Was the radio that Ross on Radio readers remember fondly ever really that good? Or was it something most listeners put up with only because there were fewer choices for music? It’s a question I’ve been asked over the years. It’s something I’ve certainly wondered while listening to airchecks. Sometimes I would hear a treasured voice from childhood enthusiastically giving the request line number or congratulating caller No. 4 who just ripped them off for a Q-shirt. Even I would think there wasn’t much going on there.
But I really enjoyed the second annual “WLS/WCFL Rewound” special over Labor Day weekend on streaming Oldies outlet Rewound Radio, three days of restored airchecks from the ’60s, ’70s, and early ’80s from the Chicago AM powerhouses that gave Top 40 radio one of its fiercest battles. A great piece of archival work by Ted Gorden Smucker and Bill Shannon, “Rewound” was rapturously received by radio people, including WLS night legend John Landecker, who described it on Facebook “as if these stations never left the air.”
I listened to this year’s “Rewound” with extra scrutiny. I wanted to hear how those stations held up. I also wanted to listen with special attention to both Landecker and to Dick Biondi, who died June 26. Biondi’s death prompted LiveLine’s John Garabedian to write about the influence that Biondi had on him at WKBW Buffalo, N.Y., his job before WLS. That made me want to dig more into the early airchecks from a “before my time” era that was often hard for me to fully appreciate.
The aircheck of Biondi that I heard on Monday night was from May 1962, his second anniversary on the air at WLS. More than any vintage radio I’ve heard, it is a demonstration of Top 40 radio’s place at the epicenter of rock ’n’ roll and youth culture, a position that had been fragmented even by the time I began hearing Top 40 regularly in the late ’60s.
Break after break is devoted to the goings-on at various high schools and colleges, most local, some in Missouri. There are high-school socials, but there are also upcoming volleyball games, jam sessions, camera day, a school written up in the local newspaper. A teacher thanked Biondi for allowing her to bond with her students who “thought it was neat” that she listened. “C’mon, everybody,” Biondi urged listeners. “Let’s get that homework done! Let’s all be happy!”
WLS was tying in with one sponsor for a prom dress giveaway. Listeners could also win tickets to upcoming auto races by sending in box-tops from an acne medication. They could also send a wrapper from Mohawk Paper to the station “for a little bit of a surprise.” (“They’ve got a lot of courage to sponsor me.”) Students at New Trier High had sent Biondi two cigars to commemorate the anniversary. It sure sounded like an engaged audience, not merely a captive one.
I became a Landecker listener in the mid-’70s after hearing about him from a fellow student who had moved from Lubbock, Texas, a reminder of the magnitude of the shared WLS experience. So was the nightly signature Boogie Check, an elaborate supercut of listener comments from a time when most stations didn’t yet use the phones that way.
On the 1975 aircheck I heard, Landecker is sometimes leering (“I’ve got a great dirty line that I can’t say”), sometimes florid (there’s a line I can’t quite recreate about “sounds emanating from the land in the sky”). You hear the influence he had on two up-and-coming DJs, David Letterman and Rush Limbaugh. He is not addressing teens as overtly as Biondi, but he still comes off as a subversive older brother. One of the things that became clearest listening to both jocks is that they were probably the first person in many listeners’ lives to talk to them as adults. That may well hold for whomever the DJ of your formative years may have been.
For a lot of ROR readers, what they appreciated about WLS and WCFL was the larger-than-life feel of the stations and their personalities. “I knew who the afternoon DJs were on WLS and Super CFL,” writes Chicago radio veteran and airchecker Don Beno. “I knew what types of personalities they were on-air. I preferred Larry Lujack over Bob Sirott. But when Lujack went on vacation … Sirott was better than Lujack’s fill-in.”
But if you think of radio as “music shared with friends: the one on the radio and others listening,” you realize that the radio we love is in no way diminished even in its smaller moments. That probably describes your relationship with your real-life friends as well. Some memories are funny and outrageous. Some are the “there when the car broke down” moments. Many are about just being together.
