Clear Channel converts DC oldies(60s motown and rock) station to classic rock, leaving only LA, Boston, Denver as main US cities with oldies stations

By Paul Farhi
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 4, 2006; C01

Elvis has not only left the building -- he's leaving the airwaves.

So, too, are many of his fellow hitmakers from the 1960s and '70s, including the Beach Boys, Aretha Franklin, Simon & Garfunkel and Wilson Pickett.

In a generational as well as cultural shift, the area's only oldies station, WBIG (100.3 FM), yesterday dropped much of the music that has been a staple of local radio for more than 40 years and replaced it with "classic" rock from the 1970s and early '80s.

Out: the cheerful sound of Motown, which appeals to racially diverse audiences, and early Top 40 radio that harks to the civil rights and Vietnam eras.

In: familiar cuts from rock giants such as Journey, Queen, Supertramp, Aerosmith, the Police and Cheap Trick.

Still holding on: the Beatles and Rolling Stones, but not the epoch-changing British Invasion hits of the mid-'60s.

WBIG, owned by radio giant Clear Channel, ushered out the format at 5 p.m. by playing the Isley Brothers' early 1960s classic "Shout." The music segued into Bachman Turner Overdrive's "You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet," inaugurating the station's new playlist. WBIG later played tunes by Bruce Springsteen, Fleetwood Mac, Steve Miller and Peter Frampton.

The change is not nearly as jarring as WHFS-FM's sudden abandonment of alternative rock for Spanish pop, or WETA-FM's dumping of classical music for news and talk last year. Still, in one swift move, WBIG consigned a whole swath of iconic pop -- hits of the Temptations, the Monkees, James Brown and Mamas & Papas -- to the same scrapheap on which radio programmers dumped their Frank Sinatra and Perry Como records more than a decade ago.

The switch reflects the decline of the "oldies" format, and the changing contours of the radio business, which faces a many-headed threat from satellite radio, the Internet, iPods and other music-playing devices. By focusing more on music that was popular when today's forty-somethings were in their formative musical years, the station hopes to capture a larger audience and the younger listeners favored by advertisers.

"The audience [for oldies] is getting older and going away," said Jeff Kapugi, Clear Channel's regional vice president of programming. "It's hard to attain new audience [with the format]. We have to make the music more accessible to more people. We think this is a natural evolution."

Although oldies stations continue to do well in cities such as Los Angeles, Denver and Boston, the format has fallen into disfavor elsewhere. WCBS-FM in New York killed it last year, bumping legendary deejay Cousin Brucie off the air and replacing older hits with an expanded, multi-genre mix of pop known in the industry as "Jack" (the move resulted in a disastrous public-relations backlash for WCBS and a precipitous ratings decline that forced the station to get rid of Jack last fall).

WBIG has edged away from an association with "oldies" in recent years, changing its on-air name from "Oldies 100" to "BIG 100" in 2002. It also has updated its playlist in that time, dropping music from the late 1950s and early '60s.

But Clear Channel's decision to move WBIG from its familiar format seems curious in light of the station's recent financial performance. Although the station's ratings have dipped -- it had 2.6 percent of the local audience last quarter, compared with 3.2 percent a year ago -- advertisers paid a relatively big premium to reach those listeners. WBIG ranked No. 10 among local stations in ad revenue last year, generating $16.8 million -- even though the station finished only in a tie for No. 16 among all listeners, according to BIA Financial Network, a media research firm in Chantilly.

WBIG had the oldies niche all to itself, but now faces competition from WARW-FM (94.7), which has been the local classic station for years. And WARW, "The Arrow," had even lower ratings than WBIG, with a 1.7 percent share last quarter.

"There's a concept in radio known as 'owning the hill,' and WARW already owns the classic-rock hill," said Charlie Sislen, a partner in Research Director Inc., an Annapolis-based radio consulting firm. "I don't know what [WBIG is] going to do to displace them."

WBIG fan Matt Neufeld was even more emphatic about the loss of his favorite tunes: "We're going to lose an entire library of music that no one else is playing," said Neufeld, 44, who lives in Greenbelt. "It doesn't make sense. WBIG [was] the only station playing that music. We already have a classic rock station."

But Kapugi said the station has its eyes on older music fans who were set adrift by the demise of contemporary music station Z104 FM in January, and on talk-radio fans seeking a home since Howard Stern went to satellite radio.

Under its new format, WBIG will drop all its current on-air personalities, including morning team Gary Murphy and Jessica Cash, and replace them within the next 90 days, Kapugi said. Until then, he said, the station will have live deejays who will be "pretty anonymous."

