Oh, it's a great song, don't get me wrong. But I have so many other favorites, that hearing it once every week or two is sufficient. I love the song. There once was a time when stations rotated that 6 minute song 3-5 times a day, and it was getting old. Granted, I didn't actually hear it every single time, but to appear on the "last played" list so frequently, gave the impression of overkill. I do have a song collection, so I prefer "spreading out" my musical tastes over a period of time, instead of hearing the same songs again and again.
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- Thread starter oldies76
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Oh, it's a great song, don't get me wrong. But I have so many other favorites, that hearing it once every week or two is sufficient. I love the song. There once was a time when stations rotated that 6 minute song 3-5 times a day, and it was getting old. Granted, I didn't actually hear it every single time, but to appear on the "last played" list so frequently, gave the impression of overkill. I do have a song collection, so I prefer "spreading out" my musical tastes over a period of time, instead of hearing the same songs again and again.
I don't even remember stations playing 30's music in the 1980's. Probably on obscure AM's or standards formats. 50's and 60's did get lots of airplay 35 years ago, but at that time it was mainly XETRA 690 for currents and KRTH for my listening needs. Were there any stations playing music that old in the L.A. area back then?
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I agree. A power classic might get away for two rotations a day, like you mentioned with the two times, but otherwise, it's no repeats. There are just too many songs out there, not to pass up.
I don't think KMPC 710 was obscure in the 70s & 80s. At that time it was owned by Gene Autry, and they played music of the 30s and 40s, which was Autry's era. This was a highly rated station for people of Autry's generation, but you probably didn't listen since it was not your style of music.
In the '65 to '70 period, KMPC was in the 7 share range, always in the top couple of stations.
By 1970 it went into the 5 share range where it stayed to about 1975, and it was around a 3 or better for all the rest of the 70's and first half of the 80's. In 1985, it was always around 5th to 8th (there were a lot of mid-3 share stations at the time) and always the #2 AM after KABC. But it was almost all 55+, but the way buys were done back then, it was a hefty biller.
Across the country, over in NYC, the equivalent station was WNEW. Gene Claven in mornings. William B Williams in the afternoon. For a few years, Steve Allen did middays with a piano in the studio where he could accompany himself at any given point. The station was sold in the early 90s but the format moved to WQXR's AM station and continued for a few more years. Yes 1930s and 40s music was getting a lot of airplay in the 80s, but only the older listeners were aware. Just like it is today for pop music of the 70s. Heck right now, Sid Mark is still doing his Sundays With Sinatra show on WPHT in Philadelphia, and I saw where Sid was just nominated for the Radio Hall of Fame.
Thanks for clarifying that. I totally forgot about 710.
The interesting thing about KMPC was they never transitioned the format away from 30s-40s music to keep up with aging demographics. So at some point at the end of the 80s, they fired Gary Owens and the rest of the DJs and switched to talk. WNEW tried to insert some pop by Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond at the end of the 80s, and also added talk shows at night. But by 1990, they went back to standards because the audiences didn't like the newer stuff mixed in. So ultimately these stations just got out of music altogether. Today, KMPC is the ESPN sports station in LA. WNEW is now WBBR with Bloomberg Financial News 24/7. So when radio doesn't adapt its format to the changing demos, the brand as it was known just goes away. So that's why stations like KRTH and WCBS are trying to adapt as the 60s generation ages out.
C.W. McCall, Dickien Goodman, Sheb Wooley and a dose of Ross Bagdasarian.
Disco Duck is probably too new.
I think there are at least 25 '60s songs 50 '70s songs and 25 '80s songs that would stand up to two spins a day. That's 200 slots in the rotation being occupied by 100 songs. If the station has a standard spot load, it's only playing 13 or 14 songs an hour -- less in morning and afternoon drive, more overnight. During the hours that most people are listening -- 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. -- there are no more than 150 slots for music, probably fewer. Those 40 to fewer "extra" slots are where the once-a-day, twice-a-week and "blue moon" songs go. Just schedule the repeats so the listener doesn't hear the same sequence of repeated songs and it should work fine. Yeah, Saul's spot load is minimal, but really, how many more songs can he cram into an hour? Four, tops? (Yes! More Four Tops, please!)
