Re: when oldies stations drop the 50s...

[anastasi@javanet.com]

"Joseph Pappalardo"
joepappalardo2001@yahoo.com> wrote on
Sent: Sunday, January 06, 2002 2:19 AM

> I think you take this entirely too personally.  It's not as if the "Happy
> Days Era" never existed...it's that the Happy Days Era folks are now
> grandparents...
>
>
> If WODS is to survive in an increasingly tough marketplace (ad
> dollars)....then they need to be an attractive buy to the ad agencies.
And
> most consumers are over 25 (when they settle down and start making a
> home)....and under 55 (when they start to slow down and buy things less.
>
> If your audience is over 55 or under 25 you have to be much more selective
> about what advertiser you can pitch.
>
> (Haven't we had this discussion before?) ;-)
>
> JP
>
Well, excuse me, but I am going to "take this personally."  I am this close
to a flame, but will try to control myself.
I am 52, so I am on that dividing line where my youth was both in the late
50s and all of the 60s.  Therefore, I have memories attached to both
decades.
What are people of my age supposed to do with those memories once they fall
out of the desired demographic?  Throw them into the fire like so many old
photographs?  It's bad enough that American society puts its old folks into
"nursing homes" and "extended care facilities" where they are "out of sight,
out of mind."  But damn it, don't take away the one thing we have left to
remember our youth, which is our music!
My dad has three stations (WXKS-AM, WESX-AM, and WPLM) to listen to for his
music from the "Big Band" era and the early 50s.  Is it too much to ask for
one station that plays music from the birth of rock & roll (roughly 1955) to
the beginning of the British Invasion?
I think it's all just change for the sake of change.  Oldies stations that
have been around for years and years and attained a very loyal following
long long ago are being changed.  Why?  What happened to the old adage of
"if it ain't broke, don't fix it"?
Maybe my generation will be the first one to have its music "assimilated"
into music from the 1970s and 1980s.  But what's gonna happen 10, 20 years
from now?  Is the "start" year for songs played on 103.3 and 105.7 going to
keep moving up?  And what about the people that are excluded when that
happens?
People are living longer now, and that provides a programming problem for
radio stations.  I understand that.  But if radio keeps casting off chunks
of listeners after so many years of loyalty, won't that eventually catch up
to them?
Geez, am I mad about this.....
Brian Anastasi