My other takeaway was that “real time matters.” Even when the breaks were “that was” and “this is,” the WLS/WFL airchecks were reminders of the urgency missing from today’s voice-tracking. Radio veterans still have nightmares about finding the next cart. Reader Nick Straka points out that the energy of trying to keep a show going in real time “translated to the on-air product.”
For all the industry love — much of it from my contemporaries — that “WLS/WCFL Rewound” received, there were also a lot of comments on Rewound Radio’s Facebook page from listeners with no apparent radio or music industry connection, including some asking for the show to be repeated because friends had missed it or learned about it too late. Most of those on the Saturday-afternoon American Top 40 Twitter thread are non-industry as well. Those inspired by WLS or WCFL to pursue radio as a career might not be impartial judges of “was it ever that good?” But they are not the only ones with whom it endures.
I heard a few hours of “WLS/WCFL Rewound” last Labor Day. I found myself drawn more to it this year. By Monday night, I felt reassured that WLS and WCFL were who they were in radio history for a reason. Several Facebook friends who either left Chicago for smaller markets or lived where they heard both small- and large-market radio had long drawn similar conclusions.
Veteran Midwest programmer Tony Waitekus summed it up for a lot of readers. “The energy and excitement were there. The jocks were excited about the music. The momentum was mostly continuous, including during stopsets with musical commercials and live copy the jocks genuinely sold. There were very short stopsets that didn’t seem to get in the way of anything. There were no sweepers that, today, are mostly commercials for the radio station. The processing helped make the music exciting, including ballads.
“Today, the jocks seem to ignore the music and hardly acknowledge it. The jocks stop down to give two-day-old, unrelated-to-anything Hollywood bits or random pop-culture trivia unrelated to the songs being played, killing the momentum. Listening this weekend, I was afraid to turn it off for fear of missing out.”
Classic radio isn’t diminished by whatever the context of the times might have added to it. It was meant to be of the moment. The test isn’t whether today’s civilian listeners would appreciate Big Ron O’Brien on WCFL in 1975. It’s whether current programmers can take something from it. But I’m encouraged when I hear that new radio students still react to classic airchecks. And I have, in fact, developed an appreciation over the years for some radio that I had initially dismissed as “maybe you had to be there.”
Classic radio isn’t diminished by the listeners who sat through it only for the music, only by our decision as an industry to cater to those exact people for the last 15-or-so years, even as their other choices proliferated. The not-insignificant number who remained don’t hear “WLS vs. WCFL, but for today.” They hear the radio Waitekus described. We won’t know how compelling the WLS/WCFL model is unless we are somehow able to offer it again. But be very clear– what I want to be able to listen to this weekend is new radio with classic values, not just airchecks.
The programming by Gene Taylor and others at WLS and WCFL shaped my budding broadcast career and approach to maximizing the potential of radio to not just engage but fully captivate listeners. They made radio listening an essential part of life. I’m talking about radio you avidly listen to in your car –and then, once you’ve reached your destination and click off the ignition, you turn the radio back on because you’re afraid that if you don’t, you’re going to miss something great. When was the last timer you heard radio like that? I went on to infuse what I learned from WLS and WCFL into my later work as a DJ and PD and also into such radio series and specials the as the 52 hour “History of Rock ‘n’ Roll” marathon (with Bill Drake) to present day productions (syndicated by G Networks) as the annually updated 10 hour “100 Greatest Christmas Hits of All Time” countdown and the all-new two-hour weekly series version of “The History of Rock ‘n’ Roll” (with Wink Martindale). The spirit of goodtime fun-filled rock ‘n’ roll radio epitomized by WLS and WCFL in their heyday lives on — their magical anility to engage, excite, enthrall and fully entertain audiences unabated.
Gary,
Loved The History of Rock N’ Roll” – not only as entertainment, but it made our stations a boatload of money, while providing sponsors with a memorable association. Well-done, and thanks!
RS
For anybody looking – The History of Rock ‘n’ Roll, hosted by Wink Martindale, has moved from G-Networks to United Stations Radio Networks (USRN) as of January 1, 2024.