Just reference one of those Whitburn year books and just look at the sheer number of songs that hit positions #1 through about #10, every year from 1967 through about 1984......there's your answer. And weekend specials will fill Friday afternoons through Sunday (or Monday) if a holiday involved.
Well, if he returns to strictly the 50's and 60's (which probably won't happen), he could fit all those two-minute songs in one hour!
As I have now said more times than I can count... a song that was #1 then is not necessarily one that anyone wants to hear now on the radio.
The key to playing oldies is not to think about charts from the past except as a way to remember what songs to consider. But the key is whether listeners want to hear the song on the radio today. You can not tell me which ones any more than I can. Only a good sample of listeners or potential listeners can do that.
Oh, and a reminder: do you know why stations, prior to 2008, did specials? It was because most people did not fill in their Arbitron diary during the weekend. So they tended to forget that they had listened. A special, with production and staging and promotion, reminds them over and over and over that they listened to you on the weekend when they get around to filling in the diary on Monday.
Today, there is no diary. The PPM does not need to remember. Old school benchmarks are primarily a memory conditioning tool, not a programming tool. Benchmarks today don't jog memory... they promote future listening incidents.
You're welcome to play all of those songs from your own personal collection, or from YouTube, in order from the first year all the way to the present. That's a nice way to spend a rainy afternoon when you have nothing else to do.
But would it make for something that would appeal to mass audiences on the radio? No.
Radio is the free sample. You listen for a few hours, hear a few things, then go home and play whatever you want to play for as long as you want. These are two very different processes meant for different purposes. Radio is not supposed to play everything ever recorded.
Which means that you could add 8:18 p.m. and 1:48 a.m. and play it four times in 24 hours---or squeeze the rotations just a shade and play it five---GASP!---which is what K-EARTH is doing and they're number two.
It doesn't matter how many times a station plays a record in a day if the average listener only hears it once every two or three weeks.
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KMPC was never typical musically, though. In the 50s and 60s, they played current adult music---mostly album cuts from adult pop and jazz artists. There was one "memory" song an hour. Most of the time, it was from the previous ten years. Only Dick Whittinghill, the morning man, would go further back than that.
By 1973, KMPC had morphed into an Adult Contemporary musically, essentially playing KHJ's list minus the five hardest records, and their gold was Top 40 gold from the 50s and 60s. But they maintained their air personalities, heavy news and sports commitment and 18-minute commercial load, so they were only playing six songs an hour.
They morphed into a Talk format in 1980-1981, got crushed by KABC, and came back to a nostalgia format playing hit music from the 30s, 40s and 50s in 1982, which they got ten more years out of before flipping to sports talk.
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I don't correct BigA often (nor need to), but---KMPC was playing very contemporary music by 1973. Dick Whittinghill retired (but later said he was pushed out at age 66) in 1979 and Robert W. Morgan took over mornings---and shortly after, more "magazine" and talk elements were woven into the overall programming. Geoff Edwards and Wink Martindale left in 1980. Gary Owens and Roger Carroll left in 1981, and that year, KMPC went talk.
KMPC failed badly and in less than a year and a half, came back with a 1930s,40s, and 50's hit music format---consulted by Bill Drake, who used it in an attempt to sell a syndicated standards format under his "HitParade" label. Robert W. Morgan had stayed through the talk experiement and they re-built the air staff with Neil Ross, Eric Tracy, Larry McKay and Deanna Crowe. Gary Owens and Dick Whittinghill were already playing that music across the street at KPRZ, KIIS' AM sister. KMPC crushed them within a year.
I disagree.
I was in Southern California last September driving around and listening to KRTH for random 15-30 minute segments over a 3-5 day period (not consecutively) and I heard several songs repeat during the times I tuned in. And yes, "Hotel California", "Go Your Own Way" and "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun", to name a few. I tuned out and changed stations.
I think your assessment may have applied when stations were playing songs just twice a day, but five times a day, you are likely to hear that song more than once in 14-21 days, no matter when you tune in.
PS: Don Barrett says he got a note from Saul. KSUR is dumping the 80s.
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