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Oldies

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Oldies is a term for musical genres such as pop music, rock and roll, doo-wop, surf music (broadly characterized as classic rock and pop rock) from the second half of the 20th century, specifically from around the mid-1950s to the 1980s, as well as for a radio format playing this music.

After 2000, 1970s music was increasingly included.[1] "Classic hits" has been seen as a successor to the oldies format on the radio, with music from the 1980s serving as the core format.

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Pop music

Pop music

Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form during the mid-1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom. The terms popular music and pop music are often used interchangeably, although the former describes all music that is popular and includes many disparate styles. During the 1950s and 1960s, pop music encompassed rock and roll and the youth-oriented styles it influenced. Rock and pop music remained roughly synonymous until the late 1960s, after which pop became associated with music that was more commercial, ephemeral, and accessible.

Rock and roll

Rock and roll

Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It originated from African-American music such as jazz, rhythm and blues, boogie woogie, gospel, jump blues, as well as country music. While rock and roll's formative elements can be heard in blues records from the 1920s and in country records of the 1930s, the genre did not acquire its name until 1954.

Doo-wop

Doo-wop

Doo-wop is a genre of rhythm and blues music that originated in African-American communities during the 1940s, mainly in the large cities of the United States, including New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Baltimore, Newark, Detroit, Washington, DC, and Los Angeles. It features vocal group harmony that carries an engaging melodic line to a simple beat with little or no instrumentation. Lyrics are simple, usually about love, sung by a lead vocal over background vocals, and often featuring, in the bridge, a melodramatically heartfelt recitative addressed to the beloved. Harmonic singing of nonsense syllables is a common characteristic of these songs. Gaining popularity in the 1950s, doo-wop was "artistically and commercially viable" until the early 1960s, but continued to influence performers in other genres.

Surf music

Surf music

Surf music is a genre of rock music associated with surf culture, particularly as found in Southern California. It was especially popular from 1958 to 1964 in two major forms. The first is instrumental surf, distinguished by reverb-heavy electric guitars played to evoke the sound of crashing waves, largely pioneered by Dick Dale and the Del-Tones. The second is vocal surf, which took elements of the original surf sound and added vocal harmonies, a movement led by the Beach Boys.

Classic rock

Classic rock

Classic rock is a radio format which developed from the album-oriented rock (AOR) format in the early 1980s. In the United States, it comprises rock music ranging generally from the mid-1960s through the mid-1990s, primarily focusing on commercially successful blues rock and hard rock popularized in the 1970s AOR format. The radio format became increasingly popular with the baby boomer demographic by the end of the 1990s.

Pop rock

Pop rock

Pop rock is a fusion genre with an emphasis on professional songwriting and recording craft, and less emphasis on attitude than rock music. Originating in the late 1950s as an alternative to normal rock and roll, early pop rock was influenced by the beat, arrangements, and original style of rock and roll. It may be viewed as a distinct genre field rather than music that overlaps with pop and rock. The detractors of pop rock often deride it as a slick, commercial product and less authentic than rock music.

Radio format

Radio format

A radio format or programming format describes the overall content broadcast on a radio station. The radio format emerged mainly in the United States in the 1950s, at a time when radio was compelled to develop new and exclusive ways to programming by competition with television. The formula has since spread as a reference for commercial radio programming worldwide.

Classic hits

Classic hits

Classic hits is a radio format which generally includes songs from the top 40 music charts from the late 1960s to the early 2000s, with music from the 1980s serving as the core of the format. Music that was popularized by MTV in the early 1980s and the nostalgia behind it is a major driver to the format. It is considered the successor to the oldies format, a collection of top 40 songs from the late 1950s through the late 1970s that was once extremely popular in the United States and Canada. The term is sometimes incorrectly used as a synonym for the adult hits format, which uses a slightly newer music library stretching from all decades to the present with a major focus on 1990s and 2000s pop, rock and alternative songs. In addition, adult hits stations tend to have larger playlists, playing a given song only a few times per week, compared to the tighter libraries on classic hits stations. For example, KRTH, a classic hits station in Los Angeles, and KLUV, a classic hits station in Dallas, both play power songs up to 30 times a week or more, which is another differentiator compared to other formats that share songs with classic hits libraries.