It’s not always easy to discuss what our favorite deejays meant to us when we were growing up, and sometimes that old expression “I guess you had to be there” applies. You can listen to the deejays from back then years later, and still be impressed by their skill, but in the fifties and sixties, when I grew up, the deejays meant a lot more than just “talented entertainers who played the hits.” Keep in mind what it was like to grow up back then: it was a time when society was still very conservative, and cultural rules were strictly enforced: boys could be suspended from school for having their hair too long, for example; and kids were expected to dress in what today would be seen as “business casual”– jackets and ties for the guys, skirts & blouses for the girls. Gender roles were rigidly enforced: boys took “shop” and learned how to use various tools & machines; girls took “home economics” and learned cooking and sewing. It never occurred to anyone in charge that cooking is a useful skill for anyone, or that girls could certainly learn how to make household repairs if given the chance to learn. There was (Christian) Bible reading before school began– no offense to my Christian friends, but the idea that students from other religious traditions were present wasn’t considered important. “Inclusion” was not what mattered– the majority ruled, and everyone was expected to conform. And yes, the line in Chuck Berry’s song “School Days” is accurate– “The teacher, she don’t know how mean she looks.” This was not an era when teachers were expected to, or allowed to, show empathy for students, nor was it an era when students were expected to, or at many schools, allowed to, express their opinions. Teachers were strict, and students were expected to keep their mouths shut and be obedient. I will leave it to you to decide if that’s the ideal– I know some folks would like to see us return to that type of education. But I digress.
In THAT world, radio was a much-appreciated respite. I couldn’t wait to get home and listen to my favorite deejays. After a tough day at school, turning on the radio and tuning in to my favorite station always made me feel better. The deejays lifted my mood. They played songs that resonated with me. They interviewed some of the local entertainers. They kept me up-to-date with who was performing where, and which venues were having record hops. (I wasn’t allowed to go, but it was nice to imagine being there…) And best of all, the deejays seemed to be having fun doing their jobs. It made me certain that being a deejay was a wonderful occupation and I became determined to become one (and of course, I had no idea that being a girl, this would be one more space where I wasn’t welcome). I had the good fortune of living in a market where there were many excellent and entertaining deejays. My favorite was Arnie Ginsburg. He had a high, squeaky voice (which he made fun of, and joked about) and I would find out later that he was an accidental deejay– he knew he didn’t have the big, deep voice of the typical deejay, and he had not expected to be one. He was actually an engineer who was pressed into service one night, and to his surprise, he found the audience loved him. And in a world where deejays had house names that were non-ethnic and easy to remember (Johnny Dark, Dan Donovan, Bobby Mitchell), Arnie kept his name. I liked that about him too. And given how tight the formats were back then, it continues to amaze me how much creativity some of the deejays– Arnie especially– were able to come up with (my New York friends will recall that Dan Ingram is another good example of doing more with less).
In a world where conformity ruled, the deejays represented freedom. The music spoke to us and was a way to forget all the stuff our parents and teachers kept telling us we were doing wrong. Our favorite station was OURS. It wasn’t our parents’ station, or our teachers’ station. It was for us, the kids who listened, the kids who called in and hoped to win a free record or a tee-shirt, or a chance to say hi to the deejay. And not understanding about playlists, we could make a request– but we didn’t realize the deejay might not be able to play it. But again, it was being able to reach out that mattered. I still remember getting my first car and being able (finally) to go to Paragon Park where several of the other deejays I enjoyed were doing remote broadcasts. Radio was my lifeline. Radio was my best friend. Radio helped get me through difficult times. And even years later, I remain profoundly grateful for the important role that radio played in my life.
