xmradiopro
Star Participant
WABC ratings have not been good so was wondering if they should fill in a format not being offered in New York right now as Oldies on the weekends?
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Should WABC Go to Oldies on the Weekends ?
- Thread starter xmradiopro
- Start date
CTListener
Walk of Fame Participant
So long as producers of paid programming are willing to pay for airtime on weekends, no. If someone interested in doing an olides show -- including all the production and ad sales -- who has enough money to pay for several hours on WABC, providing there is a slot available to buy, then it could happen. But few radio hobbyists have pockets deeper than the big-time hucksters who buy big chunks of air time or the level of commitment to producing a solid program every single week on their own for it to have much of a realistic chance.
kevtronics
Star Participant
WABC is more likely to go all-Dr. Lederman infomercials on weekends than all-Oldies.
xmradiopro
Star Participant
I sent a brief letter to WABC suggesting they add Oldies on the weekend...here is there e-mail if anyone wants to write them [email protected]
You probably should have found out the answer to your question before giving a suggestion.
WABC is a 50KW full power AM with a conservative talk format.
As discussed earlier, the station runs paid infomercials on the weekends. So unless someone comes along willing to pay them a few million to play oldies, it won't happen. It's not out of the question. Alan Freed did it in Cleveland in the 1950s.
CTListener
Walk of Fame Participant
But with labels not interested in paying for airplay for 50-plus-year-old songs, a modern day Freed would go broke quickly, not having that dependable source of under-the-table income to support him,
The payola thing came later. When he was in Cleveland, he secured the sponsorship of a brick & mortar record store.
Now we're all familiar with those oldies collections sold on cable TV, but those are "per inquiry," not cash sales. Not the same money.
Would any advertising support this? There's your answer.
(Although it would be fun!)
WABC is one of the 25 original 1-A clear channel stations and in the 60's and 70's was the most listened to station in the country, showing up in ratings as far away as Pittsburgh and Portland, ME.
It's in a narrow race as the most famous Top 40 station of that entire era, and likely the winner due to good programming, long-term ratings and a huge, monster signal.
Y2kTheNewOldies
Walk of Fame Participant
Oldies as in from 1960's and 1970's when WABC was top 40 station? Or is it going to be 1980's and 1990's songs? I doubt the people who will listen to Oldies today would want WABC-AM to air them given that you have entire generations that are in the money demos Examples (18-34 and 25-55) that ever listened to music on AM Radio. The current money demos grew up with music on FM, satellite radio and internet radio via Iheart app and Tunein app. I doubt Cumulus would want WABC-AM to air oldies though. Maybe WPLJ's HD-2 or HD-3's would air old WABC-AM airchecks? But at this point it does not matter what happens to WABC-AM though.
Who else is in that close race? ;-)
L
lawman
Guest
I would have to say WIBG (WIBBAGE) the 55-66 years, although they were 50kw-d, 10kw-n highly directional, it was said they had over 30 percent of the whole listening audience which is unheard of in this day and age. It was reported that stations, KHJ was one, all over the country would send their PDs to Philly just to listen and copy their whole presentation for their stations. That's how good they were, I can attest to that.
I would guess that its only real competition for out-of-market ratings was WLS, with maybe CKLW, WOWO, KAAY, and WCFL following closely. I don't include KHJ or others of lower than 50 kW, because they just didn't have the range.
But, sadly, those days of 50 kW rock blowtorches are gone. And they're not coming back. There are oldies shows on shortwave, via WTWW in Tennessee and WRMI in Miami, but they're only a few hours a day each.
WLS, KHJ, KLIF and the whole group of Storz stations. Maybe WKBW, KAAY, KFWB. Longshot candidate due to isolated location: KPOI with an incredible group of talent including Ron Jacobs, Tom Rounds (American Top 40), promoter Tom Moffatt, and even one of the guys who put together Woodstock.
I really doubt that Wibbage was a model for KHJ. The concept came out of Drake and Jacobs' Fresno War, moved on to KGB and then the whole RKO chain. Drake's roots were in Georgia, and KHJ's were a bit of Fresno and a lot of KPOI.
The real issue here is not coverage. CKLW was pretty much a KHJ clone, and KHJ had more listeners than CKLW as the market was smaller.
If it's about coverage by night, the obvious winner was KOMA with ads for things ranging from New Mexico to Montana.
Some of the best Top 40's were actually in some smaller markets, such as WING in Dayton, WCOL in Columbus, KLEO in Whichita, KIOA in Des Moines, KTSA in San Antonio, WPDQ in Jacksonville, both WKDA and WMAK in Nashville. There are more like that, but there were fewer that had major influence over the industry at a national and perhaps international level. That is where WABC, KFWB and KHJ stand very tall.
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