WKLB Axes "Sunday Morning Country Oldies"

[M.Casey]

The Modern Country format really started taking hold in the 1980's. I don't 
know what the current--I'll call it "Top20 Country"--format is called. But 
there are several country formats. The current "Top 20 Country" format that 
92.5 WWYZ Hartford plays is a mix that's heavy on Rap & Whine. It's almost a 
Country version, repeat of the 60's AM Top 20 Pop format, but YZ seems to 
still get the ratings despite the repetetivity. I like country, but there's 
not enough upbeat songs-too much slow whining and country rap--nothing 
against either, but just way too much of it--so, I just can't listen to it.

A mix of 1980's+ classic, recurrent and current songs might be a sustainable 
country format here in the northeast. There's a whole list of good 
listenable, in a current sense, country songs from the last 25 years that 
could be inserted into what I would call a "Modern Country Mix" format. Hey- 
when WWYZ first went to country in the 80's , they'd even slip in an Elvis 
song once in a while. That might not work now but some of those big country 
hits of about 1987-2010 that made country what it is now would work very 
well. There may be a reasonable, sustainable and profitable, amount of 
listeners in the 35-65 age group to a "Modern Country Mix" on FM (like 
101.7) or even an AM with a decent signal.

The generic Classic Country description is hard to define. A format of 
1940's to 1980's ( which is very much alive in other parts of this country) 
could be called classic, but would likely have few listeners in this region. 
But that could be a format for a station like 1430 to try.

WWYZ-HD-2 has a pretty good format which may be called a version of classic 
country. It's 1970's through 2000's and not so heavy on the whining.

It's unfortunate for the guys that had the show, but I understand why WKLB 
axed the oldies show. The average WKLB listener expects to hear the same 
basic format whether it's Monday morning, Thursday night, or Sunday morning. 
WKLB does not want to give their every day listener another reason (besides 
commercials-as in the recent discussion-ha!) to tune out.

Mark Casey
K1MAP

-----Original Message----- 
From: Larry Weil
Sent: Monday, June 16, 2014 10:02 PM
To: Boston Radio Group
Subject: Re: WKLB Axes "Sunday Morning Country Oldies"


On Jun 16, 2014, at 9:01 PM, Jeff Lehmann <jjlehmann@comcast.net> wrote:

> Here's an idea... Clear Channel fires back and flips 1430 to classic 
> country! I know they won't, but they did recently put it on 1380 in 
> Portsmouth.
>

I don't think that would matter at all.  The feeling I have is that the 
audience for classic country is a completely different audience from that 
for modern country or whatever it's called.

Larry Weil
Lake Wobegone, NH






-----
No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 2014.0.4570 / Virus Database: 3964/7689 - Release Date: 06/16/14