Description

This category includes styles as diverse as doo-wop, early rock and roll, novelty songs, bubblegum music, folk rock, psychedelic rock, baroque pop, surf music, soul music, rhythm and blues, classic rock, some blues, and some country music.[2]

Golden Oldies usually refers to music exclusively from the 1950s and 1960s.[2] Oldies radio typically features artists such as Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, The Beatles, Jerry Lee Lewis, The Beach Boys, Frankie Avalon, The Four Seasons,[3] Paul Anka, Neil Sedaka, Little Richard[4] and Sam Cooke; as well as such musical movements and genres as early rock and roll, rockabilly, doo-wop, soul music, Motown, British Invasion, early girl groups, surf music, teen idol singers, teenage tragedy songs, and bubblegum pop. Music from the folk revival and instrumental beautiful music are among the most commonly excluded recordings from the oldies era.[5]

Most traditional oldies stations limit their on-air playlists to no more than 300 songs, based on the programming strategy that average listeners and passive listeners will stay tuned provided they are familiar with the hits being played. A drawback to this concept is the constant heavy rotation and repetition of the station's program library, as well as rejection of the format by active listeners. This can be avoided either through the use of a broader playlist or by rotating different songs from the oldies era into and out of the playlist every few weeks.

Oldies has some overlap with the classic hits and classic rock formats. Classic hits features pop and rock hits from the early 1970s to early 1990s, while classic rock focuses on album rock from the late 1960s to 1990s (sometimes playing newer material made in the same style as the older songs). As formats have drifted in time with their target audiences, classic hits and classic rock have moved further away from pure oldies, which has largely remained a static format.

The term "oldies" in the early days of the rock era and before referred to the traditional pop music songs of previous decades; a 1953 record review in Billboard describes 1925's "Yes Sir, That's My Baby" as an "oldie."[6] Oldies is known for the near-total and sometimes arbitrary exclusion of some acts that were very popular in their time, including The Osmonds[7] and Barbra Streisand.[8]

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Doo-wop

Doo-wop

Doo-wop is a genre of rhythm and blues music that originated in African-American communities during the 1940s, mainly in the large cities of the United States, including New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Baltimore, Newark, Detroit, Washington, DC, and Los Angeles. It features vocal group harmony that carries an engaging melodic line to a simple beat with little or no instrumentation. Lyrics are simple, usually about love, sung by a lead vocal over background vocals, and often featuring, in the bridge, a melodramatically heartfelt recitative addressed to the beloved. Harmonic singing of nonsense syllables is a common characteristic of these songs. Gaining popularity in the 1950s, doo-wop was "artistically and commercially viable" until the early 1960s, but continued to influence performers in other genres.

Bubblegum music

Bubblegum music

Bubblegum is pop music in a catchy and upbeat style that is considered by some critics as disposable, contrived, or marketed for children and adolescents. The term also refers to a rock and pop subgenre, originating in the United States in the late 1960s, that evolved from garage rock, novelty songs, and the Brill Building sound, and which was also defined by its target demographic of preteens and young teenagers. The Archies' 1969 hit "Sugar, Sugar" was a representative example that led to cartoon rock, a short-lived trend of Saturday-morning cartoon series that heavily featured pop rock songs in the bubblegum vein.

Folk rock

Folk rock

Folk rock is a hybrid music genre that combines the elements of folk and rock music, which arose in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom in the mid-1960s. In the U.S., folk rock emerged from the folk music revival. Performers such as Bob Dylan and the Byrds—several of whose members had earlier played in folk ensembles—attempted to blend the sounds of rock with their pre-existing folk repertoire, adopting the use of electric instrumentation and drums in a way previously discouraged in the U.S. folk community. The term "folk rock" was initially used in the U.S. music press in June 1965 to describe the Byrds' music.

Baroque pop

Baroque pop

Baroque pop is a fusion genre that combines rock music with particular elements of classical music. It emerged in the mid 1960s as artists pursued a majestic, orchestral sound and is identifiable for its appropriation of Baroque compositional styles and dramatic or melancholic gestures. Harpsichords figure prominently, while oboes, French horns, and string quartets are also common.

Classic rock

Classic rock

Classic rock is a radio format which developed from the album-oriented rock (AOR) format in the early 1980s. In the United States, it comprises rock music ranging generally from the mid-1960s through the mid-1990s, primarily focusing on commercially successful blues rock and hard rock popularized in the 1970s AOR format. The radio format became increasingly popular with the baby boomer demographic by the end of the 1990s.

Blues

Blues

Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the African-American culture. The blues form is ubiquitous in jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll, and is characterized by the call-and-response pattern, the blues scale, and specific chord progressions, of which the twelve-bar blues is the most common. Blue notes, usually thirds, fifths or sevenths flattened in pitch, are also an essential part of the sound. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove.