WBIG's change follows management turnover at Clear Channel, the area's biggest station owner with eight outlets, including rocker DC 101, soft-rock WASH-FM, sports-talk WTEM-AM and country music WMZQ-FM. Kapugi arrived from Clear Channel's operation in Tampa five weeks ago, and a new general manager of the group, Dave Pugh, came from Detroit in February.

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

St. Louis still has KLOU: Last ten songs played:

Do Wah Diddy Diddy - Manfred Mann
Lookin' Out My Back Door - Creedence Clearwater Revival
Something - Beatles
I Heard It Through the Grapevine - Marvin Gaye
All Day and All of the Night - Kinks
Long Cool Woman - Hollies
Chain of Fools - Aretha Franklin
Brown-Eyed Girl - Van Morrison
Under the Boardwalk - Drifters
Twist and Shout - Beatles

All of which is not to say that Clear Channel isn't a bitch.

3:45pm : FOUR TOPS - REACH OUT I'LL BE THERE
3:43pm : PETER PAUL AND MARY - I DIG ROCK & ROLL MUSIC
3:40pm : CCR - WHO'LL STOP THE RAIN
3:37pm : ISLEY BROTHERS - THIS OLD HEART OF MINE
3:27pm : CREAM/ERIC CLAPTON - WHITE ROOM
3:23pm : ELTON JOHN - YOUR SONG
3:21pm : SWINGING BLUE JEANS - HIPPY HIPPY SHAKE
3:19pm : SUPREMES - MY WORLD IS EMPTY
3:09pm : MANFRED MANN - DO WAH DIDDY DIDDY
3:06pm : BEACH BOYS - GOD ONLY KNOWS
3:02pm : JIMMY BUFFETT - MARGARITAVILLE
3:00pm : MARVIN GAYE/TAMMI TERREL - AIN'T NO MT. HIGH ENOUGH
2:55pm : STEELY DAN - DO IT AGAIN
2:48pm : SAM AND DAVE - HOLD ON I'M COMIN'
2:44pm : GUESS WHO - NO TIME
2:41pm : BOB SEGER - OLD TIME ROCK & ROLL
2:38pm : JIMMY RUFFIN - IVE PASSED THIS WAY BEFO
2:29pm : FOUR TOPS - AIN'T NO WOMAN
2:27pm : MAMA'S AND PAPA'S - CALIFORNIA DREAMIN
2:24pm : SUPREMES - STOP IN THE NAME OF LOVE
2:20pm : MAIN INGREDIENT - EVERYBODY PLAYS THE FOOL
2:13pm : BOX TOPS - THE LETTER
2:11pm : GRAND FUNK - LOCO-MOTION
2:08pm : PETULA CLARK - DOWNTOWN

Satire is dead, again.

The audience [for oldies] is getting older and going away

Is that a euphemism for dying?

anyway this sucks, because 100.3 was really not a bad commercial oldies station at all - particularly before the switch away from 50s music earlier this decade. honestly when it came to regular FM radio that was one of the few stations i ever listened to around here. and the sunday night programming was fantastic - all sorts of great stuff.

and as crappy as 94.7 tends to be, i can't see the new 100.3 really giving it a run for its money.

*Oddly enough, several years and owners ago, 107.5 was once a very good classic rock station that eventually switched formats to Modern Rock and would later trade frequencies with KLDE after Clear Channel bought them.

The 'logic' of this just does not make sense.

classic rock is the new oldies!

Re "classic rock" being the new oldies, alas that is what the corporate radio folks seem to want, but I naively wish so-called "classic" rock included a much wider variety of rock from all eras. I recognize that the definition of classic rock is slightly bigger than it was 5 or 10 years ago, but it still needs alot of work (one token Ramones song does not cut it, nor does pretending that rock started in 1967, and getting rid of virtually all African-American music does not cut it for me either).

As noted above this is also a strange business decision as right now, the oldies station gets better ratings than the classic rock one.

As Zach pointed out above 100.3 in DC used to have excellent specialty shows on Sunday nights. I recall ones featuring old r'n'b and soul. This is a loss.

x-post-

Captain Fly is still on sometimes in the morning(9 to 11 or so) in DC on Saturdays on WPFW 89.3 (and on the internet I think) (before the blues and Chitlin circuit soulful blues shows), but you're right that the late Saturday afternoon dj is terrible(Andrea the Hat Lady she calls herself). One of the guys who used to be there, left and got a job with XM satellite radio doing soul/oldies programming there.

WFMU has Mr. Fine Wine, and I used to listen to music critic Ron Wynn do a great show on the Bridgeport, Connecticut college station before Wynn moved to Nashville(or Memphis, I forget).

Forget my paraphrasing, here's what the Post said. My wording of the title did get you non-DC people to check out this thread, despite it's innacurate wording!

