Maybe 25% on topic, but
here's an article from the September '95 Billboard about B96 slowly but surely abandoning Party Radio for a more broad-based top 40 format. I know "Only Wanna Be With You" was getting B96 airplay by the end of my listening days, but don't remember how weird I found it, if I did at all. I know I don't remember Sophie B. Hawkins amidst Real McCoy and TLC, but I guess she was if they say so.
Quote:
PD Cavanah Sees Success By Broadening B96's List
WBBM-FM (B96) Chicago has been one busy "B" in recent months. First, B96 PD Todd Cavanah began playing some pop records that his station wouldn't have touched before. Then, he assembled his second new morning show in a year.
With these changes made, Cavanah can say he's enthusiastic about his radio station again, and that B96, which was off slightly (4.0 -3.9) in the spring Arbitron, is moving in the right direction again.
Rhythmic top 40 B96 had faced a number of challenges over the last year, ranging from the advent of a new hip-hop outlet, WEJM (106 Jamz), to the controversy-laden departure of longtime morning hosts Eddie and JoBo. Their replacements, T.J. and Wild Bill, never really caught on with listeners. Rather than go outside the market again, Cavanah teamed longtime night jock George McFly and late-nighter Frankie Rodriguez.
Cavanah now realizes that "T.J. and Wild Bill were basically a blind date. They didn't know the market, so we had to teach them everything. We knew it was a longshot, and I'm not saying we would never do something like that again. It's definitely a lot easier using a couple of guys who've been here for a while. They're loose, they're real, and they already seem to be clicking, for a team that never worked together before.
"I feel we're in an up cycle right now. We [fell] into a down cycle when we lost our morning show. At the time, I felt that everything on the station sounded bad. Not that it really did, but when you lose a powerful morning show, whether the rest of the station is on track or not, it just doesn't feel right."
Musically, B96, which was one of the last bastions of hardcore non-R&B dance music, has broadened a little to include more hip-hop and select pop-sounding product, such as the Rembrandts and Sophie B. Hawkins, that appeals to a wider audience than just the pop and adult clusters.
"The rhythmic females who are into B96 are also into these records," Cavanah says. "We think there was a hole in the market that wasn't being served. I believe we've found that hole, and I predict big success for us.
"We've definitely been through that 'too-niched' cycle, where we thought we couldn't play certain records because they didn't sound like us ... I've seen [modern rock] radio now niche themselves into a corner, leaving a lot of records open for me ... When [modern rock] WKQX (Q101) first signed on, they played more rhythmic music, like Psychedelic Furs and New Order. The more pop-sounding stuff they're no longer playing." As is the case with other mainstream top 40
outlets, Cavanah grabs a lot of songs that the modern rockers feel are too pop for them to play.
"Our No. 1 priority is 18-34 women; that's where the money is. I want to make my [general station manager] Paul Agase's life easier. We also want
to be No. 1 in teens. We don't want to become too adult or too safe, but we want to daypart accordingly and research the right [audience]," he says.
Here's a sample 3 p.m. hour on B96: Max-A-Million, "Sexual Healing"; Selena, "I Could Fall In Love"; New Order, "Bizarre Love Triangle"; Cynthia, "Change On Me"; Janet Jackson, "Runaway"; Gloria Gaynor, "I Will Survive"; TLC, "Waterfalls"; K-7, "Move It Like This"; Fun Factory, "Close To You "; Blessid Union Of Souls, "I Believe"; Coolio, "Gangsta's Paradise "; and Whitney Houston, "I'm Every Woman."
[edited, boring]
Because of his increased managerial responsibilities, Cavanah doesn't spend as much time as he used to listening to music. Music director Erik Bradley, he says, "really understands the market, knows what our goals are, and who our target audience is. I really feel confident in his abilities." The station doesn't do any TV advertising whatsoever, according to Cavanah. "We find the grass-roots approach works much better for us. We have our own satellite vehicle that can broadcast anywhere in the world."
For now, the programmers seems quite content. "Everybody around me is a superstar, and I love it. I don't care if anybody recognizes me or nominates me for anything -all I care about is that I'm happy and my station is successful," Cavanah says. "I love B96. That's what makes my job easy ... If I ever get tired of this or get burned out on it, I'll get out and do something else. Right now, I really enjoy this format, and I'll continue to corrupt the youth of America as best I can."
Notes in reverse order:
- Cavanah is still running B96, albeit into the ground, to this day. Maybe he should get tired of it.
- B96 had a TV show on channel 26 at this time. I've posted clips of it here and everything. You don't call that television advertising?
- I remember that they really kicked the flashbacks into high gear when they moved George and Frankie to mornings (IIRC, the morning show was cut by an hour and 9-10 was just "The Flashback Hour") but I can't believe I heard "Bizarre Love Triangle" and it didn't make an instant impression on me. oh well, got there eventually
- I'll give you New Order for club hits, but the PsychFurs?
- lol, whom amongst us has not wanted to "find the hole" in "rhythmic females"?
- It's funny that the T.J. and Wild Bill era is what management considered the station's nadir and a reason to start dumbing down the whole format when that was the time I remember most fondly, if only because of childhood nostalgia and that being the time I randomly happened to be there for. Trying to be objective here, I certainly think it's more interesting as a music fan to have a playlist that goes deeper on a cross-section of genres than one that's simply a slave to the charts. The industry-killing paradox, of course, is that More Music That Sounds Like Music I Already Like is exactly the direction you should be going if you're even dreaming of contending with Spotify, but now more than ever, you can't play a song people don't already know because they might [organ stab] change the station. And then they'll never ever come back as long as you live; anyone who ever has to cease listening to the radio for any reason whatsoever is your personal failure.
I'd love to dig through the archives and find more reporting on Chicago radio like this. This is interesting to me, but of course, I'm weird.
_________________
Molly Lambert wrote:
The future holds the possibility to be great or terrible, and since it has not yet occurred it remains simultaneously both.
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