Overall, being what you are is a pretty good strategy for any format. A few days before Red’s launch, Greater Media’s WMTR/WWTR Morristown, N.J., became the latest pre-Beatles convert (and the fourth such station I can hear at my office). Red 104.1 architect (and former Emmis GM) Chuck Hillier isn’t the first person hoping to recast Standards for this generation: WUBE-AM Cincinnati tried it in the mid-‘90s by playing only contemporary artists Bob Hamilton acknowledged the swing resurgence at KABL San Francisco in the late ‘90s and Clear Channel retooled KLAC Los Angeles as “Fabulous 570” last year, even as it was converting standards stalwart WSAI Cincinnati to “Real Oldies.” There have also been conventional Standards stations that have shown how well the format can perform just by being on FM, including KJUL Las Vegas and Westwood One affiliate KJWL Fresno, Calif.īut Red 104.1 is significant for being a large market, major group-owner FM launch at a time when other groups aren’t so confident about the format on AM. And there’s a seeming emphasis on great performances over hit versions of songs-an aesthetic that has been the exception, not the rule, in the Adult Standards format for the last 10-15 years.Įven if older audiences wouldn’t accept rock ‘n’ roll, standards have never been entirely out of the picture for the rock generation, whether it was the early ‘70s nostalgia boom that gave us old songs (“Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy”) and old sounding ones (“Oh Babe, What Would You Say?”), a stream of standards albums by contemporary artists that goes back at least 27 years (Willie Nelson’s “Stardust,” Linda Ronstadt’s “What’s New,” etc.), or the post-“Swingers” cachet of swing dancing, martinis, and all things Vegas. The only nod to rock ‘n’ roll is the inclusion of neo-swing acts like Brian Setzer and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. You’ll hear the artists who’ve given standards their new cachet among younger listeners-Harry Connick, Jr., Michael Buble, Rod Stewart, and Norah Jones-but you will, by and large, hear them singing the same songs as Sammy Davis, Jr., and Tony Bennett.
Louis is that, despite its mission of selling Standards to a younger audience, it may be the purest Adult Standards station I’ve heard in years. So what’s radical about Emmis’ new WMLL (Red 104.1) St. Even with some Sinatra and Dean Martin thrown in, the average numbers have been in the mid-1s, a third of what a well-executed Standards station can do, even given the format’s recent attrition. That divide is also why existing Standards listeners are not, judging from the initial ratings, hanging around for the new pre-Beatles Oldies AMs that are now replacing their stations on a monthly basis. The Standards audience didn’t become younger, just less enthusiastic. It’s been a compromise that ultimately hasn’t made either listeners or sales managers very happy. Add in Anne Murray, Kenny Rogers, Barry Manilow and the Carpenters and the rock era suddenly comprises the biggest piece of the format. For at least a decade now, many of those stations have had their center in ‘60s MOR. That divide is why it’s been so hard for Adult Standards stations to become more contemporary. And even if Elvis Presley didn’t upset my grandfather as much as he did others in that age group, time had made him no less indifferent to the King, and that included “It’s Now Or Never” and “Can’t Help Falling In Love.”
Neither, for that matter, was anything by Connie Francis, Petula Clark, Dionne Warwick or Brenda Lee. But for my grandfather, whose musical allegiances fell far on the other side of the 1956 divide (and this was a hit from 1957), “Old Cape Cod” sure wasn’t his music either. We don’t think of Patti Page as rock ‘n’ roll these days. That song was “Old Cape Cod” by Patti Page. So one afternoon in the mid-‘80s, I was listening to oldies KNUZ when he began, typically, singing atonally over the loud, boisterous rock ‘n’ roll ‘50s song on the radio.
I could listen to whatever music I wanted. My grandfather and I used to have a deal involving his car radio when I came to visit him in Houston.