Wrote a thought piece about whether oldies will ever come back to Atlanta

[Jeff Laurence]

Regarding:

"....With WYAY's demise, I don't understand why another Atlanta station does not pick up the format. CBS-FM, KRTH, WOGL and WLS FM are successful stations..."

You are right.  My client station in Phoenix is KOOL-FM (CBS) and they consistently do well both in billing and ratings.  CBS and Dan Mason know how to "do oldies" to make it profitable..might be a viable idea for the ATL.  Look at how popular "Yougblood's" show is on WALR?  It takes some brains and some real, live peoe to pull it off, but it could be done with many of the stellar jocks who are currently "available". And would I love to do imaging for that if it ever happens!

[Al Timiter]

I agree that so, so many products are sold with 60's Oldies and have commented on that on other threads. It's unfortunate that:

1) ad agencies won't buy upper demos despite high numbers. Period. Doesn't matter how good the station sounds or how rabid their base is. The ad agency is where the real money is-as we all know.

2) the format got no respect at those ad agencies and even within Oldies radio stations' hallways and offices.

3) Due to continuing short-sighted profit-taking (nothing wrong with profits, but too much short-sighted profit-taking is bad), many operators whored out their stations.

4) Some of those Oldies operators were not good operators BEFORE they were Oldies stations. They jumped on the format for a "quick fix." And there's really no such thing.

On a personal note, I am saddened by all this and miss hearing 60's based Oldies on the radio.

[jwgreek8606]

I am 25 and I grew up listening to a lot of 70s and 80s rock and roll.  As a teen growing up in Atlanta, while my friends were listening to 95.5 the beat and 99x, I was listening to B 98.5 and Z93.  As well as Mix 105.7 and the 80s station out f ATL.

[agentUrge]

I got to thinking about the state of radio and the state of music, at least in the US and I started realizing that kids these days have short attention spans so having control of their music facilitates such behavior. 

Point being: maybe radio is becoming more of an older demographic thing. It used to be the only game in town when it came to listening in your car.  So, with that in mind, it almost makes sense that radio stations would start looking towards playing retro-ish genres.  I was born in 1970, so for me it's going to 70's rock, new wave 80's and 90's along with the straggling 00's.  But how far back can you go before you hit that point where the demo isn't there to listen anymore?

Of course, you'll never get rid of mainstream radio so your top 40 and urban stations would be a staple....