry said they were halfway to the deadline and had just over half the money needed, though the recording must have been a few weeks old based on when the campaign started, with the deadline at the end of August.
 
I think this may be the wave of the future.

These people have money but the advertisers don't want it.

It's not entirely listener-supported but there may be a way to change to that.

I did notice Bill Bennett was back in the mornings. I don't know what Billy Joel was doing there at that time of day several weeks ago, but anything can happen when everything is automated.

Frank Sinatra got played three times when I happened to be listening (or at least I think that was him). That has never happened.
 
The challenge is coming up with the right price. How much are people willing to pay to hear their favorite songs? Sirius believes the magic number is $14.95 a month. That's $180 a year. If stations feel they can meet their costs and turn a profit with listener subscriptions, they'll do it. It's easier than selling spots. Just get a credit card number, and automatically deduct every month. Nothing easier than that.
 
I know I've said this elsewhere, but I'll repeat it again. For stations airing a specialty format, such as what standards has become today, it might behoove such broadcasters to utilize hybrid revenue models (where the station survives on donations as well as advertisement) for income or go to a straight non-commercial model.
 
A hybrid mix of commercials and donations does make sense for stations airing niche format, such as this one. But why not take it a step further for enhancing revenue? Why couldn't a station issue "loyalty cards" similar to the ones that many stores issue. They could sell spots for commission instead of a fee. When a "loyal listener" has the bar code on his radio station tag on his key ring scanned when making a purchase, the station gets a percentage "commission" from the store. The advertiser would know exactly how well his ad pulled. If it doesn't generate customers, he pays nothing. If his ads bring in a huge amount of business, then the store pays more, but they know they're paying for genuine results.
 
Avid Listener said:
A hybrid mix of commercials and donations does make sense for stations airing niche format, such as this one. But why not take it a step further for enhancing revenue? Why couldn't a station issue "loyalty cards" similar to the ones that many stores issue. They could sell spots for commission instead of a fee. When a "loyal listener" has the bar code on his radio station tag on his key ring scanned when making a purchase, the station gets a percentage "commission" from the store. The advertiser would know exactly how well his ad pulled. If it doesn't generate customers, he pays nothing. If his ads bring in a huge amount of business, then the store pays more, but they know they're paying for genuine results.
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Interesting idea. I MIGHT suggest offering various rewards for donations of a large enough sum.
 
They're doing it again.

And this time they're setting the goal high enough to resume web broadcasts. If this happens, everyone here will get the opportunity to hear what a great station this is.
 
I thought I had posted about it but they met their goal again this year.

It's a good thing, because the only other station playing this kind of music quit doing so on October 1. Now if only WAVO would simulcast WTIX again, but unfortunately, that other station is buying WTIX and planning to simulcast its music.
 
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