Country music

Country music

Country is a music genre originating in the Southern and Southwestern United States. First produced in the 1920s, country primarily focuses on working class Americans and blue-collar American life.

1960s in music

1960s in music

This article includes an overview of the events and trends in popular music in the 1960s.

Elvis Presley

Elvis Presley

Elvis Aaron Presley, often referred to mononymously as Elvis, was an American singer, actor and sergeant in the United States Army. Dubbed the "King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. His energized interpretations of songs and sexually provocative performance style, combined with a singularly potent mix of influences across color lines during a transformative era in race relations, led him to both great success and initial controversy.

Chuck Berry

Chuck Berry

Charles Edward Anderson Berry was an American singer, songwriter and guitarist who pioneered rock and roll. Nicknamed the "Father of Rock and Roll", he refined and developed rhythm and blues into the major elements that made rock and roll distinctive with songs such as "Maybellene" (1955), "Roll Over Beethoven" (1956), "Rock and Roll Music" (1957) and "Johnny B. Goode" (1958). Writing lyrics that focused on teen life and consumerism, and developing a music style that included guitar solos and showmanship, Berry was a major influence on subsequent rock music.

Jerry Lee Lewis

Jerry Lee Lewis

Jerry Lee Lewis was an American pianist, singer and songwriter. Nicknamed "The Killer", he was described as "rock 'n' roll's first great wild man". A pioneer of rock 'n' roll and rockabilly music, Lewis made his first recordings in 1952 at Cosimo Matassa's J&M Studio in New Orleans, Louisiana, and early recordings in 1956 at Sun Records in Memphis, Tennessee. "Crazy Arms" sold 300,000 copies in the Southern United States, but it was his 1957 hit "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" that shot Lewis to worldwide fame. He followed this with the major hits "Great Balls of Fire", "Breathless", and "High School Confidential". His rock and roll career faltered in the wake of his marriage to Myra Gale Brown, his 13-year-old first cousin once removed.

Frankie Avalon

Frankie Avalon

Francis Thomas Avallone , better known as Frankie Avalon, is an American actor, singer, and former teen idol. He had 31 charting U.S. Billboard singles from 1958 to late 1962, including number one hits, "Venus" and "Why" in 1959.

Classic hits format

A variation on the oldies theme is classic hits, which provides most of the playlist of oldies with some classic rock with an addition of contemporaneous R&B and pop hits as well, creating a balance between the mostly 1970s-focused classic rock genre and the more broad-based oldies format. The evolution of oldies into classic hits is an example of channel drift.

Oldies radio history

1970s

The oldies format began to appear in the early 1970s. KOOL-FM in Phoenix became one of the first radio stations to play oldies music, at that time focusing on the 1950s and early 1960s.

In the 1960s, very few top 40 radio stations played anything more than a few years old. In the late 1960s, a few FM stations adopted top 40 formats that leaned towards adults who did not want to hear the same 30 songs repetitively but also did not want to hear music featured on Middle of the road radio stations. They mixed in oldies with their current product and only played new music a few times an hour. These radio stations were often referred to as "gold" stations. Some AM radio stations also began to employ this format. There were also syndicated music format packages such as Drake-Chenault's "Solid Gold" format, frequently used on FM stations that needed separate programming from their AM sisters (due to then-new FCC rules on simulcasting), that functioned as a hybrid of oldies and the adult-oriented softer rock hits of the day. The popularity of the movie American Graffiti is often credited with helping to spur the 1950s nostalgia movement of the early 1970s. It is this movement that gave rise to a number of gold-based stations, such as WHND/WHNE (Honey Radio) in Detroit, WCBS-FM in New York, WQSR in Baltimore, and WROR in Boston, that were classified as oldies stations and not adult top 40. These stations, did play current product sparingly (one or two per hour) throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s; WCBS-FM, for example, played current hits under the moniker "Future Gold" through the late 1980s, and WLNG on nearby Long Island featured a roughly 50/50 mix of current hits and oldies from the early 1960s until about 1999.

Most of these "Solid Gold" stations began to either evolve into other formats or drop the format altogether in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Most AM gold stations flipped to other formats. Some FM stations evolved into adult contemporary stations, including WROR in Boston and WFYR in Chicago. In the early 1980s many AC stations began mixing in more oldies into regular rotation and aired oldies shows on Saturday nights.