So… was classic radio ever that good? Yes and no. It had a lot of commercials, it had some songs that were not exactly the best (but they were on the playlist, and the deejays had to play them– and sound enthusiastic), but it also had some very entertaining deejays who understood their audience, and some creative stations that knew how to do promotions the kids would love. Radio in the 50s and 60s was a cultural touchstone– just about every kid I knew had a favorite station or a favorite deejay (or both). I don’t miss much about growing up in that era– I often got in trouble for even the slightest violations of the many, many rules– but when I was listening to my favorite deejays, or hearing the music that I loved, I knew things would be okay. Maybe that sounds silly, but there’s a line in a song by the Animals, “When I Was Young” that speaks to it– “When I was young, it was more important, pain more painful, laughter much louder…” For teenagers back then, so much was tied to our emotions, and in a world that did not always encourage us to express ourselves, radio gave us that opportunity. Some of those deejays might not have sounded as good to a 1990s or 2010s audience, given how much in the world has changed. But to a lonely kid in the 1950s and 60s, the deejays seemed to understand, and they seemed to care. And the lyrics of some of the songs said what we wanted to say but sometimes weren’t supposed to. So, forgive the long response, but I hope it puts a little context into what classic radio meant– to us, it wasn’t classic. It was part of our life, and we couldn’t imagine being without it.
Thanx, Donna! Having been so fortunate to have been an on-going On Air Radio Personality during that so unique Radio era, I think you wrote one of the best overviews of those times I have ever read! Terrific!
Chuck Buell ( aka Chuck Dah-Buell-Ell-Ess! )
Spot-on, Sean. I lived it, growing up in Chicago (in high school from ‘66-‘70). We knew it was special at the time but came to take it for granted.
I think the same thing might be said about the unique character of the Rush Limbaugh show, another unique chapter in radio history, deeply impressed into the souls of his fans. No one since has come close to replacing him.
One of the interesting things I heard last weekend was Landecker over the intro of Three Dog Night’s “The Show Must Go On,” a song I’ve heard Limbaugh intro as Jeff Christie with a similar combination of bombast and winking irony. It’s well known that night jocks around the country used to listen to Landecker after their own show. In the ’90s, I knew radio people who would go to the car at lunchtime to listen to Rush the same way. There’s an extra level of irony when you realize that they were going to hear Limbaugh channel Landecker (in style, if not content).
As a kid I listened to WLS from my home in St. Paul, MN. It came in crystal clear….I thought WLS was the greatest radio station on the planet!
So imagine the day I walked into the lobby for my first day as a seller, The Jackson 5, Kenny Logins, Billy Crystal all sitting in the lobby waiting to see John Gehron hoping to get some airplay.
I returned to WLS a couple years after I left as a salesman to become the President/General Manager of WLS am/fm! What a thrill and what a privilege that was to run the BIG 89. The talent… Larry Lujack, Tommy Edwards, Fred Winston, John (records) Landecker, Steve Dahl and Gary and Bob Sirrot – the best talent in the nation I believe.. Legendary programmer John Gehron at the helm, the best promotion department in the city (we gave away a car a day for 44 days, and a house). Great memories at a time radio really mattered..
Yes, radio was really good then, listeners would come down to the station and stand in the outer lobby just to watch the air personalities through a glass window for hours. I could go on and on about WLS, so many great stories and experiences! WE had a basketball team that traveled around the city playing for charities….the crowd was huge and they all wanted autographs after the game. It was a special radio station and a special time to be in radio!
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Was “classic radio” that good? Sure it was, and I was reminded of it this past week when I acquired some airchecks of early-1960s KFWB that I didn’t already have. As you and the previous commenters point out, radio wasn’t just entertainment, or just “our” music, it was a window on the world outside our neighborhoods and schools, and a personal companion or, really, another crowd of companions called the All-Americans or the Good Guys or the Seven Swingin’ Gentlemen or the Boss Jocks or whatever. They welcomed us all and always made us feel good to be with them.
On the other side of the speaker and transmitter, these men (only occasionally women in those days) were entertainers, professionals, craftsmen. They all followed the same format structures, but they did RADIO PROGRAMS and weren’t just that three or four hours’ seat fillers. At the best stations, like WABC, WLS, WCFL or KFWB, each had his own act, sometimes with wild tracks or character voices, jokes and goofiness when called for, and seriousness when that was needed. They somehow knew what all of us needed when we needed it, as surely as if we were standing together on the same corner. Listening with 2023 ears and brain to those old KFWB tapes, I’m transported back to that era, even though I never heard Elliot Field or B. Mitchel Reed then. Will anyone in a few decades’ time be able to say the same thing about pre-recorded jocks with a slacker-kid’s ironic delivery and a handful of dated celebrity gossip stories?