I still wish Congress would re-regulate radio station ownership and limit companies to 2 or so per market. Clear Channel would whine and challenge it in court, and the Republicans would likely never do it, but I think it might [possibly help open up the world of commercial radio a bit (which is needed in these days of satellite radio, digital radio and i-pods).

Last ten played:
1:23pm Van Morrison - "Moondance"
1:20pm Supremes - "Come See About Me"
1:10pm Seals and Crofts - "Diamond Girl"
1:07pm Simon and Garfunkel - "Homeward Bound"
1:04pm Vickie Sue Robinson - "Turn The Beat Around"
1:00pm The Turtles - "Happy Together"
12:56pm Rod Stewart - "(Find a) Reason to Believe"
12:53pm The Four Tops - "Baby I Need Your Loving"
12:50pm Sanford/Townsend Band - "Smoke From A Distant Fire"
12:47pm The Beach Boys - "Fun, Fun, Fun"

The main complaint I have against ODS is they aren't very deep on the big artists. No complaints about spinning the Four Tops or Supremes, but you only tend to hear their biggest 3 songs. Still, they're one of my FM commercial presets.

If playing Elvis brought in more cash than Bad Company I think they'd go back to playing Elvis.

As much as I love "oldies" radio and wish it'd never leave I know that it had to go sometime, and that you can't just blame the Big Business Bogeyman for making the Four Tops disappear.

It's really easy for people like us, who have invested a lot in pop music and acquiring knowledge of it, to complain about people who dismiss entire decades of it but you have to remember that people can't miss something they've never heard and can't relate to. You have to face up to the fact that new generations of kids can't even relate to a lot of the "puppy love" subject matter in those songs.

These things are inevitable. There will come a day when Nirvana is removed from the radio because everyone from that era is too old or dead. The good news is that digital media is replacing the traditional radio gradually and that you will still be able to listen to the "oldies" you want.

YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT US YOU DEBBIE DOWNER. I WILL LIVE FOREVER DO U SEE GODS?

I had similar thoughts when I first heard of "Little Stevie" Van Zant's various complaints againt "real" rock and roll (ie., oldies) being driven off of American radio. His rants seemed as much a demand of recognition for a certain age demographic (40-somethings and above) as a defense of a music genre. Swing used to dominate radio once upon a time, and that eventually disappeared, too.

Yep. His main problem is he tends to take an adversarial approach. Rather than find ways to connect contemporary music to the old sttuff (you think it would be pretty easy in the White Stripes era), he rants on about how much greater 50's/60's rock is better than anything else. Which is off-putting and reactionary. And his "disco off the radio" stance is just obnoxious.

x-post--Little Stevie's rants are misguided and obnoxious, but I end up listening sometimes just because he plays some cool garage rock you'd never hear elsewhere.

From the W. Post article-

"But Clear Channel's decision to move WBIG from its familiar format seems curious in light of the station's recent financial performance. Although the station's ratings have dipped -- it had 2.6 percent of the local audience last quarter, compared with 3.2 percent a year ago -- advertisers paid a relatively big premium to reach those listeners. WBIG ranked No. 10 among local stations in ad revenue last year, generating $16.8 million -- even though the station finished only in a tie for No. 16 among all listeners, according to BIA Financial Network, a media research firm in Chantilly. . .WBIG had the oldies niche all to itself, but now faces competition from WARW-FM (94.7), which has been the local classic station for years. And WARW, "The Arrow," had even lower ratings than WBIG, with a 1.7 percent share last quarter."

untrue. i heard those annoying jack voice-overs on 101.1 fm as recently as saturday.

And CBS-FM's Jack format is still being heavily advertised around Manhattan. I saw an ad on the side of a bus a few days ago. The steep ratings decline from the oldies format is accurate, though, if I'm not mistaken.

What, one wasn't enough?

As the article noted, WBIG wasn't even playing '50s tunes anymore; it was basically like what the classic rock station used to be, before they started moving into the '80s and '90s.

psst - I listened to a bit of the 30 years/30 days thing earlier this year. I shouldn't have been surprised, but it was amazing just how suddenly the quality dropped off as the '70s playlists rolled around; each day was progressively (pun intended) worse than the last.

:((((((

haven't lived there for a few years but 90.9 was preprogrammed when i did. so much better than WGMS, and a more reliable signal than the (otherwise great) 90.5

Just as bad, though a lot of people don't care much now, is that they even killed the mouldy oldies AM station...the one that played big band hits & Frank Sinatra mixed in with retirement home advertisements...switched it over to talk radio in the dead of night.

It drives me crazy...the people who are changing the formats don't even listen to the goddam radio. AAAGH!

it even angered be when it went to the 60's and 70's. It cut my listening time in half. Oldies 100 will be sorely missed.

Is there any way at all I might be able to tune into some sort of oldies station in the DC area?