1980s and 1990s

Gradually, beginning in 1982, both AM and FM stations began changing to full-time oldies formats. These stations played strictly music from 1955 to 1973, focusing on the 1964–1969 era. Among these oldies stations were WNBC in New York City before 1988, WDRC-FM in Hartford, WODS in Boston, WOGL in Philadelphia, KLUV in Dallas, WWSW in Pittsburgh, WJMK in Chicago, and CHUM in Toronto. Some had as few as 300 songs while stations like WODS and WOGL had as many as 1,500 songs in regular rotation. By 1989, most large and medium markets had at least one, usually FM, oldies station.

This period also saw the rise of syndicated radio shows specifically aimed at an oldies format. They included Soundtrack of the '60s with Murray the K, Dick Clark's Rock, Roll & Remember, Live from the '60s with The Real Don Steele, Cruisin' America with Cousin Brucie, and Rock & Roll's Greatest Hits with Dick Bartley. Most of these shows were three hours long and featured much of the same music from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s that was in rotation at affiliate stations. All but a few of these shows had ended their run by the mid-1990s, though Bartley's ran into the late 2000s (and eventually returned for several years in the late 2010s) while Clark's show continued until his 2004 stroke and in reruns until 2020.

From 1986 to 1990 several solid gold stations evolved into full-time oldies stations by eliminating current and recent product while also gradually eliminating 1980s songs and limiting 1970s songs substantially. KRTH and WQSR both did this in the late 1980s into the early 1990s. WCBS-FM however continued playing current product in regular rotation until 1988. After that, they played it once an hour between 11pm and 5:30am, until 2001. WCBS-FM also played several 1990s songs per shift during these overnight hours. They also continued to play between one 1980s song every couple of hours to as many as two per hour day and night. WCBS-FM also played from three to five songs per hour from the 1970s. They indeed played more 1970s music than any other notable oldies station. At the same time, WCBS-FM featured slightly more pre 1964 songs than the average station playing as many as five of those per hour.

Oldies stations continued to be late 1960s based throughout the 1990s. WCBS-FM was an exception. Most AM oldies stations also disappeared by the early 1990s except in markets where there was no FM oldies outlet. The format fared well with no end in sight.

Decline of oldies formats

Beginning in the year 2000, oldies stations began to notice that their demographics were getting older and harder to sell. Still, at that time only a few stations dumped the format altogether. A few (such as Orlando's WOCL) shifted to the briefly popular and more disco-centric rhythmic oldies format; most others continued to hang onto the format initially.

Since around 2000, stations have begun to limit selections from the 1950s and early 1960s. At the same time these stations began playing songs from as late as 1979 and even a few 1980s songs. WCBS-FM New York slightly cut back on the pre-1964 oldies and slightly increased the 1970s and 1980s songs early in 2001. They also eliminated the overnight currents at the same time along with some speciality shows.

In 2002, many oldies stations began dropping pre-1964 music from their playlists, since the earlier music tended to appeal to an older demographic that advertisers found undesirable—hence, the addition of music from the 1970s and early 1980s. WCBS-FM canceled their "Doo Wop Shop" program and began playing only one pre-1964 oldie per hour; by 2003, there were fewer than 50 songs from the 1950s and early 1960s in the regular rotation.

Many stations have since dropped the oldies format because of low ad revenue despite high ratings. On June 3, 2005, New York's WCBS-FM, an oldies-based station for over three decades, abruptly switched to the Jack FM format, resulting in a tremendous outcry from oldies fans in the Big Apple and a huge decline in revenue followed.[9] WJMK in Chicago (WCBS-FM's sister station) switched to Jack FM on the same day. Some point to the demise of WCBS-FM and WJMK as a sign that the oldies format is in danger, for many of the same reasons that the adult standards and smooth jazz formats are disappearing.

The oldies format returned to WCBS-FM on July 12, 2007, in an updated form featuring music from 1964 to 1989 (and without the word "Oldies", but rather "Greatest Hits" in the on-air positioning), with songs such as "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" by Cyndi Lauper, "Gloria" by Laura Branigan, and corporate rock hit "We Built This City" by Starship in rotation (though the original WCBS-FM played current hits mixed in with its oldies as late as the late 1980s and the three songs mentioned here during most of their years).

