WKRP saw the future.
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darryl-tahirali — 11 years ago(January 20, 2015 11:59 AM)
I am middle aged, so I have lots of classic rock in my CD collection, but classic rock radio annoys me. Believe it or not, the following groups; The Who, Pink Floyd, and Led Zeppelin; actually made more than three songs each, but you never seem to hear their other songs on the radio. Listening to music radio is like only watching movie trailers, without ever seeing a whole movie. - Huskie_Jon
There used to be a classic-rock FM station in Los Angeles in 1990s called Arrow FM. Its slogan was "Where you know every song." As if this was a plus. It wasn't.
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." - Hunter S. Thompson -
chinaglenn — 9 years ago(August 27, 2016 11:56 PM)
I detest the "Morning Zoo" DJs on rock stations, and they all have them. If I listen to your station, I want to hear music. I understand commercials, this is how the station makes money. But I dislike the chatter on what is supposed to be a music station. If I wanted chatter, I would listen to AM talk radio (and sometimes do) or Howard Stern of I had satellite.
But the listeners love this sh.t or it would not be on. -
justanicknamed — 9 years ago(August 30, 2016 12:20 PM)
It depends upon the chatter. Some of it is fine. I like it when they can talk about sports and music, sometimes have interesting guests, and sometimes tease around with each other. When they are local, they can have a nice, personal touch about them.
Shows like "Bob & Tom" suck dog d!cks. A friend of mine loved their show, but I couldn't stand it. Most of what they spewed wasn't funny, and when they did the bits, at least one of the dip sh!ts would be laughing so loud I couldn't hear what was being said - and it was usually something that wasn't that funny to begin with. -
chinaglenn — 9 years ago(September 04, 2016 06:27 AM)
I forgot one episode, but it was a "fantasy episode" and one segment was Herb Tarlek as an elderly man who ran the station literally all by his lonesome, since the whole operation was computerized and it was so easy, an old fool like Herb could run it.
I have been away from my hometown for about 14 years and came back for a visit and noticed that the Number 1 rock station (Rock 103, Memphis) plays the same, and I mean the SAME MUSIC as they did in the 1980's. The format hasn't changed, basically the same 100 rock songs recycled over and over and over and over again. Other stations have come and gone, and Rock 103 is still the king.
If you look at local commercial radio and local television news stations, it is all hopelessly similar, with the same routine, the same websites, the same everything. Nothing new, interesting or fun, which is what radio should be. But deviating from that formula is seen as a loser. Broadcasting also has so much competition. There is satellite radio, with stations where I can just listen to music with no "personalities" or commercials. Talk radio.
Like every other rock station, they have their ridiculous morning show, their name is "the Wake Up Crew". Actually one of the best famous and beloved guy on there, named John "Bad Dog" McCormack died of luekemia at around 55 years old. They occasionally do some funny bits, but again, it is basically three hours of them rambling on about mostly bullsh.t. Just them talking about tasteless things and bad jokes and then commercials and then back to them talking about tasteless things and bad jokes with sports, weather and some news.
Commercial radio is sad and is a joke now. Formats sometimes change and people move on. Actually WKRP was realistic in many ways, except now it would not be a mom and pop operation, but a mindless, soulless corporation running the show with the same clap trap and bullsh.t. Not worth the effort. -
Catnip86 — 9 years ago(September 04, 2016 08:21 AM)
The format hasn't changed, basically the same 100 rock songs recycled over and over and over and over again.
That sounds like Q104.3 by me. The same songs by the same bands every single day. Once in a while they throw in a little "variety" of one or two other bands. What really annoys me is they have what they call "work force blocks" during the lunch hour. People request certain bands and they play a "block" of their songs. Now, if they are playing (for example) The Rolling Stones ALL DAY anyway, why do they need a "block" of them during the noon hour? Why can't they limit the requests "blocks" to bands you don't hear over and over and over? -
PillowRock — 15 years ago(January 18, 2011 08:25 AM)
First of all, the people on those morning shows are not "DJs". I refuse to concede that title to those people. They don't play enough music to qualify as "Disk Jockeys". They're "talk radio personalities".
