WCBS and the Future of Radio
(From the June 13th Keener 13 Podcast at www.keener13.com) On June 3rd at precisely 5 PM Eastern Daylight time, Summer Wind by Frank Sinatra faded out and with it, the oldies legacy at WCBS-FM. Earlier that day, a party was held to celebrate the success that former Monkee Mickey Dolenz was having at the helm of the WCBS-FM morning show. But almost as soon as the ice had melted in the water glasses, the air-staff was called into a meeting and told that the station was changing formats, and they would all be out of jobs.
This is the way it’s done in radio. The typical format switch is kept secret until the last moment, the old DJ’s are all fired and the new format is launched, usually just the music, without jocks and commercials. Slowly, the new puzzle pieces are put into place and the reconstituted station tries to make its mark.
If you look at recent history, the oldies format has definitely lost favor with the large companies that control most of what we hear on the radio. The two new formats that are on the rise focus on the Hispanic market, and a hodge podge of music that programmers are calling “Jack”. When you listen to Jack, you’re likely to hear Elton John one minute and the Beastie Boys the next. It’s targeted directly at the younger listeners who are leaving radio in droves for their Ipods and MP3s.
According to Les Hollander, senior vice president for Infinity Broadcasting, the company that cratered WCBS-FM and it’s Chicago sister station WJMK, research has shown that people are looking for a radio station in their market with less repetition and more variety. Well that’s no surprise. The tight play lists that Cousin Brucie and others were allowed to play on WCBS-FM was distilled to the point of nausea, and even some of the stations most die-hard fans were tuning to Sirius and XM satellite radio to get a more eclectic oldies fix.
But the WCBS-FM story goes much deeper than the sound byte that oldies are a thing of the past. It begins at the dawn of the Top 40 age, when Gordon Maclendon and Todd Storz figured out that a playlist of familiar music, entertaining announcers and bright jingles could attract television viewers back to their radios.
Top 40 was born amidst a flurry of innovation that happened as the long form programs of radio’s golden age migrated to TV. Programmers figured out that listeners wanted a relationship with their radio stations. They wanted to be entertained and informed, but moreover they wanted to participate. A relationship is a very personal two-way street. Anyone who has been married for any length of time knows that a relationship also evolves as both people grow. But the foundation is commitment. For a relationship to work, you must believe that the other person still cares about you. As long as that happens, both sides continue to enjoy all the good things that come with arrangement.
The WKNR story is a microcosm of what’s happened to radio over the last 40 years. In the beginning, Nellie Knorr hired an exceptional team of artists who worked hard to connect with the Detroit radio audience. In fact, much of the format direction that programmer Mike Joseph was paid to develop, was thrown out as the team got the feel for what the audience wanted. For a time, WKNR did everything first class. And it was all based on the constant feedback that came over the hit lines, at the public appearances, and from advertisers, including the likes of Henry Ford II, who was one of Keener’s biggest fans.
But then, something changed. The leadership thought that it was ok to add a few more commercials, and by 1967, almost 1/3 of WKNR’s airtime was devoted to advertising. At the same time, Bill Drake and Paul Drew put their own interpretation of the WKNR magic to work across the river at CKLW, with 50,000 watts behind it. As Keener’s ratings suffered, the station decided to stop listening to the local people who were in touch with the audience and bring in a consultant to “fix” the problem. Part of the solution was to jettison the very talent that had been responsible for the station’s success.
Sound familiar?
Along the way, the consultants have become more and more sophisticated. Stations now use focus groups to test music, playing small snippets of songs to see if listeners like them. Naturally, people gravitate to familiar music, and over time, oldies play lists have been distilled and distilled until all we hear are My Girl, Louie Louie and Pretty Woman.
Another thing that has happened is that the announcer has been replaced almost entirely by automation. It’s true that we still hear human voices, but they all speak carefully crafted sentences that pound a brand message into the numbed minds of a dwindling listenership.
Why has all of this happened? It’s true that most radio stations in our country are now owned by publicly traded companies. Public companies have one overarching objective, to increase shareholder value, and the key metric is cash flow. In the days when the majority of big companies on the New York Stock Exchange were tied to manufacturing, the mantra was scale and efficiency. Find ways to create more of the same products at a lower price than your competition and your cash flow increases along with your share price.