By the mid-2010s, as the phrase "classic hits" came to entail a format centered around late 1970s (disco-era) and 1980s pop, dance and rock format, the phrase "oldies" had come to entail a 1960s to mid-1970s format that centered mostly on soft rock and easy listening (akin to the old MOR format), examples including WRME-LD in Chicago.[10] More upbeat 1960s and 1970s stations are known within the industry as "gold" classic hits.[11]

1960s music is, as of 2020, becoming increasingly rare on radio. Of the 1000 most played songs on radio as of May 2020, only four of them are from before 1970, and three of them also benefit from being aired on classic rock stations as well as oldies and classic hits.[12] Of the 100 songs that suffered the most drop-off in popularity from their heyday to 2022, a majority were from the 1960s; 56% were from before the British Invasion and another 13% were from then to 1969.[5] [12] This is despite a small pantheon of songs from that era that have become part of an "eternal jukebox of all-ages event records," as well as parents and grandparents who had listened to the music when they were younger passing those songs on to their children; in the latter case, the older songs popular among the younger crowd can be more random, driven by exposure in television, film, commercials and person-to-person.[13]

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KOOL-FM

KOOL-FM

KOOL-FM is a commercial classic hits radio station in Phoenix, Arizona. The station is owned by Audacy, Inc. The station is branded as Big 94.5 and features mostly hits of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, and is one of the top-performing stations in Phoenix. The station primarily competes with Riviera-owned 95.1 KOAI, which concentrates on the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s hits. KOOL-FM's studios are located in downtown Phoenix, and its transmitter is in South Mountain Park.

Phoenix, Arizona

Phoenix, Arizona

Phoenix is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona, with 1,608,139 residents as of 2020. It is the fifth most populous city in the United States, the most populous state capital in the country, and the only U.S. state capital with a population of more than one million residents.

Middle of the road (music)

Middle of the road (music)

Middle of the road is a commercial radio format and popular music genre. Music associated with this term is strongly melodic and uses techniques of vocal harmony and light orchestral arrangements. The format was eventually rebranded as soft adult contemporary.

Drake-Chenault

Drake-Chenault

Drake-Chenault Enterprises was a radio syndication company that specialized in automation on FM radio stations. The company was founded in the late-1960s by radio programmer and deejay Bill Drake (1937–2008), and his business partner, Lester Eugene Chenault (1919–2010). Drake-Chenault was the predecessor of Jones Radio Networks with its syndicated satellite-delivered formats.

Federal Communications Commission

Federal Communications Commission

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdiction over the areas of broadband access, fair competition, radio frequency use, media responsibility, public safety, and homeland security.

Simulcast

Simulcast

Simulcast is the broadcasting of programmes/programs or events across more than one resolution, bitrate or medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at exactly the same time. For example, Absolute Radio is simulcast on both AM and on satellite radio. Likewise, the BBC's Prom concerts were formerly simulcast on both BBC Radio 3 and BBC Television. Another application is the transmission of the original-language soundtrack of movies or TV series over local or Internet radio, with the television broadcast having been dubbed into a local language.

American Graffiti

American Graffiti

American Graffiti is a 1973 American coming-of-age comedy-drama film directed by George Lucas, produced by Francis Ford Coppola, written by Willard Huyck, Gloria Katz and Lucas, and starring Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Paul Le Mat, Harrison Ford, Charles Martin Smith, Cindy Williams, Candy Clark, Mackenzie Phillips, Bo Hopkins, and Wolfman Jack. Suzanne Somers, Kathleen Quinlan, Debralee Scott, and Joe Spano also appear in the film. Set in Modesto, California, in 1962, the film is a study of the cruising and early rock 'n' roll cultures popular among Lucas's age group at the time. Through a series of vignettes, it tells the story of a group of teenagers and their adventures over the course of a night.

WCSX

WCSX

WCSX is a commercial FM radio station licensed to Birmingham, Michigan, and serving Metro Detroit. It broadcasts a classic rock radio format and is owned by the Beasley Broadcast Group. The studios and transmitter are on Radio Plaza in Ferndale. Despite its call sign, WCSX is not affiliated with the CSX Corporation.

WCBS-FM

WCBS-FM

WCBS-FM is a radio station offering a classic hits format licensed to New York City and is owned and operated by Audacy, Inc. The station's studios are in the combined Audacy facility in the Hudson Square neighborhood in lower Manhattan, and its transmitter is located at the Empire State Building.

