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Roll Over Chuck Berry: Oldies Radio Moves Into the '70s
TBO ^ | 10/31/03 | Jonathan Salant

Posted on 10/31/2003 11:52:53 AM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection

ROCKVILLE, Md. (AP) - One of the surest ways to feel older is to listen to the radio and hear songs from your childhood - or, even worse, your adulthood - described as "oldies." If over the years it seems those songs have gotten newer while you've gotten older, it's not your imagination. Oldies radio stations that once featured songs from the 1950s and '60s now play songs from the '70s.

"Radio is an ever-changing thing, especially an oldies station," said Jeff Gold, a 44-year-old DJ whose build and voice personify his station's call letters, WBIG.

"As the years go by, newer songs become oldies. That's just the nature of the beast," said Gold, known as "Goldy" to his listeners in the Washington area.

So roll over Chuck Berry and make way for Fleetwood Mac. Your music hasn't lost its appeal to listeners. But advertisers? That's another story.

Advertisers covet the 25-to-54 age group. The first baby boomers - the generation born right after World War II and the primary audience for oldies music - are pushing 60.

"This is Marketing 101," said Dick Bartley, who hosts two nationally syndicated oldies programs, "Rock & Roll's Greatest Hits" and "American Gold." "The oldies format is doing what every business has to do - follow your demographic."

So as radio stations seek to attract advertisers, it's increasingly difficult for fans of 1950s and early '60s rock to find those tunes on the dial. A study by Coleman, a North Carolina media research firm, found the vast majority of oldies stations in the 50 largest markets are playing more modern music than they did three years ago.

"The only reason that our oldies stations have moved into the late '60s and '70s is the advertisers are telling us we have to do it in order for them to place business on our radio stations," said Marty Thompson, operations manager at KQOL in Las Vegas and director of oldies programming for Clear Channel, the nation's largest chain with 1,200 stations, including WBIG.

The oldies format began in the early 1970s, as then-less-popular FM stations tried to distinguish themselves from the Top 40 AM giants, according to E. Alvin Davis, a Cincinnati-based radio consultant who specializes in oldies stations. Among the earliest: WCAU-FM (now WOGL-FM) in Philadelphia and WCBS-FM in New York City.

By the '80s, almost every major city had a full-time oldies station. In recent years, the industry definition of oldies changed to include all of the '70s.

"As with the format when it originally came about, the whole genesis was to play music that was older," said Tim Maranville, program director at KOOL in Phoenix and vice president for oldies programming at Infinity Broadcasting, which owns 120 stations. "These songs are growing into our format. As an oldies person, the '70s don't bother me because there was some wonderful music in the '70s."

But the newer music has turned off some longtime listeners. Indeed, a new study by Coleman found oldies fans abandoning stations in direct proportion to the amount of '70s music on the air.

That includes people like Joe Barnard, 61, of Fairfax Station, Va., who said he now listens to compact discs or cassette tapes because he can't hear '50s songs on the radio.

"I have nothing against '70s music," he said. "It's just not the music I'm interested in hearing. My real interest in music began in the '50s. I still want to hear '50s music."

Jenny McCaw, 54, of Alexandria, Va., agreed. "The Eagles are a good group, but they're not '50s and they're not old enough to be oldies," she said.

Alan Lee hosts a Sunday evening '50s program on Baltimore oldies station WQSR and owns record stores in Silver Spring, Md., and Baltimore that specialize in oldies music. He said there still is a market for traditional oldies because, "For whatever reason, people tend to be fond of music that was popular when they were teenagers."

One byproduct of the trend toward newer oldies is the return of '50s and '60s music to AM radio, which played those songs when they were new. At least seven AM stations around the country, from Buffalo, N.Y., to Portland, Ore., are trying this format. Cincinnati's "real oldies" station uses the same call letters - WSAI - and some of the DJs from its days as a Top 40 station four decades earlier.

"We don't pretend that these AM oldies stations are going to beat the FM oldies station," program director Dan Allen said. "Our goal is simply to provide a solid audience. Since this music was on AM originally, we decided to give this a try."


