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WCBS RIP

The death of WCBS-FM struck a chord with many, many keener13.com visitors. An anonymous radio pro and good friend wrote this analysis and the comments have been pouring in. Add Yours Here.

A very good friend of mine, former major market jock, program director and station owner, were visiting a couple months ago, and of course some of the old war stories came bubbling up. We were laughing about yesterday, and wondering why the people who run the Clear Channel's and Infinity's of the world are so dead set against great radio, and oldies radio in particular. Suddenly, he turned serious and remarked "our time is over, the style of radio we did and loved is gone".

I was speechless. I had just heard something I never though I would hear, at least not from this gentleman, a true radio "freak", and one of the most buoyant and positive people I have ever met. At the time, I did not agree. But as of 5pm, Friday June 3, 2005, I think he may be right.

The great WCBS-FM, Joe McCoy's blueprint for oldies radio, the home of the continued excellence of Cousin Brucie and Harry Harrison, to name a few, and the only station MILLIONS of New Yorkers ever needed, has died.

Hi-JACK-ed, if you will.

Listen to Gordon Mclendon: Asked in 1980 what he learned from radio, McLendon responded: "That it all begins with creativity and programming. You can have the greatest sales staff and signal in the world, and it doesn't mean a thing if you don't have something great to put on the air."

Somehow, going two deep and 1,000 songs broad, based on the premise that this will keep listeners from turning to their I-Pods, does not quite seem to measure up, does it?

Jocks on today's CHR's and Hot AC's, for the most part are a group of people DYING to be great, and to be part of great radio. And failing, both subjectively and objectively, in miserable fashion. Shrinking ratings, flat sales, miniscule pieces of the pie. A product of no talent, or lack of programmer vision? From personal experience, my answer is, it's the latter. Radio is run by a couple of generations of programmers who don't know how to do great radio, think outside a box, or encourage talent. And, who GREW UP listening to segues, stale back sells, and liners. Or radio based on album radio formatics, with minimal "stationality". Even the guys who are in charge of Oldies radio, in many cases, are AOR guys. (No offense to Dave Logan intended or should be inferred)

WHAT the HELL do they know about great personality radio? Did they ever listen to "Boogie Checks", EVERY NIGHT? "Sing it and Win"? Call each other "Cousin"? Or sing Johnny Mann's Big Kahuna jingle? No!

But they're hell on wheels raving about the 4th rate Howard Stern imitation their rock station's morning show is doing. And they are REALLY hell on wheels doing everything to kill great radio, short of putting up billboards saying "We Don't Want You to be Entertained-We Don't Want You to Listen"!

I was re-reading Ron Jacobs KHJ book recently,. The memos are stunning. Demanding, prodding, energizing. Creative, theatrical presentations. Human and compelling radio, focused on keeping an audience, as opposed to "moving our P1's younger". And, I'm pretty sure none of those memos came from Selector or MaxiMizer. Though with Jacobs, you can't be too sure! :-)

Blame Steve Rivers. The old snake oil salesman killed a bunch of great stations, with a ridiculous notion, "Jammin' Oldies" that died in one year, on nearly 100 stations. But succeeded in proving"oldies" can't work anymore. Or at worst, bastardized the concept. Internally, particularly with upper management, AND externally, with your #2 customer, the advertiser.

Blame a fundamental lack of understanding of the audience wants and needs, how to reach them, how to SELL IT!!. Check the parking lot at a college football game this fall. Sure looks like a lot of people spending tons of money, driving nice vehicles, wearing nice clothes, comparing notes on IRA's, retirement condos, and yes, Viagra. And having one hell of a good time. Yeah, we're baby boomers, and yeah, we're greying. And no, we don't hang out at bars much anymore, which makes it tough to get the Budweiser money. But as Bob Dylan said so eloquently, "I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now".

Maybe, just maybe, that same crowd would turn out in droves for a nice series of sponsored shows at your local outdoor music theatre. Or, at a series of Tuesday night car cruises at a local supermarket chain! Turn out in black tie and tennies for a best Dog and Cat charity show, sponsored by your bank. (Free tip:Ask them about the Community Re-Investment Act, there are millions waiting to be spent!) Packaged and sold properly, you can add revenue, reinforce loyalty, and avoid "value-added" (free) remotes, to get a buy.

Oh, by the way, the audience does not care about trivia or chart positions. They care, passionately, about the artists and the music, perfectly illustrated with the line from "Big Chill", about the "greatest music ever!" Sell the passion!!! And play more than 500 songs. (Personal plea, STOP playing King Harvest, no one cared then, and still don't) Try playing 1,000, intelligently. Play Elvis, Buddy and Ray. Four Seasons, Four Tops. Ronettes and Raiders. And the Beatles and Beach Boys. Pull out cut 6 on "Revolver", and just play the damn thing. It wasn't on the charts, it's not in Joel's book. It was never a single! And, your listeners may not be able to tell you the lyrics, but can sing every word, after two notes!