WBZ-FM

WBZ-FM

WBZ-FM is a commercial sports radio station licensed to Boston, Massachusetts, serving Greater Boston and much of surrounding New England. Owned by the Beasley Broadcast Group, WBZ-FM is the Boston affiliate for Fox Sports Radio; the flagship station for the New England Patriots, Boston Bruins, Boston Celtics, and New England Revolution radio networks; and the radio home of Fred Toettcher, Rich Shertenlieb, Scott Zolak, Mike Felger, Tony Massarotti, and Adam Jones. The WBZ-FM studios are located in Waltham, while the station transmitter resides in the Boston suburb of Newton. In addition to a standard analog transmission, WBZ-FM broadcasts over two HD Radio channels, and is available online.

Long Island

Long Island

Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United States and the 18th-most populous in the world. The island begins at New York Harbor approximately 0.35 miles (0.56 km) east of Manhattan Island and extends eastward about 118 miles (190 km) into the Atlantic Ocean, with a maximum north-to-south width of 23 miles (37 km) between Long Island Sound and the Atlantic coast. With a land area of 1,401 square miles (3,630 km2), Long Island is the 11th-largest island in the United States, the largest island in the contiguous United States, and the 149th-largest island in the world.

WKSC-FM

WKSC-FM

WKSC-FM – branded "103.5 Kiss FM" – is a commercial Top 40 (CHR) radio station licensed to Chicago, Illinois. Owned by iHeartMedia, it broadcasts a Top 40 (CHR) format. Its studios are located at the Illinois Center complex on Michigan Avenue in Downtown Chicago, and it broadcasts from a 4.3 kW transmitter atop Willis Tower.

Other oldies radio stations

The oldies format remains one of the most popular formats on radio in markets where it is still active. Some of the most successful major-market oldies stations today really lean towards the Classic Hits format and include KRTH "K-Earth 101" in Los Angeles, XHPRS-FM "105.7 the Walrus" in Tijuana-San Diego, KOLA 99.9 in Riverside-San Bernardino, KYNO in Fresno, California, 98.1 WOGL in Philadelphia, WMJI "Majic 105.7" in Cleveland, and KLUV in Dallas. WLS-FM in Chicago, however is similar to the way oldies stations sounded several years back. They still play one or two pre-1964 songs an hour during the day and as many as 4 an hour at night. However, to illustrate the continued decline in the format, San Francisco's KFRC moved toward Classic Hits in 2005 and dropped this format entirely in 2006 in favor of the Rhythmic AC "MOViN" format which left most of Northern California without an oldies station until the debut of KCCL (K-Hits 92.1) in Sacramento in January 2007. (However, KFRC had already evolved its format and positioning to classic hits at the time it changed to "Movin".) But KFRC was not gone for long. On May 17, 2007, with Free FM hot talk format failing on 106.9 KIFR CBS relaunched KFRC with a rock leaning classic hits format on 106.9. But KFRC was not back for long either. On October 27, 2008, 106.9 KFRC FM became an all news 740 KCBS AM simulcast. KFRC now only airs on 106.9 FM HD-2 and online at KFRC.com. But KFRC came back again. On January 1, 2009, KFRC returned on the radio at 1550 AM, as true oldies.

KZQZ, which aired in St. Louis, Missouri and began playing oldies in March 2008, held onto the traditional oldies format, playing a wide variety of top 40 Billboard hits from the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s, until the FCC forced the station off the air in 2020. Non-commercial WXRB, 95.1 FM in Dudley, Massachusetts (one of the first non-commercial all-oldies stations in North America) began playing Golden Oldies on March 6, 2005, at 1:00pm, focusing on the years 1954 through 1979.

On August 27, 2009, Grand Rapids, Michigan station WGVU became the first public radio station to feature an all-oldies format. The format has since been imitated by other public radio stations; for example, WCNY-FM in Syracuse, New York has begun broadcasting a personality-based oldies format on its HD Radio digital subchannel.

Jones Radio Networks, Waitt Radio Networks and Transtar Radio Networks also offered 24-hour satellite-distributed oldies formats; since those companies have integrated into the Dial Global corporation, the networks have merged into one, Kool Gold. Satellite Music Network offered "Oldies Radio;" Oldies Radio survived until its acquisition by ABC but has since rebranded as Classic Hits Radio under current owner Cumulus Media Networks, focusing on music primarily from the 1970s and 1980s, with some limited 1960s music.

ABC also offered The True Oldies Channel, a 24-hour oldies network programmed and voice tracked at all hours by Scott Shannon, at the time morning show host at ABC's WPLJ. The True Oldies Channel was conceived on the concept of avoiding the drift into 1970s and 1980s music that the oldies format was undergoing in the first years of the 21st century. Eventually, by the end of the network's terrestrial run in 2014, it had taken a hybrid approach, with both 1960s and 1970s music being featured at the core of the network, with some limited 1980s music included.

