Oldies Radio Has Died In NYC

[Scott Lakefield]

As of 5pm today, Infinity has flipped New York's legendary oldies station, WCBS-FM (on air as an oldies station for more than 30 years), to their "Jack" format. And WCBS was in the top 10 in the ratings. Welcome to radio in the year 2005. Truly sad.

[Deleted]

what's "Jack"?

[Matt Cameron]

That's the "we'll play anything" wide-open (supposedly) format that seems to be popping up everywhere.

[Radioman]

In Canada it's "BOB"-FM.
They killed the legendary KOOL-FM for playing somewhat ever the whole day long.
I wonder what strange people are making radio today.
And I wonder what more strange people are listening to radio these days.

[Radioman]

Q1520 in Mississippi is available to everybody around the world.
It's on the net, it's great and play Oldies and great shows on weekends.

[BrettVW]

We had a scare here in NE Ohio last weekend with our heritage CHR/Hot AC WKDD in Akron-Canton. All last week it kept getting "interrupted" by pirate transmissions from a Pirate named Jack who wanted to "take back radio." Memorial Day weekend the station morphed into "98.1 Matt-FM" for morning man Matt Patrick's 26th anniversary weekend at WKDD, and played a Jack-like playlist. Tuesday morning Matt Patrick was to make a "career changing announcement that would change the face of the station forever" Everyone thought 2 things....Matt was retiring (he is a legend in the Akron area) or the station was flipping to a Jack format. Then the announcement......Matt will be retiring "in the future" (duh) and they will be giving away $1 million a day during June.....more than WKDD has ever given away before, thus changing the face of the station. And the career changing part....whoever wins the money has the option of easily changing careers. Sigh of relief there.

We now have 3 Hot AC's. WKDD is the best...and sticks to 90's and Today with a Saturday Night Dance Party and runs AT20 and WT40 Hot AC. WQAL Q104 is also good...sticks very current, but goes Jack-ish on weekends with "Whatever Weekends." WMVX Mix 106.5 is all over the place as of late...and I could see taking a Jack format with the Mix name. So, I am glad WKDD did not flip.

[Deleted]

ah, so "jack" is in the saying "Jack of all trades"?

[Scott Lakefield]

Well, NYC has been without an oldies station for just over 24 hours now. I was never a big listener to WCBS-FM, but would sometimes flip to it, and always found a song I liked. But bigger than that, there were some amazing personalities on there...such as Cousin Brucie. With the oldies format's departure, we're left with one single "legendary" jock in this town that I can think of...and I don't put him in the same class as Cousin Brucie or Casey Kasem. He's Scott Shannon on WPLJ, a Hot AC "mix"-type station. Will Scott and WPLJ "save the day" for oldies in NYC by flipping to an oldies format (everyone thought that WPLJ would go to the "Jack" format, as they frequently feature "Flush The Format" weekends, where they play a little bit of everything)? Who knows. Consenus on the NY Radio Message Board (musicradio.computer.net/wwwboard) seems to be that WPLJ isn't the place oldies are going to show up in NYC...if they return at all.

All of that said, NYers clearly are P**SED off. A web poll on 1010wins.com, another member of Infinity's NYC stable, has nearly 94% of respondents voting in favor of bringing back the old WCBS-FM format. And even the AP wire article refered to yesterday as being "the day the music died...again." The format switch made the front page of the New York Post...with a typically sensationalistic (yet very appropriate) headline..."Bloodbath at WCBS-FM."

Infinity has left NYC with a station that's billed as an "Ipod on shuffle." As numerous people have pointed out...an Ipod is not a radio station. Radio cannot compete with Ipods by trying to become one. JACK says "We play what WE want." People who have Ipods play what THEY want. Radio listeners choose radio over Ipods (at least some of the time) because they listen for PERSONALITIES. An Ipod has no personality. It's just music. Therefore, it's NOT radio.

[BROWNJB1]

I feel your pain Scott. Back on April 1, here in Detroit, one of my all-time favorite radio station, WDRQ 93.1 FM, changed its format and it became 93.1 DOUG-FM. Up until April, WDRQ had been a Top 40 station, and was Detroit's hit music station. It was told that DRQ was losing in the Top 40 battle with 95.5 WKQI-FM, which is now a Top 10 station in Detroit. Since DRQ was in a losing battle, they decided to move in a new direction by dropping Top 40 hits in favor of playing music from an iPOD shuttle. I was devastated that DRQ stopped playing Top 40 for this new format. I know what it's like to lose a favorite station for the JACK format. What is that? WDRQ didn't have the history that WCBS did, but losing WDRQ was bad enough.

[Deleted]

So is this format becoming popular? I have never heard one.

[Matt Cameron]

I've noticed the AC and Hot AC stations in this area switching to an "Anything Goes" format for all or a large part of the weekend. A lot of what they end up playing is from 1978 to 1986 or so. Kind of like the golden age of AT40.....

I'd just like to hear some stations that go a little farther back in the vault once in a while. I find myself listening to Classic Rock radio in this area, and I swear the local station only has two songs by each artist because that's all I ever hear. I mean I love "Stairway to Heaven" and all, but I shouldn't be hearing it twice in 8 hours, should I?

[mstgator]

liberaljag said:

I mean I love "Stairway to Heaven" and all, but I shouldn't be hearing it twice in 8 hours, should I?

Especially since the song is like two hours long.

[Deleted]

liberaljag said:

I've noticed the AC and Hot AC stations in this area switching to an "Anything Goes" format for all or a large part of the weekend. A lot of what they end up playing is from 1978 to 1986 or so. Kind of like the golden age of AT40.....

I'd just like to hear some stations that go a little farther back in the vault once in a while. I find myself listening to Classic Rock radio in this area, and I swear the local station only has two songs by each artist because that's all I ever hear. I mean I love "Stairway to Heaven" and all, but I shouldn't be hearing it twice in 8 hours, should I?

I used to listen to AT10 on your Lite FM affiliate, but the show was cancelled for some reason to air last time I checked....just music.

Our local Hot AC affiliate, WOMX has been doing different weekend stuff too. A couple weeks ago it was Hair Band Weekend, they have done #1's of the 80's weekend, they seem to just spotlight different stuff every weekend now.

The CHR station, WXXL once a year does a telethon type thing to raise money for some charity. if you pledge a certain amount of money you can request WHATEVER you want. It can be any genre, any song, anything and they will play it.

[Scott Lakefield]

brownjb1 said:

WDRQ didn't have the history that WCBS did, but losing WDRQ was bad enough.

Actually, there's a bigger key difference. WDRQ was losing the battle as you say to another CHR in town. Assumedly that means that they were also losing in ad revenue...lower ratings equals lower rates.

WCBS not only didn't have any competition in the oldies format...but was in the top 10 in the market in the latest ranking of ad revenue. I think they brought in $34 million last year. Unbelieveable.

Saddest part of all...jockless, newsless, traffic report-less, weather report-less radio has come to NYC. THAT'S a sad statement on the future of terrestrial radio.

[Deleted]

I guess they feel like they need to compete with the mp3 players and satellite radio. I believe they are wrong, but that is what they think.