Guaranteed, you'll be back inside the top 5 in rankings. If management questions what they hear, tell 'em you're programming for I-Pod users. They'll feel all gooey inside, and leave you alone!

Blame consolidation #1. Think Chad Brown's WCBS-FM balance sheet doesn't look a lot better today? How about in 6 months with no jocks? Hell, in Baltimore, they saved at least 2 million a year, according to a reliable, informed estimate. A bunch of bright boys who grossly overpaid for Internet inflated properties, and can't make the multiples pay with 3 shares, have found their out.

Hallelujah!

Blame consolidation #2: There is no competition. Everyone has a tiny little niche, but they are saving on "radio war" budgets, the need for perceptuals, music tests, talent. If there were two CHR's in a market, you better believe radio today would be better. Witness WLS/WCFL. KHJ/KFWB-KRLA. Or two AOR's, WPLJ/WNEW-FM. WABX/W4/WRIF. But radio would be better, there would be true buzz, and ultimately, a stronger marketplace for advertising dollars!

Blame consolidation #3: Put it together and what do you get? "Bibbity Bobbity Boo, Alex". Bzzzz, WRONG! You get bad radio, small audiences, no command of advertising dollars or rates, shrinking budgets and a vicious circle with no end in site.

The last word, paraphrased by the author, goes to Joe McCoy, one of the truly fine gentleman to ever grace this business, and the inventor of oldies radio on CBS-FM. Joe spoke to the oldies session at the NAB, September, 1999. Listen:

"Your GM or Sales Manager may ask you to "get younger", but you can't do it. You cannot move the music balance far enough to significantly change the composition of the audience."

As another great New York manager, Casey Stengel, once said:

"You could look it up"

Cue the Spaniels, "Goodnight Sweetheart, Goodnight"

Comments:
rest in peace is right. another example of corporate america thinking they know what's right for my generation. get your heard out of spreadsheets and marketing buzzwords, and get a clue. but i guess i should expect this from the most overrated and unsympathetic city of the world. i just was hoping i was wrong. - a 23 year old nycer

Radio has changed so much in the past 10-15 years. They used to care what the listener thought now they only care about the botom line....the almighty dollar. What's going to happen to radio is that you'll have a syndicated morning show, then $5.00 an hour jocks the rest of the day with absolutely no personality. They don't care about the music. I once asked my music director in Detroit, why we didn't play a certain song...he told me it didn't test well. I asked him if they ever tested the song and he said no. Well how do you know it wouldn't test well I asked him and he just shrugged his shoulders. I told him "We should play the oldies that we remember and they will never forget", but that would cater to the listener and corporate radio can't have that. Somedays I'm glad I'm no longer in radio. - John Freist

The oldies radio stations are so predictable and boring. They need to play some of the songs that made the middle or the lower end of the charts. I'm sure people would love to hear these songs which weren't huge hits again. I can give you many examples but I think most of you know what I mean. When is the last time you heard "Yellow Balloon" "We Gotta Go" "Mr. Dieingly Sad" "East Side Story" "Across The Street" "Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White" etc. Even the Sirius stations are the same old oldies you hear over and over. Am I the only one who feels like this? - Patrick Steele

This will not stand. There are some things is this that scream, "It ain't broke and it don't need fixin'". New Yorkers are passionate about many things, from food to baseball. There are millions of New Yorkers like me, who always had a "friend" at CBS. We buy plenty, not just Craftmatic beds, (this from another website) and we will have our way - Anonymous

It's like waking up in the morning and all of a sudden Yankee Stadium became a fruit stand and George Washington Bridge is a raft. You can't do that. WCBS-FM has been very good to me, but this new format is not New York. It has no feeling. It's not fun, it's not shtick. Somebody out there, a smart broadcaster, who really cares about broadcasting and not counting beans so much, is going to grab this. Because now there's a huge, huge market to be serviced. - "Cousin" Bruce Morrow

(As if you need another "2 cents" from me..but I'm compelled to do so). Great radio was always based on programming giving the sales department the right ammunition. It's NOT that radio hasn't always been about a healthy bottom line... it's how you get there! Done well....it benefits the station and the listeners. The bean counters haven't a clue. And now, the "Jacks" & "Bobs" & Bernies blindly venture forth like sheep, following their corporate radio brethren with the tenants of great radio as elusive as ever. Cost cutting doesn't equate to successful programming and good radio has rarely been about SAVING money. It's about MAKING money. - Bob Green

Listen, Jack. There is a reason oldies from the '60s became "oldies." They are the formational music of the rock and pop we listen to today. They are also good, tight, often danceable pop songs. It isn't only AARP members who have noticed. My 14-year-old recently acknowledged that most of the songs of her adolescence don't have what it takes to win the ultimate status. "Our music will never become 'oldies,' " she sighed. Well, I know when my listening presence is not wanted. My credit rating and I will just have to go elsewhere, maybe to the iPod playlist I've been planning on making. But if Infinity Broadcasting thinks it gets to hold on to that fifth button on my car radio, it can guess again. I know what I want to hear on a hot summer night, and I don't know Jack. - Barbara Brotman, Orlando Sentinel