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: music; oldies
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To: Tumbleweed_Connection
The term "oldies" has always refered to music from late fifties through early seventies. It's short for the phrase "oldies but goodies."

I believe the term began in the mid-sixties. At that time, and it may be hard to believe now, an "oldie" was any song about two years old or older (but not older than mid-fifties).

For example, in 1967 a radio station would have an "all-oldies" weekend and play songs from 1956 to about 1965.

In those days, popular-music styles changed at a lightning speed compared to today.

41 posted on 10/31/2003 12:50:00 PM PST by Flashlight
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To: onyx
you're right. you posted while I was writing my post trying to say the same thing (see above).
42 posted on 10/31/2003 12:52:11 PM PST by Flashlight
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To: Tumbleweed_Connection
An oldie for me has to be 1965 or before; not sure why but there it is.
43 posted on 10/31/2003 12:52:22 PM PST by Chi-townChief
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To: Dan from Michigan
WRIF in Detroit is still spinning the same playlist as when I was in high school in the late 1970's. Seger, Nugent, ACDC, Zep, ZZ Top, Stones, Rockets, Cars, repeat repeat repeat. Going home is like stepping into a time warp. Is Arthur P still on the air or is he getting the pension now?
44 posted on 10/31/2003 12:52:53 PM PST by mitchbert (Facts are Stubborn Things)
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To: Flashlight
Great minds --- same page! Thanks so much for your ping!
45 posted on 10/31/2003 12:54:19 PM PST by onyx
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To: mitchbert
Arthur P is still on the air.
46 posted on 10/31/2003 12:56:01 PM PST by Dan from Michigan (Don't blame me. I voted for Rocky.)
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To: Flashlight
In those days, popular-music styles changed at a lightning speed compared to today.

Ain't that the truth?

47 posted on 10/31/2003 12:56:02 PM PST by dfwgator (All I want for Christmas is Ron Zook's firing (I'll remove this tag if we beat UGA))
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To: stands2reason
Had a classic rock station in Midland that played the same 12 songs over and over and over...


I think I can do you one better.


About ten years ago I was driving through Northeast Texas, and ran across a station that was playing only Roy Orbison's Pretty Woman. Every time it finished it would start up again -- with just an occasional break. The station even had a contest going on -- for the listeners to predict what time on the following Tuesday the continuous sequence would stop!


Never could figure out the real reason for the continuous play. My assumption is that they needed/wanted to keep a live signal broadcasting, so they found a way to keep something on the air. Maybe they were jost operating on a really tightbudget and could only afford one record in their library!

48 posted on 10/31/2003 12:59:38 PM PST by StevieB
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To: Flashlight; Chi-townChief
Ecxcellent web site for lyrics and the offical listing of all Top 100 songs by year, from '55 -'74 with a few from '53 and '54 thrown in for the 'older' folks.

http://www.webfitz.com/lyrics/index.html
49 posted on 10/31/2003 1:01:05 PM PST by onyx
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To: Jim Cane
"for me there is only Beethoven." ~ Brahms"

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis and Sylvester Stallone will be starring in a movie about Bach, Beethoven and Mozart.

Willis said he will play the part of Mozart, Stallone Beethoven, and Arnold says, "I'll be Bach"
50 posted on 10/31/2003 1:02:00 PM PST by M. Peach (eschew obsfucation)
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To: Tumbleweed_Connection
Wah, wah, I want my Rosie and the Originals, Brenda and the Tabulations, Danny and the Juniors and Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans!
51 posted on 10/31/2003 1:06:18 PM PST by Revolting cat! (Far out, man!)
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To: discostu
Soon the early days of rap will be on the oldies stations, it's hitting that age, wonder if they'll play "Parents just Don't Understand" I always liked that song.

I am sure that is next, now that rap outsells all other genres of music.

I can imagine the TV ads now: "The Fresh Prince! Public Enemy! LL Cool J! The Sugar Hill Gang! UTFO! Run-DMC! All jammin' on your new favorite station, KRAP-FM!