I dismissed KFWB for years as “before my time” and “you had to be there.” I came around a few years ago after reading Chuck Blore’s autobiography, from which I realized just how far back the “janitor takes over the radio station and locks himself in the booth” stunt actually went. I knew that if I listened again, I would probably come to a new appreciation of Biondi, and I did.
Wow. Best you’ve ever written, Sean. At 12, 13, 14 years of age hearing the great (and not so great) radio stations piercing the ether from Chicago -the dream of being part of it all began to formulate. The comments here prove that I wasn’t alone. In 2023, budding media personalities are faced with a whole lot more challenges and distractions. What happens on TikTok, Facebook and other platforms has taken the place of “the bigger brother” trying to guide young people through their angst-filled years as Biondi, Landecker, Barney Pip, Chuck Buell, Larry O’Brian, DIck Orkin, Jim Stagg,and the many other voices on “SuperCFL” and “The Rock of Chicago”. They joined the big voices from New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Buffalo, I could go on and on. Radio’s biggest liability today is the lack of “competition”-and the constant radio battles that produced excellence for the end user. Chicago was unique for many as both of the big stations were evident for much of the US audience east of Chicago. We’ll never have those days again (shame), but radio did wonders at a time when there was a limited number of audio outlets and the listener really mattered.
Brilliant article. Thanks for taking the time to write it.
Thanks, Bobby. Glad the article has struck a chord with so many.
It is difficult to produce a Dan Ingram, a Landecker, a Morgan or Steele, when true talent is not what his procured, today. I submit that given the chance to hear individuals of quality, younger listeners would then have a reason to use the medium, click the app on their smart phones and listen. WLS, WABC, KHJ, KFRC, CKLW had TALENT as well as hits and primo promotions. A human connection.
Great article! And great comments. In comparing today’s radio to the classic era the greatest difference is that classic radio was essential to the lives of people of all ages. Today’s radio is not. Classic radio was the Internet of its time, a connection to the world, a way to stay in touch and to feel connected to what was happening.
Mobile phones now serve this purpose. And with mobile phones, consumers now have thousands of entertainment choices, as well as being able to program their own music. As such, today’s radio has lost the youth market, because the mobile phone is where youth lives and communicates. Watching reels, texting, instagram, and thousands of other apps and games, give kids instant access to what they desire. Radio today cannot compete with the mobile phone. And radio streaming on a mobile phone is unlistenable. Few will listen to endless stop-sets and programming designed for the habits of broadcast audiences and ratings manipulation. Not when so much compelling commercial free content is available.
This is precisely why 70% of the top ten stations here in Los Angeles cater to audiences over 50. It’s why as long ago as 2009, at the Rain Conference in Las Vegas, Triton Research reported that Millennials could not name the call letters of a single radio station.
I blame Wall Street for providing the money for consolidation and then dictating commercial loads and programming strategies. And for forcing the adaptation of technologies that automated stations to save money and that resulted in the loss of the jobs of countless talented radio professionals. And blame Wall Street for not modernizing the radio business model and delivery systems to include streaming and other mobile friendly strategies and programming models in a manner that makes current radio compelling. How much money, time, and energy was wasted on the foolish concepts promoted by Ibiquity?
It saddens me to write these things about radio’s current plight, including. its significantly reduced revenues. No one had a greater fever for radio than I as a teenager and young adult. I grew up in New Orleans listening to the Top 40 battle between WNOE and WTIX, and everyone I knew listed to WLS and KAAY on the skywave at night.
I had the good fortune to work my first job in Radio at WNOE with program director Bill Stewart who with Todd Storz conceived Top 40 radio in the mid 1950’s over drinks at a bar in the French Quarter. I later had the privilege of riding that 50,000 watt clear channel skywave on the Mighty 1090 KAAY. Request lines took calls from Canada to South America. The energy was so intense that one felt compelled to stand the entire shift.. That was then, this is now.