That’s why accountants and not broadcasters run the large broadcasting conglomerates today. That’s why station promotion budgets have been slashed to the bone. That’s why you’re not likely to find a live announcer on a local station outside of drive time. And that’s why every major market has their Mix, their Kiss and now their Jack. They may pay lip service to innovation, but in fact the opposite is true. Break the rules at your peril. And that’s why the popularity of Ipods and MP3s are skyrocketing, while linear broadcasting is lost in a dysfunctional morass.
The bottom line is this: Radio is an art. It’s not a science. The people who created the great radio stations we loved in the 60s and 70s were groups of artists, encouraged by design or by accident to create an ever evolving and intensely personal relationship with an audience of one. During my days as a struggling DJ at WVIC in Lansing, Michigan, my friend and mentor Steve Schram told me to always remember that I was talking to one person, and how effectively I related to that one person would determine the extent of my success. 25 years later, Steve would personify that philosophy when he sat before the microphone on a network of Clear Channel’s Detroit radio stations to try and help the audience make sense of the horrific events of September 11, 2001.
To put radio’s decline in perspective, what radio personality might you turn if something similar happened today?
A fundamental question that we who love this medium continually ask ourselves is, can radio be saved? I think so. But it will take time, and it will require a realization that stationality is much more than just music.
• We must develop a new generation of artists who spend at least one hour in preparation for every hour they are on the air.
• We must empower music directors to take chances on local bands and music that stretches the horizons of our target audiences. Remember that Bob Seger, Alice Cooper, and yes, even Elton John gained visibility thanks to a music director who liked what they heard and took a chance.
• We must encourage what WKNR’s Bob Green calls “Intelligent Flexibility”, and give the air staff, production staff and promotional artists the leeway to take reasonable risks, while celebrating flawless execution of a sound that is relevant, compelling and entertaining. To paraphrase Tip O’Niel, “All radio is local.”
• And we must remember that it’s not a relationship with a Wall Street analyst, it’s an ever evolving love affair with the listener.
Bob Green put it best. Radio is about making money, not saving money. And in the Ipod generation, radio is not just about the music. It’s about what’s in between.
Radio owners would do well to read the outstanding Jim Collins book “Good to Great”. All of the principles he talks about parallel exactly with my prescription. Get the right people on the bus and keep them there, listen to your team and decide what truly constitutes success… And focus: Create your dynasty slowly, carefully and well… so it’s built to last.
The words of The Book of Ecclesiastics are as true today as they were that April morning in 1972 when WKNR faded into history. To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under Heaven, but the fundamental truths that make great radio still resonate. And we can still make great radio if we have the courage to follow them.
Scott Westerman is curator of www.keener13.com, a website that celebrates the life and times of Detroit area radio station WKNR.
This is the way it’s done in radio. The typical format switch is kept secret until the last moment, the old DJ’s are all fired and the new format is launched, usually just the music, without jocks and commercials. Slowly, the new puzzle pieces are put into place and the reconstituted station tries to make its mark.
If you look at recent history, the oldies format has definitely lost favor with the large companies that control most of what we hear on the radio. The two new formats that are on the rise focus on the Hispanic market, and a hodge podge of music that programmers are calling “Jack”. When you listen to Jack, you’re likely to hear Elton John one minute and the Beastie Boys the next. It’s targeted directly at the younger listeners who are leaving radio in droves for their Ipods and MP3s.
According to Les Hollander, senior vice president for Infinity Broadcasting, the company that cratered WCBS-FM and it’s Chicago sister station WJMK, research has shown that people are looking for a radio station in their market with less repetition and more variety. Well that’s no surprise. The tight play lists that Cousin Brucie and others were allowed to play on WCBS-FM was distilled to the point of nausea, and even some of the stations most die-hard fans were tuning to Sirius and XM satellite radio to get a more eclectic oldies fix.
But the WCBS-FM story goes much deeper than the sound byte that oldies are a thing of the past. It begins at the dawn of the Top 40 age, when Gordon Maclendon and Todd Storz figured out that a playlist of familiar music, entertaining announcers and bright jingles could attract television viewers back to their radios.
Top 40 was born amidst a flurry of innovation that happened as the long form programs of radio’s golden age migrated to TV. Programmers figured out that listeners wanted a relationship with their radio stations. They wanted to be entertained and informed, but moreover they wanted to participate. A relationship is a very personal two-way street. Anyone who has been married for any length of time knows that a relationship also evolves as both people grow. But the foundation is commitment. For a relationship to work, you must believe that the other person still cares about you. As long as that happens, both sides continue to enjoy all the good things that come with arrangement.