52 posted on 10/31/2003 1:10:58 PM PST by L.N. Smithee (Just because I don't think like you doesn't mean I don't think for myself)
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To: discostu
Not only will Britney and Cristina be regarded as oldies, there will be people then the same age you are now loudly proclaiming that there hasn't been any listenable music made since Britney and Cristina retired. It's inevitable.

I hope if I am living at that time, I will be deaf.

53 posted on 10/31/2003 1:11:45 PM PST by L.N. Smithee (Just because I don't think like you doesn't mean I don't think for myself)
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To: Tumbleweed_Connection
I'm discovering a lot of music from the 1970s and 80s that I dismissed at the time because I wasn't mature enough to appreciate it yet. Dire Straits, Warren Zevon, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Steely Dan, to name a few examples. That is a very rich mine that I have tapped into over the past few years.

I came of age during the 1970s and back then, "oldies" were considered to be big bands and Frank Sinatra. You could still hear a lot of 1950s music on the contemporary rock stations and they were still playing 1960s music like it was current. Now when I tune into the "classic rock" stations, I'm hearing Styx, Rush, Journey, U2, Bob Seger - all stuff that came out after I was out of high school! And my teenage kids have no clue about the seminal bands of my youth like Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and The Rolling Stones. Yeah, that does make you feel old.

In fact, I was playing Led Zeppelin's "Physical Graffiti" in the car during this past summer for my 14-year-old, trying to show him how cool I was. Wanted him to know that his Dad could "rock"! He looked at me like I had three heads. Sort of the way I used to look at my father when he played Johnny Cash and George Jones on his 8-track. Only today, I love listening to Johnny Cash and George Jones.

54 posted on 10/31/2003 1:25:29 PM PST by SamAdams76 (202.4 (-97.6) Homestretch to 200)
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To: onyx
"Those Oldies But Goodies

Little Caesar and The Romans..."

Since you have gone this far you forgot to mention it was recorded on the DELPHI label.
55 posted on 10/31/2003 1:53:27 PM PST by duckman
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To: Elliott Jackalope
Re post 29, I'll second that. I keep waiting for rap to go away but for some reason it won't. Nobody could possibly call that monotonous crap "music".

Does anyone think that melody will make a comeback in music?
56 posted on 10/31/2003 3:03:46 PM PST by OldPossum
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To: Dan from Michigan
Bay-Buh! :-)

An interesting piece of trivia...He was the highest paid FM DJ in the States in the early 80's. I visited their offices not long after for an advertising meeting for a stereo chain I was working for in Windsor at the time. I remember Stern on W4. When he called the Libyan embassy and demanded money for every resident of Detroit for their birthday celebration. Right after Billy Carter got money from Kaddafy. The station went country not long after. Man, do I have great memories of DEtroit radio!

57 posted on 10/31/2003 4:01:43 PM PST by mitchbert (Facts are Stubborn Things)
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To: M. Peach
Willis said he will play the part of Mozart, Stallone Beethoven, and Arnold says, "I'll be Bach"

LOL

Beethoven: "Yo, Bach! Where's dat Vivaldi?"

The Bachinator: "Decomposing." *rimshot*

58 posted on 10/31/2003 4:30:43 PM PST by Jim Cane ("I've always lived twice." ~ Dr. Sarcophogus.)
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To: L.N. Smithee
It'll be pretty funny when 60 year-olds are chanting out:
You gotta fight
For right
To paaaaaaartay
59 posted on 10/31/2003 4:43:06 PM PST by discostu (You figure that's gotta be jelly cos jam just don't shake like that)
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To: Tumbleweed_Connection
I had lunch at the Golden Corral the other day. They know the demographics of their customers. The music ranged from the sixties back to some of the hoarier stuff from the fifties. I hadn't heard 'Love is Strange' by Mickey and Sylvia in ages. The food was good, too.
60 posted on 10/31/2003 7:54:10 PM PST by gcruse (http://gcruse.typepad.com/)
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