In this installment, Sean looks at two surprisingly fierce races on the Prairie.
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The Radioactive conference, held March 10-13 in Toronto as part of Canadian Music Week, was marked by the same cautious optimism that has characterized all radio gatherings this year. On the dais, industryites congratulated Canadian radio for never making the same draconian increases in spotload or use of network radio as their American counterparts, although you were still likely to hear some of those complaints aired privately about Canadian radio.
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Here is a list of the latest station concerts and events
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As Radio-Info executive editor of music and programming Sean Ross heads to Canadian Music Week, he offers this "virtual road trip" of Canadian CHR coast to coast, starting with the first leg--Newfoundland to Ottawa.
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By now, you've likely read an appreciation somewhere of Cecil Heftel, the Hawaiian congressman and broadcaster associated with the big splash, promotionally active debuts of WKTQ (13Q) Pittsburgh, WHYI (Y100) Miami, and WLUP Chicago in the ‘70s. We wanted to give a few of the prominent programmers (and one industry observer) who remember Heftel a chance to share their memories with Radio-Info.com readers.
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For many years, the best way to get a handle on the overall professionalism and “bigness” of a radio station was often through its imaging. In the early ‘80s, stations like WRQX (Q107) Washington, D.C., and WBZZ (B94) Pittsburgh stood out from other Top 40s around the country by using laserblast production every few records. Those stagers sound simple now, but they shook up radio in an era when Top 40 was chasing after Rock radio by sounding as clean (and savorless) as possible. That was followed by WHTZ (Z100) New York’s “Serving the Universe” ID, which set the stage for the late ‘80s “lock it in and rip the knob off” era, when jock breaks were reduced and more aggressive imaging sometimes became the key determinant of stationality.
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A few weeks ago, we reported on the launch of Clear Channel's CBGB Radio and commented that the most dangerous music of the '70s and early '80s not only sounded pretty mainstream now, but was really, secretly pretty mainstream then -- even if the artists were not. Now, an aircheck of late '70s punk/new wave outlet WPIX New York provides a little more evidence.
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Anybody who has ever worked with an Oldies/Greatest Hits or Classic Rock station will tell you that having the “right” versions of songs is an ongoing challenge. The version of a song on the CD reissue is sometimes neither the single nor the album version that was heard in the vinyl era. Singles edits often disappear from circulation. Even the version on the library disc you order from a syndicator might not be the hit single version.
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We wrote last Thursday that we were looking forward to hearing what KRTH (K-Earth 101) Los Angeles programmer Jhani Kaye did with his additional responsibilities at Smooth Jazz sister and format pioneer, KTWV (the Wave). It didn’t take long. Within days, listeners on the Radio-Info.com discussion boards were chronicling the changes: the term “smooth jazz” came off the air, there were fewer instrumentals, and vocals now included songs like Timbaland f/OneRepublic’s “Apologize” and Malo’s ‘Suavecito.”
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We’ve said goodbye to legendary Top 40 B94 Pittsburgh once before. In 2004, the original WBZZ (B94) became one of the more prominent casualties of Clear Channel’s “fast on Rhythm, slow on Rock” Midwestern Top 40s, specifically WKST (Kiss FM)—ironically, a descendent of WXKX (96KX), the station that B94 ran out of the format in the early ‘80s by being more Rhythmic. In 2007, B94 returned as WBZW. Yesterday, the station announced a pending switch to all-sports KDKA-FM.
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First the good news, if it’s possible to devote an entire column to library-driven radio stations that were intriguing in the ‘90s, it wasn’t hard to find a like number of Intriguing Radio Stations of the ‘00s based in newer or emerging music. Now the bad news, most of those gold-based stations are still among us. This list features a number of intriguing stations that didn’t get or sustain traction. At decade’s end, PPM (or just its specter, in many markets) has turned things upside down in a way that is far from shaking out. That doesn’t mean that we won’t find some lasting utility in some of the formats that programmers don’t consider viable this week.
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If you’re writing an article about intriguing radio stations of the ‘00s, there’s no getting around it. A lot of the creativity of that decade went into finding new and better ways to program old records – whether from the ‘70s or the ‘90s; whether Classic Country or Old-School Hip-Hop. Ultimately, it made sense to turn the first half of our salute to “Intriguing Radio Stations of the ‘00s” over entirely to gold-based radio stations; we’ll return with a look at more current-based outlets (and yes there were some) in part II.