Was radio better then, YES! It played better music. It better served its communities and its advertisers. It was owned by thousands of individuals who loved and cared for their stations. Now stations are operated by huge corporations that are focused on pleasing their Wall Street overlords. Radio once drove culture, it no longer does. Club DJs are cool, radio DJs are not.
Don’t misunderstand, great talent still exist and can be found on the radio, but the days of when a radio station was an integral part of a community are long gone.
No matter how hard I try to find a station to love here in LA, what I hear is so irritating that I immediately find myself going back to Serius/XM, or streaming my own music library on my phone which is also connected to Apple Music.
To sum it up, corporate controlled radio, an outdated delivery system, boring cell programming, music that hasn’t evolved in more than 15 years, and formatics that haven’t changed since the 80’s, are impeding radio’s ability to attract young listeners., and without them the audience of the future will not exist.
It’s time for radio to develop a 21st century delivery system that delivers entertainment where the audience resides, on the phone and on the Internet.. An antenna in a field is so 1920.
Frank Gagliano
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Thanks, Sean Ross, for finding the perfect description for John Landecker’s “Boogie Check” on WLS in the 1970s. ”. Landecker, incidentally, is alive and well doing weekday evenings on Chicago’s WGN-AM 720. It’s not “an elaborate supercut of listener comments from a time when most stations didn’t yet use the phones that way” but he’s doing pretty good for an old guy.
I was late to the party when it came to Chicago’s top-40 battle. By the time I arrived in Peoria (where you could always pick up WLS and usually WCFL), it was 1967. We were coming out of the summer of love. Psychedelia was in full bloom. I remember Larry Lujack, who is often recalled for the amazing “Animal Stories” bit he did for years with little Tommy (Edwards, a radio legend in his own right), but I thought Lujack was just the absolute boss when it came to radio even if he never did a single Animal Story..
Lujack had the voice and he had the attitude. Just like Harry Caray, he knew what to say. Don’t ask me why I recall this but I specifically remember one day when he introduced a song by the Beatles off the recently-released “Magical Mystery Tour” album. “Blue Jay Way,” sung by George Harrison, is usually overshadowed by other songs on the album such as “Fool on the Hill” and “I Am the Walrus” but Larry said “Blue Jay Way” was his favorite because it was psychedelic. And, boom, went right into the song.
WLS at that time impressed me as a station that had it all: the music, the voices and the news—don’t forget Lyle Dean with that commanding voice that made everything he said official.
What can you do in 90 seconds or less? Listen to a 3 hour set of today’s radio with liners, jingles, tracking , and sweepers. It’s pretty forgettable radio. I can’t wait to see what A I radio will be like.
I tape a lot of the radio I listen to in advance, because I do not need to listen to “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” or “Sure Thing” in real time, and I certainly do not need to listen to “download our app” and full stopsets. Generally, an hour’s worth of monitoring takes about 20 minutes, including the note-taking. The nicest thing I can say about a station now is that I was able to put it on while working and listen in real time.
Sean, excellent reply to the Rewound Radio weekend. I grew up in Dodge City recording new songs off WLS and WCFL and knew THE place to find the BEST new stuff was from these 2 Chicago stations! Ron Riley and Larry Lujack were my faves, but close behind came all the others and me and my 3 brothers listened to these DJs with great earnest! I planned to be the next Ron Riley or even follow him in the evening as a 10 year old DXing on our 1940 Hallicrafter receiver. YES, there were commercials every break, but it was an easy flip of the dial to keep rockin. 890 to 1000 was an easy way to find the top 40 we wanted to hear in Dodge. 890 WLS, 900 KEYN Wichita, 910 KLSI Salina, Ks, 930 WKY OKC, 940 KIXZ Amarillo/KIOA Des Moines, 950 KIMN Denver (CHUCK BUELL above!), 990 KNIN Wichita Falls,Tx, 1000 WCFL Chicago! Throw in KOMA and KAAY and all the other dialed ups and it was great. KOMA even went to news at :55 so news breaks stopped being an issue too.
