the ever changing face of DC radio

[acroyear]

Today's changeover marked the end of the oldest consistent format station in DC history, and even then, it had moved frequencies several times.

WMAL is, as far as I know, now the oldest station (or darn close to it) as far as the combination of format and frequency goes - it was around  as a news-talk station (with slight conservative bias) when I arrived here in 1984.  WASH FM has been "adult contemporary" since the 70s.

Pretty much everything else has changed.

• WTOP changed frequencies.  Twice.
• WGMS changed frequencies and disappeared.  Its final frequency, 104.1, was a kids pop / top40 station through the 90s.
  
• WAVA, once the #1 station, is now Christian radio
• WCXR, at the forefront of classic rock, is now light jazz
• 106.7 wasn't even consistent back then - it was pop, then new-age/jazz, then some obscure rock crap until it picked up Stern and went talk-humor with Don & Mike (who hit #1 in the mornings back in the 80s though constantly fighting the Greaseman to hold it)
  
• 107.3 was pop/40, WAVA's then biggest competitor, and at some point became adult-pop ("best mix", meaning its in competition with the new 104.1 "George")
  
• WGAY 99.1 was the muzak station for *decades* (though originally a country station) before finally giving in and turning into light adult contemporary (translation: mellow ancient history) - the call letters now belong to an internet radio station that does "pro-homosexual" music, and the station itself was bought by Bonneville (go fig)
  
• WARW (94.7) is now the classic rock station, but it was light rock when i was here.
• 95.5 (now one of the highest-rated *music* channels - which shows how much more popular "talk" is around here) went through phases of top 40 into adult contemporary before its current urban sound
• DC101 was always contemporary rock and so didn't change as such - the music did.  It gave up on what was then termed "AOR" as that format died utterly in 1991 and by 1993 it was in full competition with WHFS, whose form of "alternative rock" had suddenly become the mainstream.  DC101 was, once, the last independent station in the area, but sold out in 2001.  (Nearby Baltimore's 98rock has also gone through the transition from AOR to "modern" rock)
  
• and of course, we all know what happened to 99.1 WHFS...

*sigh*

is there nothing constant?

didn't think so.

Comments

[mizjawnson.livejournal.com]

What's sad is it was only December when I realized that Z104 was no more. I listened to "George" on the way home. Meh. I had hoped that it would be like "Simon" in Greensboro (especially Flashback Fridays where they played 90s music all day), but from what I heard tonite, it's nowhere close.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

"George" is utterly sterile. Its just a huge library of music files (like mp3 but usually higher quality compression) on random. The program manager IS the station programmer; no personality, no input, no feedback...no life.

Its no better than an amateur Live365 station.

Really, I'm all for variety, but within limits. You can't go from Yes's Roundabout (1972) to Depeche Mode's "It's a Lot". I love both, but you just can't do that. Not even Fine Tuning would do something that annoying.

[thelongshot.livejournal.com]

is there nothing constant?

Considering most music is a moving target, it shouldn't be much of a surprise. No music movement is lasting in appeal to a large population, so stations adjust for the times.

I find Lee Abrams' blog, where he talks about some of the stations he has consulted for over the years before joining XM, quite interesting. In the end, it what gets ratings that wins out. Sometimes, you can do it by being creative and doing it well, but that takes work.

When I moved to this area, Z104 and 107.3 were the stations I listened to, partially because the stations closer to DC and Baltimore didn't come in as well in Frederick. I eventually discovered 98 Rock in the early 90s and they were still a great station then. I did listen to it not too long ago and was annoyed that they went with the "afternoon personality", one of those trends I really hate about modern radio. Sorry, I don't want to hear about whatever shit you have gotten into. Play the music, man.

Jason

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

well, the oddity is that some formats CAN change with the times (DC101 managed), and others have a sense of never-changing to them (Classical and Classic Rock), yet even those tend to move around. And, as I said elsewhere, Classical music is a dead format - it reaches a peak, a point where it simply can't increase its profits over the previous year (higher operating costs, frozen listener size), that it, like WGMS, gets dumped because Wall Street won't let a company live being merely profitable.

It used to be that a pop station stayed the pop station. The only thing making this current round odd is that there are 4 types of pop and unlike pop in the 70s or 80s they (modern rock, country, rap/hiphop, dance) are so different from each other as to make a station that plays them so eclectic that they'll never hold an audience - fans of one will leave when a song of the other comes up. It didn't used to be like that but it is now.

I wonder, given that much of "pop" disappeared in 1991 around here, if the Nirvana sound had anything to do with it?

Certainly, the "personality" curse is part of the problem with radio for me. If the music isn't offensive, the person is. OR the person is so bland as to be boring. Nobody knows how to be interesting without being offensive anymore. actually, they do, but they all go into talk radio instead, and even there, as Rush shows, in the curse inherited from Stern, being offensive (one way or another) is ratings.

[voltbang.livejournal.com]

Pop didn't dissapear, it just got re-branded into "alternative". I miss the days when "alternative" meant "music that isn't profitable".

I feel so out of the loop now. I get my radio from space, and I don't even know what the local stations are anymore. It'd be interesting to try to map those radio stations we remember from days gone by on to the satelite radio providers. The 98 rock of old "the station that doesn't suck" would be either octane or buzzsaw on sirius.

[thelongshot.livejournal.com]

The 98 rock of old "the station that doesn't suck" would be either octane or buzzsaw on sirius.

Buzzsaw is probably the closest, tho you'd have to mix in the smattering of local artists that 98 Rock used to play. It was nice to occasionally hear a Crack The Sky cut, or Laughing Colors, or Jimmie's Chicken Shack.

[voltbang.livejournal.com]

True. Maybe that's why I was thinking faction. The music mix isn't right, but faction does play some real no-name stuff sometimes. Can't really be local when the music comes from space though.

[thelongshot.livejournal.com]

I'll disagree that Classic Rock doesn't change. The stuff we listened to as kids is now considered Classic Rock. This is why both satellite services offer two classic rock stations. One that is what most of us would consider classic rock, which is 70s and before, and the other is anything after that.

Personally, the only kind of personality I want is someone who knows the music and can talk intelligently about it. Otherwise, play the damn music.

[voltbang.livejournal.com]

Play the music and shut up. The display on the dash has already told me the artists name and the name of the track, so don't waste my time and repeat that information.

[blueeowyn.livejournal.com]

Hmm, for some reason I thought that WGAY became WARW when GAY became a charged word in some people's minds. I'm going back a ways of course.