In North America, satellite radio broadcasters XM and Sirius launched in 2001 and 2002, respectively, with more than a dozen oldies radio channels, with XM offering separate stations for each decade from the 1940s to the 1990s, and Sirius doing the same for the 1950s through the 1980s, initially all in prime single-digit channel positions. These companies also offered specific genre channels for disco and dance hits, garage rock, classic rock, classic country, and vintage R&B and soul hits.[14][15] These pay radio channels boasted thousands of songs in their libraries, ensuring far less repetition than traditional broadcast stations. (In November 2008, following a merger of Sirius and XM, the two services shifted to a unified group of "decades" channels, with the playlists for most cut back to reflect a more conventional style of oldies programming. SiriusXM further marginalized its oldies stations over the years, moving its 40s channel off channel 4 in 2015, then in 2021 by moving its 50s and 60s channels out of their 5 and 6 channel slots respectively.) Music Choice similarly offers an interruption-free oldies station (which covers the 1950s and 1960s, primarily from the rock and roll era) as well as decades channels for the 1970s through the 1990s. A number of Internet radio stations also carry the format.

From the late 2010s until 2022, shortwave radio station WTWW operated an oldies service in the evening hours.[16][17][18] In November 2022, WTWW lead engineer Ted Randall left the station and took the oldies programming to a dedicated transmitter on WRMI a short distance down the dial from WTWW on the 60-meter band.[19]

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KRTH

KRTH

KRTH is a commercial radio station that is licensed to Los Angeles, California, United States and serves the Greater Los Angeles area. The station is owned by Audacy, Inc. and broadcasts a classic hits format. KRTH's studios are located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile district of Los Angeles. The station's signal covers an extremely large area of Southern California due in part to its antenna location on Mt. Wilson. It can be heard as far south as San Diego, as far east as Moreno Valley, as far west as Santa Barbara, and as far north as Barstow. KRTH is the flagship station for the nationally syndicated program Rewind with Gary Bryan.

KOLA

KOLA

KOLA is a commercial radio station licensed to Redlands, California, and broadcasting to the Riverside-San Bernardino-Inland Empire radio market. It is owned by the Anaheim Broadcasting Corporation and it airs a classic hits radio format. Its studios are on Orange Tree Lane in Redlands, California.

KYNO

KYNO

KYNO is a radio station licensed to Fresno, California and is owned by John Ostlund and Katrina Ostlund. KYNO airs an oldies format, switching to Christmas music for much of December. KYNO's radio studios and offices are on Fulton Street in Fresno and its transmitter is off Avenue 384 in Monson, California.

Fresno, California

Fresno, California

Fresno is a major city in the San Joaquin Valley of California, United States. It is the county seat of Fresno County and the largest city in the greater Central Valley region. It covers about 115 square miles (300 km2) and had a population of 542,159 in 2020, making it the fifth-most populous city in California, the most populous inland city in California, and the 34th-most populous city in the nation. The Metro population of Fresno is 786,000 as of 2022. As of 2023 it’s 795,000.

WMJI

WMJI

WMJI is a commercial radio station licensed to Cleveland, Ohio, featuring a classic hits format dubbed "Majic 105.7". Owned by iHeartMedia, the station serves Greater Cleveland and much of surrounding Northeast Ohio. WMJI's studios are located in downtown Cleveland's Gateway District at the Six Six Eight Building, while the transmitter resides in the Cleveland suburb of Parma. In addition to a standard analog transmission, WMJI broadcasts over two HD Radio channels and is available online via iHeartRadio.

KLUV

KLUV

KLUV is a commercial radio station licensed to Dallas, Texas, and serving the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. KLUV is owned by Audacy, Inc., and airs a classic hits radio format.

WLS-FM

WLS-FM

WLS-FM is a commercial classic hits radio station licensed to serve Chicago, Illinois. Owned by Cumulus Media, the station serves the Chicago metropolitan area, and is the radio home of Dave Fogel. The WLS-FM studios are located at the NBC Tower in the city's Streeterville neighborhood, while the transmitter resides atop the Willis Tower. Besides a standard analog transmission, WLS broadcasts over two HD Radio channels and is available online.