There are a
few
stations that still use live DJs, at least for a fair percentage of their time. Granted, those tend to be oddball stations that play some classic rock, some folk, the occasional blues song, etc. (and some local artists every once in a while). Of course, those always were the more interesting stations anyway. (The Ann Arbor and Detroit radio markets are one the things that I kinda miss since moving to DC a year ago for a job.)
On the side subject of any given band only having one or two songs that ever get played on most radio stations: A few years back the Michigan Marching Band did a halftime show at one of UM's season openers that was explicitly titled "One Hit Wonders of the 80s" (or something very similar to that). My jaw dropped when a Pretenders song showed up in that show. Off the top of my head, I don't remember which one .. which is actually part of my point. How did anybody ever get the idea that the Pretenders were a one hit wonder? -
jason_tasch — 14 years ago(August 04, 2011 03:50 PM)
It was Venus. He was recruited to be the new program director (Andy's job) at radio station WREQ. They had all the music programmed onto a machine, "Max". All they wanted Venus for was to be black and fulfill a race quota.
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profh-1 — 13 years ago(September 14, 2012 07:32 PM)
It's a sad reflection of corporate ownership & control of just about everything. It's what happens when accountants are the ones running things. No individuality, no initiative, no personality. We need more individuals who are willing to do something different, do something their own way, to stand out from the drones and prove that things can be done different and better. This goes for every industry you can think of.
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Patrick9648-919-794375 — 13 years ago(October 15, 2012 10:20 AM)
There was also an episode where they were dreaming and they showed WKRP in the future and the only person there was Herb. The entire station was automated. But that was only partially accurate. The big tape machines would now be gone and replaced with hard drives and computers. And many stations today are completely empty buildings with only a contract engineer hired to keep an eye on the equipment in case it goes off the air. Some stations especally the ones on a network such as K-Love have no local studio. Just an empty transmitter building with a satelite dish or music player connected to the transmitter.;
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jefgg — 13 years ago(March 12, 2013 06:47 PM)
You made a good point. It was a good episode. It is nice that Venus saw that he made a mistake and WKRP took him back. Does that happen often in real life? My buddy says "never take a counter offer". I heard the radio business can be very cutthroat. I would not be surprised if there was bad blood when a disc jockey left a station. But the WKRP crew seemed to have love for one another.
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KobiyashiMauru — 12 years ago(September 22, 2013 09:02 PM)
I can't stand the "same eight oldies format" on classic rock stations today. Also when I hit the scan button on my radio and finally find a REAL GOOD oldies station that plays the more obscure classic rock songs, in a week or two everyone starts to sing, talk and laugh in Spanish!
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hariseldon59 — 11 years ago(April 07, 2014 06:02 AM)
Not just that, but Mama Carlson was right about AM radio not being able to compete with FM for music, now AM IS mostly news and talk radio.
It's uncanny how accurate that was. Even stations like WLS AM, Chicago, one of the hottest rock and roll stations in the country in the '60s and '70s, had gone to an all talk format by the '90s. -
baran_erik — 10 years ago(August 23, 2015 03:24 AM)
It didn't take a genius to see, or hear, rather, that the future of popular music stations was going to be on FM. The tinny, static-y sound of AM is no match for stereo FM. The only thing that AM has over FM is coverage area. DXing must be awfully boring nowadays.
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country_tanner — 9 years ago(June 07, 2016 07:42 PM)
Close WLS gave up music in 1989 and I believe they were one of the last if not THE last major AM players in the past to had done so. On the other hand I believe WLS wasn't much of a rocker in it's last days since sometime ago I heard an aircheck of WLS from 1988 and they were playing Nat King Cole and Dean Martin.
For a time I had belong to a website about radio and once the topic of "what was the last major rock & roll big market top 40 station" was brought up..apparently the winner of that was Denver's KIMN-AM 950 which still played the hits all the way until 1988 even though the Mile High City had a few stations on FM sporting that format at the time such as Y108 and KS-104.
The late 80s seem to be a period when so many big AM stations threw in the towel as far as playing rock & roll went. NYC's 66 WNNNNNNBC came to an end as well in 1988 though in its last years they were more of an oldies station and Buffalo's 1520 WKBW came to an end I believe in 1987 when the station was split away from its sister TV station to become WWKB while WKBW remains with Buffalo's channel 7 to this day.