I never made it to WLS or ANY AM station like I planned, but DID 10 years of public broadcasting 60s msuic and just did a time capsule show on WFMU in NYC if anyone wants MORE WLS and WCFL:
https://wfmu.org/archiveplayer/?show=131431&archive=240771
Great insight. Or is it outsite?
Is anybody doing it the old way successfully?
Sometimes it feels like I’m the only person still alive who remembers the glory days of Chicago Radio. But when I try to share the feelings that those hours with the radio gave to me, my younger friends merely look at me with misplaced sympathy.
Picking up those amazing voices in the night sky from hundreds of miles away shaped my dreams too. Yeah, I wanted to give the other kids that special feeling that Art Roberts, Ron Britain and Barney Pip did gave me.
They took us away from the grey metal world of teenage angst and bathed us in magic and music every night. Their example inspired me, in my own small way to use whatever wire is left on my mortal coil to keep the party going in my little circle on the planet. There’s not enough ‘special’ left in ‘the biz’ to go around anymore.
When these talents left, they took the magic with them. We have the tapes, but that energy has gone to ground.
Great commentary, Sir Sean. Today’s radio misses the essentials….it can easily add it back.
I don’t know that it’s possible to answer the question. We tend to romanticize the past to the degree that our memories aren’t totally accurate. That’s nostalgia. We WANT it to be better. E.g. I had a three station top 40 battle to choose from in two different markets growing up. I thought they were all awesome but who’s to say now in retrospect? There was probably dead air, lousy commercials and songs I didn’t care for included. However, we as an industry lost something when top 40 migrated to FM. I know personally, I felt that FM didn’t demand an exuberant personality. Just my .02 cents.
This article & Radio Rewound Weekend prove Personality solves a lot of problems. It separates the men from the boys! You can duplicate music but NOT your personalities! Bring back personality radio and watch your cume increase!
Gary, YOU are so right! Rewound has the great old jingles and these WLS/CFL/WABC weekends are a dream! Ingram, Lujack. Everyone after just stole or they just used it as a job usually. No creativity often. Hopefully, my radio show listed above creates a little today in radio, but I had great teachers like Ron Britain, Ron Riley, Dex Card, Art Roberts, Lujack, Chuck Buell, Biondi, Barney pip, Jim Stagg, Jerry G, Big Jack Armstrong, Brucie and guys like Fred Winston and Landecker created after, but not many today. You can put shock/talk jocks on but without top 40 radio MUSIC, guys like Howard Stern, Rush Limbaugh (he even stole Lujack’s “da-dalad-dila-da’ bit) and Don Imus just dont create the same feel of top 40. You can go back too to guys like Bob Crane (Hogan) on KNX or Alan Freed and find creativity that others would grab hold of too.
Today, you look at midwest stations where I live (Nebraska) and you wont find ANYBODY like Dale Wehba, Ronnie Kaye, Charlie Tuna (actually a Nebraska kid who was on Kearney, Ne radio as high schooler before KOMA), my dear late friend Sandy Jackson, Old weird Dave Biondi, Don B Williams, Chuck Dann. No creativity and NO voices like those. Nowadays, a voice as bad as MINE could get a job in radio. haha
It was just great radio even with warts. Thing is, today, music is totally fragmented. IF you dont hear your music on more than ONE local station so you sit thru 8 commercials? In top 40 days, like I said in my earlier post, you could just tune 10 KC and have a song you liked when a commercial was on YOUR station! I digress……..
Clark Besch
Rewound was great! Sean’s writings are on target. Ask any member of the public who was listening during those years about their favorite station and they’ll always give you a name or names of that air staff who connected with them. To return to prominence Radio must rise above all the other noise. If there is a tipping point, it may be when after all the force reductions, there’s nothing left to cut. Revenue is dropping and nothing to do but make the investment or shut the stations off. Hopefully there will be Broadcasters who will make the right choice. John Rook once said that we were very fortunate to have been in the business during the most exciting times. As usual he was right.