KMVQ-FM

KMVQ-FM

KMVQ-FM is a radio station licensed to San Francisco, California. The station currently broadcasts a Top 40/CHR format branded as 99.7 Now. KMVQ's studios are at 2001 Junipero Serra Boulevard in Daly City, while its transmitter is located on San Bruno Mountain.

KVMX-FM

KVMX-FM

KVMX-FM is a radio station licensed to Placerville, California, United States, and serving the Sacramento area with a Ranchera format, branded as "La Ranchera". The station is currently owned by Lotus Communications, who bought the then-KMJE from Results Radio on September 3, 2013 and took over ownership on December 10, 2013. It is also broadcasting on AM at 890, known as KVMX, which signed on as KMJE in the summer of 2014.

Free FM

Free FM

Free FM was a short-lived, mostly-talk-radio format and brand name for eleven FM CBS Radio stations in the United States, and was created because of Howard Stern's departure to Sirius Satellite Radio in January 2006. Free FM was given its name to highlight that its stations broadcast free-to-air, instead of requiring a subscription fee like satellite radio services. Launched on October 25, 2005, Free FM was phased out over the course of 2007, with the final station using it, KLSX, dropping the brand in November 2008.

CBS

CBS

CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainment Group division of Paramount Global.

KZQZ

KZQZ

KZQZ was a commercial radio station that was licensed to serve St. Louis, Missouri at 1430 AM, and broadcast from 1922 to 2020. As WEB it was one of the first radio stations to have been established and licensed in the Greater St. Louis metropolitan area, and was known for most of its life as WIL. The Federal Communications Commission revoked the license for the station and its three co-owned stations in March 2020 after discovering that a convicted felon had effective control of the stations in their last years; despite the revocation, KZQZ and KQQZ continued to broadcast without a valid license into April 2020.

Source: "Oldies", Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, (2023, March 1st), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldies.

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References
  1. ^ "Oldies radio moves into the '70s". CNN. Archived from the original on December 10, 2007. Retrieved October 22, 2008.
  2. ^ a b "A History and Definition of Oldies Music". allbutforgottenoldies.net. Retrieved April 24, 2020.
  3. ^ "Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons: Biography". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on February 6, 2009. Retrieved August 10, 2020.
  4. ^ Weiner, Tim (May 9, 2020). "Little Richard, Flamboyant Wild Man of Rock 'n' Roll, Dies at 87". The New York Times. Retrieved August 11, 2020.
  5. ^ a b Ross, Sean (February 9, 2022). "The 100 Most Lost Songs of All Time". Radio Insight. Retrieved February 14, 2022.
  6. ^ "Popular Record Reviews," Billboard, March 14, 1953, p. 42) "...is supposed to be a comical version of the oldie. It isn't."
  7. ^ Ross, Sean (September 21, 2020). "Lost Factor 1971: Some Songs Are Like a Broken Yo-Yo". RadioInsight.com. Retrieved September 23, 2020.
  8. ^ Ross, Sean (June 10, 2020). "Made for dancin' but not built to last: the lost songs of 1979". RadioInsight.com. Retrieved June 10, 2020.
  9. ^ "Are oldies the new Jack on NYC radio?". New.music.yahoo.com. Associated Press. July 7, 2007. Retrieved March 4, 2010.
  10. ^ Channick, Robert. "MeTV FM goes from low-power TV station to top-10 Chicago radio station". Chicago Tribune.
  11. ^ Westwood One launches Classic Hits Gold from Radio Insight, October 22, 2019
  12. ^ a b "From The '60s, The Most "Lost" Songs of All – RadioInsight". June 12, 2020.
  13. ^ Ross, Sean (July 27, 2021). "Who's teaching your kids oldies? Radio, and you". Radio Insight. Retrieved July 27, 2021.
  14. ^ "XM Channel Lineup". Xmradio.com. Retrieved March 4, 2010.
  15. ^ "Sirius Satellite Radio Channel Guide". Sirius.com. Retrieved March 4, 2010.
  16. ^ Sulek, Marissa. "Lebanon radio station tunes broadcast to Ukraine and Russia". WVLT. Retrieved November 10, 2022.
  17. ^ Wilbanks, Kase. "Lubbock radio DJ reaching Ukraine on shortwave WTWW with truth, hope, classic hits". KCBD. Retrieved November 10, 2022.
  18. ^ Little • •, Joe. "San Diego Radio Host Broadcasts from His Closet for Listeners in Ukraine". NBC 7 San Diego. Retrieved November 10, 2022.
  19. ^ WRMI Legends, retrieved February 23, 2023.

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