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This should not have been an easy article to write. We began 2009 with format change activity slowed to a crawl by the economic gales of Sept. 15. Every now and then, broadcasters stirred just long enough to install another national format or syndicated personality, or further tighten their existing stations’ presentation in response to the perceived demands of PPM. There should not have been any intriguing new radio stations to write about.
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It was a decade that began with Toby Keith rapping and ended with Jason Mraz not rapping. Country got edgier, and everything else became, well, less so. In "Fifteen Songs That Changed The Radio In The 2000s," Radio-Info.com executive editor of music and programming Sean Ross looks at the songs that were signposts--not just megahits but evidence of a sea change at the formats that played them.
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Usually, when we take our year-end look at the songs that changed the radio in the previous year, the key songs are those that made mainstream radio edgier. Hey, look, there’s “P.I.M.P.” by 50 Cent at Mainstream Top 40 at 10 a.m. So what’s to be said about a year when the music that radio was forced to deal with was Taylor Swift, Jason Mraz, and Owl City? It just proves that there’s no figuring out these damn kids with their contemplative, vaguely spiritual mellow-rock.
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Veteran programmer/consultant John Gorman returns to the Cleveland airwaves as consultant of WNWV as that station segues from Smooth Jazz to Triple-A as "Boom 107.3." And the result, says Sean Ross in his First Listen, is likely to be surprisingly palatable to a Smooth Jazz listener.
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A week ago I bought a Blackberry Curve with the intent of using the streaming radio apps. Five days later, I returned it. The experience in between was not unlike desktop streaming in 1998. And it made me wonder if radio's new platforms have caught up with our aspirations for them.
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For our final installment in our weekly "Four Christmases" series, executive editor of music and programming Sean Ross listens to holiday music on two more AC powerhouses, WBEB (B101) Phladelphia and KOIT San Francisco, and on two Internet-only favorites of RadioTime.com listeners: the pleasantly broad XmasMelody.com and the self-explanatory SomaFM Christmas Lounge
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After years of late night "trivia booty calls" from friends wanting to identify obscure (or not so obscure) songs, Radio-Info's Sean Ross wasn't quite ready to relinquish his "guy who knows every song" status to a Blackberry or iPhone app designed to do the same thing. In "Music Junkie Takes On Pattern Recognition Apps In Steel Cage Death Match, Part I," Sean sees how well Shazam and VCast Song ID do against the bizarre endless variety of stuff on his iTunes.
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As the all-holiday format has spread and become codified over recent years, it has coalesced, and for cause, around a relatively cohesive body of music and a relatively small number of titles (if not interpretations). There’s a reason for that, of course. Which doesn’t mean that the music junkies among us might not like something else once in a while.
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Favorites from the author’s last two weeks of (always decidedly random) listening and the week’s radio headlines, ending December 9, 2009. Stations I’ve worked with in my Edison Research capacity are asterisked.
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This week, in Radio-Info.com's ongoing look at Christmas radio, "Four Christmases" at a time, we actually listen to "Three Christmases and a Hanukkah." We check out Moody Praise's Christmas channel (no Santa, no Rudolph), AccuRadio's Smooth Hanukkah, the WMGC (Magic 105) Detroit morning show, and a more soulful-than-the-AC-norm Christmas on WLYF-HD-2 Miami.
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Every week, "Ross On Radio" author Sean Ross engages on the weighty topics of our industry-at-a-crossroads. So what one item has prompted the most feedback in the last six months? The recent essay on "Nothing But A Heartache" by the Flirtations, the 1969 R&B classic that may is almost never heard on large-market Greatest Hits stations, but almost always pops up on Oldies specialty shows. Readers had a lot to say about "Nothing But A Heartache," too.
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In our second installment of "Four Christmases," we review four more all-holiday formats. This week, it's two format pioneers (KESZ and KCKC), a tough format battle in Kansas City, and a Canadian Christmas featuring a former freestyle artist.
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Whatever industry tumult the honorees of Edison Research’s 2008 30 Under 30 have seen over the last 18 months has only been magnified for those in Urban radio. R&B broadcasters are scrambling to react to the drastically altered PPM-era fortunes of many heritage stations and veteran talents. And it’s hard to follow the rules when nobody quite knows what those are yet.
Of the three R&B broadcasters who have checked in to share their stories so far, all three have changed jobs. WPGC Washington, D.C., MD Talya Johnson is pursuing a career in management. Former Wendy Williams radio co-host Charlamagne left that show, hosted his own morning show for six months, and is now looking again. And Tazz Daddy is no longer producing the syndicated show that is expected to replace Charlamagne.
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