The preceding paragraph was taken from the deep recesses of my memories, specifically, general section Connecticut, subsection Music, sub-subsection, Radio Stations. Back when commercial radio was good (oh, the early to mid 80's will suffice), personalities such as Mr. Kielbasa (real jockey, btw) would populate the airwaves with their own brand of humor and/or schtick. This particular jock would host the nightly request and dedication hour for 105.9 WHCN.
The reason why I bring this up was that yesterday (7/31) I read an interesting tidbit about another local radio station, 106.9 WCCC that decided to call it quits.
No, really.
A few years ago, I wrote a short post on my adult blog about getting banned from that particular station's FB page. Specifically, it was due to the fact that I was highly critical of the radio station ownership letting the expensive on-air talent go and replacing them with cheaper lesser known talent. As you can probably imagine, when the ownership of a radio station decides to replace well known on-air talent with cheaper unknown talent, that is just the first step in a brutal economic downward spiral.
The next step that the ownership did was, (go on, guess) was to change formats. This particular station was the only commercial station that played new hard rock/metal music in the state. Well, they went from that format to a classic rock format, which in turn alienated more listeners and advertisers. The next thing that they did was to get rid of the one sports program that made listening to the station worthwhile: football.
Finally, when the bleeding became too much and they got tired of squealing like a stuck pig, they made the announcement that the station would be sold. They fired the rest of the on-air staff and temporarily switched to automated radio until the sale went through.
And what will be this new format presented by the new owners on both the FM (rock) and AM (classical) dial? Adult Contemporary Christian music.
So my friends, the lesson of the story is this: don't alienate your listeners by treating them like dopes, and definitely don't switch to a format that no one below the age of 30 likes.
Besides, I would rather torture myself listening to this, than listening to classic rock. Bonus points if you can name one of the two t.v. shows she was on.
(c) 2014 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved.
I love Ariana, her album is brilliant, and her latest song from her new album, Problems was at number one in the Uk charts recently. She has a fantastic vocal range and looks cute too.
ReplyDeleteJoe: I have a very hard time getting into any kind of pop music. With that being said, I think she comes across well as an actress. As a singer, I'll have to take your word for it. I tried watching a video (not the one I have posted) but most of the background music and/or other singers kind of drowned out her voice.
ReplyDeleteMr. Kielbasa who can give it and take it...BWAHAHAHA! Today, they'd shut him right off the air, wouldn't they?
ReplyDeleteSome corporations never seem to get that their customers have brand loyalty. Good for you for telling them off. Guess it's a little late for them to have learned their lesson.
M: He probably would at that.
ReplyDeleteYeah, they learned their lesson very late. If you combine a ratings slump with a reputation of not seeing things through, this is what happens.
You'll find this interesting, on their very last show yesterday (8/1) they had Howard Stern on as a guest, which is due to the fact that Howard got his radio career started at WCCC back in the day.
I greatly miss entertaining radio. A mixture of local and national news plus variety of music at different hours and lots of laughter. I HATE talk radio!!!!
ReplyDeleteG.A.: I usually listen to sports talk radio, although there are few shows that I absolutely cannot stand.
ReplyDeleteWhat you need is college radio, which will fill the need you crave.
Interesting to see the evolution of a radio station. When I moved to Atlanta (a long time ago) - my new office had an easy listening station playing in the background. One day I came in and they were playing what is now known as Classic Rock. I was excited, but it lasted about 10 minutes. :) The station finally shut down a couple of years ago. My favorite feature was the "perfect album side" that listeners could submit - they played it on Friday nights. And I loved the Friday at 5pm "whistle."
ReplyDeleteThe show WKRP in Cincinnati was written around that very thing happening that I describe above. The real life disc jockey was Skinny Bobby Harper.
Lynn: Very interesting.
ReplyDeleteWhen I finally got into rock music, my favorite station to listen to was WHCN. One of the cool things they did was the "Drive @ 5" in which they would play an x amount of songs in a row based on their years of existence. That one started going downhill when they got rid of their popular morning show and eventually they changed to the scrubbed music format of "The River".