Re: 'taint oldies anymore
I can appreciate how you feel. But, I can tell you from
the inside, the problem is not, as you posted here, station owners
who "hate" oldies. Let me assure you, if oldies still were as
"easy" a sale on the advertising side as they were 10 years ago,
there wouldn't be an owner in the country who would have a problem
running an oldies station. The fact is: oldies stations don't make
the kind of money they did 10 years ago. Owners are as money
hungry as they ever were.
The problem is: that the advertising agencies (who are run and/or
managed by 20 somethings) believe (as the college trained chimpanzees
they are) that the over 45 set won't spend money, or are too
set in their ways for advertising of new products to work. That's
exactly the excuse advertisers used 10 years ago to "nuke" any
"Adult Standards" station (outside of, say Florida). That's why
you don't hear too many stations playing big bands and easy listening
these days. Yes, I realize I'm on a Florida board here. You still have
some there. The older population is too large for such "easy listening"
formats to completely go away. But, what these agency ad buyers are
saying to most oldies stations in the country is the same crap lines
they used to deny buys to "Adult Standards" stations in most other
areas of the country.
This is compounded by radio station sales forces who are too "scared"
(or too uneducated about their product) to actually go out and "sell" (i.e. "educate") the agencies and clients about their audiences. In some cases, they simply buy into the crap they hear from the agencies about the audience being "too old", and just parrot it back to management. Oldies simply becomes too difficult to sell.
All of this is wrong. The over 45 set has more money than its' preceeding
generation ever hoped to have. They are living longer, they are changing careers, they are spending money in far greater amounts than the previous
generation ever did. They still take in advertising, and if a new product fits
their needs (which it rarely does since all new products, of course, have to be
geared to the 20 somethings), they will change brands. The advertising
business just doesn't get it.
Television wants to know why it's audience is shrinking. True, fragmentation
plays a big part. But, the reality is: most TV shows are geared to...20
somethings! I got news for TV. I'm 48. I couldn't care less about American Idol and Survivor. I'd like entertainment. I don't hardly get it from
TV anymore. (You know...the old "200 channels and nothing's on" syndrome.)
A recent study I read suggested that companies who eventually "get it" and target their products to the over 45 set (still the largest percentage of the population), would get rich beyond their wildest dreams. Radio still swings
by the moods of the advertising community. And the mood today, is younger
is better. That's it in a nutshell.
Now, with all due respects, you're wrong when you suggest music from the 70's
and 80's are not "oldies". Who gives any of us in our 40's and older the
right to say what are "oldies"? It's simply not our "oldies". Every
generation has a soundtrack. For people in their 30's approaching 40,
the music of the 70's and 80's was their soundtrack. So be it, and as the
Beatles said so well, "Let It Be".
You and I love the Beatles and Elvis and Bobby Darin, Chuck Berry,
The Beach Boys, etc. I'm fine with that. But, I have no problem that
the 30 somethings like Billy Joel, Def Leppard, Cheap Trick, Bon Jovi,
etc. It's their soundtrack. And, they've got a right to have an station
that plays their generation's "oldies".
The only truly sad thing, from the perspective of this 30+ year radio
veteran, is that today's radio managements and owners are choosing to discard a format that reaches a truly salable demographic, simply because it's just
too hard (or too dangerous to the bottom line) to try and "re-educate" and "re-sell" the people who buy the advertising.
Now, as far as the arguments about short playlists, a shrinking talent pool, lack of "fun" on the radio...many of those arguments are worth debating. Playlist length has always been debatable. Some stations succeed with a
library of 1200 songs, but a playlist of 400. Some stations succeed with a
much smaller list. There is a shrinking talent pool. But, that shrinking
talent pool is also why there's less "fun" on the radio. You don't give
give talent the ability to create "fun" if you don't think they can handle
it. But, as broadcasters, we do need desperately to improve and recreate
the "farm team". We need to know what talent is when we see it. We will not survive as electronic Ipods. We have to create a "reason" for people to want to listen. And, we're not doing that as well as we could. We could use better programmers, just as we could use better trained sales forces who believed
in their product. (I'm continually amazed at radio sales people who never
listen to the stations they sell. If I was going to sell radio, I'd want
to know everything that was going on my stations every day.)
In short, we could all do better. But that's how I see it. I appreciate you tolerating this long rant.
> The station isn't oldies anymore. It doesn't even call
> itself an oldies station, nor does it play oldies. It may
> throw in a 60s tune here and there, it's mostly a 70s
> pop-rock-disco station. Hardly oldies. Therefore, the oldies
> FORMAT did tank. I wasn't referring to its ratings.
>
>
> > > WRBQ tank? Are you looking at the '02 ratings or
> > something.
> > >
> > >
> > > WRBQ is ranked 5th 25-54 and went UP to 7th overall. I
> > know
> > > a lot of struggling Oldies stations around the country
> > right
> > > now who would love to "tank" like WRBQ.
> > >
> > >
> >
> > How could you be the only one who caught that? I expected
> > everyone to jump all over that. Instead, the false
> statement
> > that "oldies tanked" started a string of citiques of the
> > oldies format. The posts were well written and
> interesting,
> > but the timing could not be worse. Instead of slamming
> > oldies, WRBQ should be given props for hitting the top 5
> > 25-54. Maybe some of the oldies stations across the
> country
> > with aging demos could learn a little from the recent Q105
>
> > adjustments.
> >
> >
> >
> > > > >
> > > > Then WHY did the so-called oldies station tank in the
> > > > ratings? It didn't have a lot of competition. There
> > > weren't
> > > > many other stations playing Beach Boys and Elvis.
> > > >
> > > > Oh I forgot. Those songs were gettin' a bit too old.
> > The
> > > > station's owners hated the age of the listeners those
> > > songs
> > > > appealed to. They gutted those and brought on Billy
> Joel
> >
> > > and
> > > > other 80s crap. So they sounded more like any other
> > boring
> > >
> > > > station on the dial and so far from their lame
> > > > self-described "legendary" status.
> > > >
> > >
> >
>
