WBZ should hang its head in shame

[Eli Polonsky]

>Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2012 02:01:40 -0400
>From: Kevin Vahey <kvahey@gmail.com>
>To: A Joseph Ross <joe@attorneyross.com>
>Cc: boston-radio-interest@lists.bostonradio.org
>Subject: Re: WBZ should hang its head in shame
>
>Think it out - WBZ-FM moves to 103.3 and the 103 legacy 
>endures. AM doing oldies is still Radio 103 ( WBZ-AM)

WODS is no longer "Oldies 103.3". Another poster said
that the "older demo" would follow WODS to AM. WODS no
longer programs to the "older demo" that is old enough
to have grown up listening to music on AM radio. WODS
moving to AM would kill it, and I doubt CBS would want
to do that. It's still quite successful now as it is.

Though they haven't changed the anagram call letters,
WODS dropped all on-air and online usage of the word
"Oldies" nearly four years ago. Long gone are Chuck 
Berry, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino and 
any Elvis prior to his 1969 hit "Suspicious Minds". 
In their place are Madonna, Prince, George Michael & 
Wham, and Michael Jackson's '80s hits. The generation 
that grew up listening to them didn't listen to music 
on AM radio.

Some hits by mid/late '60s warhorses like the Beatles, 
Stones, The Beach Boys, the biggest Motown hits, etc... 
still play, but more to a generation that first enjoyed 
them as enduring "oldies" on FM radio years after they 
were first released, not as much to the generation now 
mostly in their 60s and older that first enjoyed them 
on AM radio and might not want to sit through the '70s
and '80s pop and disco hits to hear them sprinkled in.
I know that a "focus group" study for WODS a few years
ago was not open to anyone over 52 years old.

WODS is a mid '60s through '80s "classic hits" station
now. AM radio was on the decline for contemporary hits
by the mid '70s, and was dead for contemporary hits by
1980. Moving it to AM with its present format wouldn't
work, and if it went back to playing older "oldies" of
the '50s and early '60s again, it would have to go to 
an automated commercial-free listener supported model
like WJIB, because sponsors apparently don't believe 
that older people spend money.

EP