I love oldies, but I ignored WJMK most of the time. Why? Two reasons: Limited play list, and what they played was on heavy rotation all the time. A typically overplayed song on WJMK was the Four Tops’ “It’s the Same Old Song,” which should have been the station’s slogan. There are a tremendous number of oldies that never get played. My surmise is that if an oldies station went on the air, without any heavy rotation and a huge playlist, so that one would not hear the same song in a month, it might garner some listeners. - Bob Pruter

I doubt that the powers-that-be at Infinity are dumb enough to mess with the #2 ranked station in the Detroit Metro market (pulling a 5.6 share during the most recent ratings period). I would hope that WOMC is "safe" for now, regardless of what they're paying Dick Purtan. IMHO he's worth every cent they're paying him. It should be noted that WCBS-FM was drawing a 3.3 share in New York, and WJMK was drawing a 2.9 in Chicago during the latest ratings period, which apparently wasn't good enough to justify keeping around their "expensive" air staffs (in Infinity's opinion, not mine). It would be a shame if the day comes when the ONLY way to listen to an "oldies" format with "classic Top-40 rock jocks" is by subscribing to a satellite service. Unfortunately, by that time, XM and SIRIUS might also be owned by Infinity and/or Clear Channel. I sure as hell hope not, as I refuse to pay even one dollar to these conglomerates who have destroyed personality-driven programming and turned today's rock-jocks into a bunch of robots...just to save a few bucks. - Brighton Bob

I'm really upset at the way the sudden change took place. I really think that the wcbs crew (including Mr.Gee) gave the station a special personality that no format will ever grow or have. And not to forget our new Mickey Dolenz, he has really made a great impact. He was the icing on the best oldies station. He really had great energy that reflected on listeners. As to listen to oldies we know that we have many alternatives. We can go online or play our own records, tapes, or cds. Thanks for hearing me out. I'll miss the crew. Best of luck in life. - Nick Corona

It's a real shame the way Infinity killed off WCBS-FM OLDIES 101.1 New York. Having a celebration party for the Morning Show host Mickey Dolenz and crew and just a few hours later informing the entire Air Personality staff they no longer had jobs at WCBS-FM as OLDIES 101.1 New York was now a thing of the past. You just don't put World Class celebrities like Bruce Morrow, Harry Harrison etc. out with the trash after cleaning up from a celebrity gathering just a few hours earlier in the day. Their loyal fans were never informed and they were denied even having the chance to hear their lifelong celebrity Air Personalities have a chance to say goodbye. They have all been replaced with one of the outright Cheapest forms of radio programming I have ever had the disappointment of listening to. For me, Broadcast Radio has had it. I just can not find much of anything that gives me the pleasure that Radio used to give me. May I take this time to say Thank You to all of the Radio Greats formerly of WCBS-FM OLDIES 101.1, WABC MUSICRADIO-77, WMCA and WINS when these stations reigned supreme in the ROck & ROll era. The Personalities stood the test of time, what other format can make that claim ! - Anonymous

The problem is that the people running radio these days are themsleves often talentless wanna-bees who never made it on air. They cannot create, so they destroy, all in the name of the bottom line. A guy like Joe McCoy started out as a jock. He knew what that oldies music meant. He lived it, breathed it, played it.These current guys? They know only about debits and credits and CPMs and balance sheets. That's called "accounting" folks, not radio and no one ever listened to a general ledger. - Anonymous

Whoever "Bribed"....I'll say that again "Bribed" the right people in Washington into allowing one company to control 5, 6, 7 stations in a market has made radio the 8-track of this century. We used to laugh at "Kroger Radio" a few years back when we'd hear it. Now it sounds on par or superior to a lot of once-great commercial radio stations. So much for "serving the public." Between the crappy no-talent hacks created in music studios who are accepted as "great artists" these days and the mindless replacement of legends like Casey, Dees, and Brucie on-air, NOBODY will have any reason to even sample radio in 10 years from now. - Anonymous

If someone has to stand up and defend Jack, I'll be the guy. Sure, the way radio was was great. But how is the wave of Jack sweeping across the nation any different that stations tightening play lists and adopting the Drake Top 40 format wayback when...? RKO had something they knew worked at KHJ. Why else would they have had Drake's format installed (to borrow from the anti-Jack rhetoric) the format at their other stations? Jack is about the music, and delivering an audience, and should be about great personality radio. A look at some of the Canadian Jacks (Vancouver, Calgary) shows this. At the end of the day, it's also about the audience. And in many markets, people seem to like Jack. So the question is -- is it so wrong to give people what they might want, even if it is different from the radio of years gone by? - Anonymous

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Sean Ross' WCBS Appreciation from Edison Research