Posted by chicagomedia.org on August 16, 2008 at 22:15:50:
What's Oldies Is New Again
Who would have expected in the second half of the first decade of the millennium that -- of all formats -- oldies was destined to become the hot new thing? From Dallas to Washington, Atlanta to Providence, New Brunswick, N.J., to Fort Myers and numerous markets in between, such formats as country, talk and smooth jazz have recently been jettisoned in favor of oldies/classic hits. Mind you, this is the same format that many radio companies bailed from in recent years because the demos were deemed too old.
But veteran broadcaster and programmer Scott Shannon (pictured) insists, "The audience never really left the format—the format left the audience." He wears two hats these days, as PD/morning co-host of Citadel hot AC WPLJ/New York and programmer/voice of the 24/7 satellite-delivered True Oldies Channel, a partnership with ABC Radio Networks.
"Oldies programmers just programmed their way out of listeners," Shannon says. "They started playing the [same] 210 songs with the usual suspects"—Aretha Franklin's "Respect," the Temptations' "My Girl" and Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl"—"two to four times a day. Oldies should be a format of variety."
To that end, CBS Radio classic hits WOGL/Philadelphia PD Anne Gress says the resurgence of interest in oldies and classic hits comes from programmers figuring out how to move them forward. She says it started from the top. "At CBS, [radio division president/CEO] Dan Mason loves this format and listens to it. If you believe in it and empower people to evolve it, it will succeed. It is a beautiful mass-appeal format. If you ever watch 'American Idol,' listen to the songs they are singing; it's our songs. The appeal of this kind of music runs from the cradle to the grave if you do it right. The stations that went away woke up and realized that they had to change the way they were doing things."
Recalling when he programmed CBS Radio classic hits KFRC/San Francisco a few years ago, classic hits WCBS-FM and AC WWFS/New York PD and CBS Radio VP of classic hits programming Brian Thomas remembers the first time he played "Brandy" by Looking Glass and "Hotel California" by the Eagles, "and people freaked out." He acknowledges that updating the music and evolving presentation has given programmers a better demographic profile than what they had a few years ago.
Citadel/Chicago GM Mike Fowler, who oversees oldies WLS-FM/Chicago—which recently resurrected those infamous Windy City call letters after being know as WZZN—says a lot of the heritage oldies stations played it very tight in years past. Most music was from 1961 to 1970.
"So the variety wasn't good enough and the number of years wasn't large enough; that's why you saw the format trend down," Fowler says. "At the same time, you also had a lot of the classic hits formats starting to come into the picture—which are now running through the same cycle that oldies did. As a result, now they have nowhere to move except toward the '90s in a lot of cases. That's how they will breathe life into that format."
He adds, "The beauty of the oldies format is that you can move it as you gain a year and your variety of music will expand."
Fowler, whose WLS-FM carries Shannon's True Oldies in middays, overnights and on weekends, also believes renewed interest in the formats from listeners and advertisers has a psychological connection to the current state of the economy and events around the world. "People like to jump back to when lifestyles were a little easier and the music was more upbeat. It brings back great memories from when they were growing up."
(R&R)