The WKNR story is a microcosm of what’s happened to radio over the last 40 years. In the beginning, Nellie Knorr hired an exceptional team of artists who worked hard to connect with the Detroit radio audience. In fact, much of the format direction that programmer Mike Joseph was paid to develop, was thrown out as the team got the feel for what the audience wanted. For a time, WKNR did everything first class. And it was all based on the constant feedback that came over the hit lines, at the public appearances, and from advertisers, including the likes of Henry Ford II, who was one of Keener’s biggest fans.
But then, something changed. The leadership thought that it was ok to add a few more commercials, and by 1967, almost 1/3 of WKNR’s airtime was devoted to advertising. At the same time, Bill Drake and Paul Drew put their own interpretation of the WKNR magic to work across the river at CKLW, with 50,000 watts behind it. As Keener’s ratings suffered, the station decided to stop listening to the local people who were in touch with the audience and bring in a consultant to “fix” the problem. Part of the solution was to jettison the very talent that had been responsible for the station’s success.
Sound familiar?
Along the way, the consultants have become more and more sophisticated. Stations now use focus groups to test music, playing small snippets of songs to see if listeners like them. Naturally, people gravitate to familiar music, and over time, oldies play lists have been distilled and distilled until all we hear are My Girl, Louie Louie and Pretty Woman.
Another thing that has happened is that the announcer has been replaced almost entirely by automation. It’s true that we still hear human voices, but they all speak carefully crafted sentences that pound a brand message into the numbed minds of a dwindling listenership.
Why has all of this happened? It’s true that most radio stations in our country are now owned by publicly traded companies. Public companies have one overarching objective, to increase shareholder value, and the key metric is cash flow. In the days when the majority of big companies on the New York Stock Exchange were tied to manufacturing, the mantra was scale and efficiency. Find ways to create more of the same products at a lower price than your competition and your cash flow increases along with your share price.
That’s why accountants and not broadcasters run the large broadcasting conglomerates today. That’s why station promotion budgets have been slashed to the bone. That’s why you’re not likely to find a live announcer on a local station outside of drive time. And that’s why every major market has their Mix, their Kiss and now their Jack. They may pay lip service to innovation, but in fact the opposite is true. Break the rules at your peril. And that’s why the popularity of Ipods and MP3s are skyrocketing, while linear broadcasting is lost in a dysfunctional morass.
The bottom line is this: Radio is an art. It’s not a science. The people who created the great radio stations we loved in the 60s and 70s were groups of artists, encouraged by design or by accident to create an ever evolving and intensely personal relationship with an audience of one. During my days as a struggling DJ at WVIC in Lansing, Michigan, my friend and mentor Steve Schram told me to always remember that I was talking to one person, and how effectively I related to that one person would determine the extent of my success. 25 years later, Steve would personify that philosophy when he sat before the microphone on a network of Clear Channel’s Detroit radio stations to try and help the audience make sense of the horrific events of September 11, 2001.
To put radio’s decline in perspective, what radio personality might you turn if something similar happened today?
A fundamental question that we who love this medium continually ask ourselves is, can radio be saved? I think so. But it will take time, and it will require a realization that stationality is much more than just music.
• We must develop a new generation of artists who spend at least one hour in preparation for every hour they are on the air.
• We must empower music directors to take chances on local bands and music that stretches the horizons of our target audiences. Remember that Bob Seger, Alice Cooper, and yes, even Elton John gained visibility thanks to a music director who liked what they heard and took a chance.
• We must encourage what WKNR’s Bob Green calls “Intelligent Flexibility”, and give the air staff, production staff and promotional artists the leeway to take reasonable risks, while celebrating flawless execution of a sound that is relevant, compelling and entertaining. To paraphrase Tip O’Niel, “All radio is local.”
• And we must remember that it’s not a relationship with a Wall Street analyst, it’s an ever evolving love affair with the listener.
Bob Green put it best. Radio is about making money, not saving money. And in the Ipod generation, radio is not just about the music. It’s about what’s in between.
Radio owners would do well to read the outstanding Jim Collins book “Good to Great”. All of the principles he talks about parallel exactly with my prescription. Get the right people on the bus and keep them there, listen to your team and decide what truly constitutes success… And focus: Create your dynasty slowly, carefully and well… so it’s built to last.
The words of The Book of Ecclesiastics are as true today as they were that April morning in 1972 when WKNR faded into history. To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under Heaven, but the fundamental truths that make great radio still resonate. And we can still make great radio if we have the courage to follow them.
Scott Westerman is curator of www.keener13.com, a website that celebrates the life and times of Detroit area radio station WKNR.
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