Perhaps , we could discuss here , " oldies " radio stations - and related subjects - radio stations focusing on " older " pop music in general , both terrestial and Internet-exclusive .
I'll start with my experience since moving from San Francisco to Santa Cruz-
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...-Without getting too far into my musical/life background here , I have always liked " oldies "-oriented radio , ever since the early Seventies , even as I liked/was involved with more modren music (to greater and lesser amounts) .
This included " older generation " - to US , " Our Parents' Generation " music and radio stations featuring it , " Adult Standards " in radio business-ezze...and , most of all , " oldies " radio , spotlighting the , um , " 50s , 60s , and (at time wore on , anyway) some , at least , of the Seventies " .
The AS format has tended to disappear from commercial radio in recent years , and the oldies format strated disappearing even faster after the AS format faded away - " We " got shoved out on that ol' iceberg even faster than our folkks were , radio-' desireability "-wise !!!!!!!!! Hah hah hah .
From what I read, the difficulty with "oldies" radio today is that, after the 1980s, there's less music that appeals to the wide swath of listeners. The thing is, we are reaching the point, if we have not already, where 1990s music naturally belongs in radio oldies lineups.
The other thing is that too many oldies stations have limited playlists -- maybe 200-300 songs. I still fondly remember a station in this area that launched a "Hot Hits" format that opened up the playlist to 1,000 songs. I enjoyed that station because every time I turned it on, I heard something that made me say, "Man, I haven't heard that in I don't know when!" It was in the top 5 in this market, but that wasn't good enough; the poobahs killed it because it wasn't in the top 3!
Radio, in my mind, began to GO TO HELL in the late 70s-early 80's. And there's a 4th-season episode of WKRP that spells out exactly why. It's the one where Lillian Carlson hires a "radio doctor", a consultant to check out how the station is being run (since she doesn't trust anyone at the station to tell her the truth). And it turns out, what the guy really wants is, he'll give the station a clean bill of health, IF they buy his "programming" service. Whcih would mean, no more DJs, no more ecclectic music, just strict, limited, repetitious, monotonous songlists. "A station becomes successful by playing the same songs over and over and over."
My intro to "oldies" was WPEN in Philly, around 1975. They played rock & rol from the late 50's-early 60's. It was an EDUCATION! As time went on, they expanded to late 60's, early 70's... but by mid-1979, they decided to change the format. I recall going home from work one day and telling my Dad, they'd switched from playing MY oldies to playing HIS oldies. Standards from the 40's and 50's. Pop standards, occasional big band tunes, etc. They had 2 special weekend shows, "Friday with Frank" and "Sunday with Sinatra". And every weekday at exactly 5:30 PM, they played The Platters' "Twilight Time". ("Heavenly shades of night are falling, it's twilight time...")
Well, Dad loved it!
But in early 1990, I got a job at a place where the guy there played what THEN passed for an "oldies" station. And they played the SAME SONGS-- EVERY 4 HOURS. Drove me nuts.
A year later, I worked at another place where they played what then passed for an 'easy listening" station. No more "beautiful music" as in the early 70's. This was wattered-down, low-key, dull-as-you-could get pop songs. Which repeated EVERY 48 HOURS like clockwork. The only Beatles song they plaed was "I'll Follow the Sun". I'M NOT KIDDING. Aftrer ahile, I got sick to death of every single artist on that station's playlist, except one... Neil Diamond.
Radio today is why I subscribe to SIRIUS XM.
It is why I pretty much only listen to my ipod.
When I worked at the Japanese grocery store the main radio station we listened to played the "best" from the '80s, '90s, and today! About once an hour I would start singing a song a few seconds before it would come over the air because I knew it was time for that song to be played.
Doc Beechler (mod-MD) said:
I have so many CDs if I played them all I could probably never listen to the same song twice in less than a month... or two... or more. And I'd have to be playing them all day long for this.
I listen to NPR and a few Sirius stations (On Broadway, Underground Garage, Margaritaville, Alt Nation, and First Wave).
George Poague said:
Yeah, that's a big thing that's changed in radio; the rules that put limits on station ownership went out the window in a wave of deregulation since the '80s, and those owners found it easier and cheaper to program the same stuff at several stations. It's almost funny -- in a "weird" sense, not a "ha-ha" sense" -- to travel to different parts of the country and hear radio stations that are just like the ones you hear at home, with the same songs, promos, and nicknames ("Smooth Jazz, 105.9 ... ").
..." Yea , verily , bros . " to everything that's been said here as yet !!!!!!!!!
Here in SC , an interesting apparently AM-only oldies station has started up , KYAA (It plays on its calls similarity to San Francisco's original oldies-era KYA .) , which only has DJ's during daytime/drive time , but tends to have some interestingly odd stuff thrown in , in the not-DJ'd other 6 to 6 hours though the vast majority , of course , of what is played is standard (If nice) oldies fodder (Nicely eclectic , anyway , as I'll get to.) , which is mostly when I listen .
I truly have heard some oddities thrown in during those non-DJ'd hours (So , no identification of what they are .) , songs that , at least as far as commercial/mainstream radio goes , anyhow , I have never heard before - I'll go into more detail later (Or perhaps link to a more music-oriented board I'm a regular on where I've wrote it at length already .) .
The station is on the Web:
http://www.kyaamusic.com
I'm too poor to subscribe to Sirus !!!!!!!!! Just might , at least in part , be all those dadgummed funny books.........Ya think ???????
In the 70's and on into the 80's, Dad also used to listed to WCAU (which was connected with the local CBS-TV affiliate, I believe). They had news, they had sports... and to fill time, sometime, they had Old Time Radio. I remember hearing THE SHADOW, THE GREEN HORNET, THE GREAT GILDERSLEEVE, JACK BENNY, THE LONE RANGER, and, later on, THE SAINT and SUPERMAN. By the time they got to the last 2 shows on my list, I tried tapiong some of them off the radio, but it was a nightmare. because the emphasis was on sports, you never knew when they would have the OTR shows on. I managed maybe 2-3 episodes of THE SAINT before I gave up. I may have gotten more SUPERMAN, but as it was a SERIAL, the first time I missed a chapter of the ongoing story, I threw my hands up. Anyway, they had TERRIBLE copies of those. I heard many, many years later than the entire run had been remastered from much better sources and released on CD. One of these days...
I remember first hearing THE SHADOW in the early 70's, just about the same time DC was doing their comic-book. Around the same time, they also aired THE CBS RADIO MYSTERY THEATRE, and all-new anthology series, hosted by E.G. Marshall (TWELVE ANGRY MEN, CREEPSHOW). That was cool. Although, someone later criticized it for trying too hard to be true to the style of old shows, and not taking advantage of modern technology. This led to the creation of the STAR WARS radio shows, which were recorded and broadcast IN STEREO. And if you actually listened to it on a stereo system (which I did, at least, during THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK), it was amazing. I actually heard sounds coming from points in the room where there were no speakers, and once heard a spaceship fly RIGHT over my head! And this was without any kind of fancy set-up-- just 2 speakers set about 6-7 feet apart. I understand all 3 SW serials were evenbtually released on CD. I should get better copies one of these days.
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