{"id":5102,"date":"2012-06-03T08:48:11","date_gmt":"2012-06-03T13:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/?p=5102"},"modified":"2012-06-03T08:53:27","modified_gmt":"2012-06-03T13:53:27","slug":"true-oldies-channel-changes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/?p=5102","title":{"rendered":"True Oldies Channel changes"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you haven’t heard it, the True Oldies Channel<\/a> is a musical programming format that was produced by ABC Radio and now owned by Cumulus Media.\u00a0 It plays music from the 1950s through the early 1980s.\u00a0 Here is where you can see what music they play:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.mediabase.com\/whatsong\/whatsong.asp?var_s=087074081066045070077<\/a><\/p>\n

The music is done using what is called “Voice Tracking” – the host is a man named Scott Shannon, who you may also recognize as the announcer on the Sean Hannity Show.\u00a0\u00a0 He’s also the morning co-host on WPLJ-FM<\/a> in New York City.\u00a0 At one time, he was the VP of Programming for ABC Radio, but since the merger Citadel and then Cumulus, he no longer has that role.\u00a0\u00a0 Given Lew Dickey’s desire to cut costs, I worry that some day I’ll tune in to Sean Hannity and hear some minimum wage intern from Memphis doing the network announcing.<\/p>\n

For what it is (an automated computer playing songs with no live human), the True Oldies Channel is quite good.\u00a0\u00a0 Whoever did the production work on it (probably Scott Shannon himself) got the best possible recording of the songs and performed digital processing on them to make them sound as pleasant as possible.\u00a0 The selection of songs is also generally music that you remember and probably liked.\u00a0 A thoughtful music programmer pays attention to the time of day and day of the week a song is being played.\u00a0 The songs you want to hear on the way to work are not the same ones you want when you and the love of your life are on the sofa at 9 PM and are hoping for romantic moments.<\/p>\n

True Oldies Channel runs a significant number of radio stations – it’s VERY inexpensive programming for a radio station that continues to broadcast\u00a0 for no reason other than to preserve its FCC license.\u00a0\u00a0 It requires no human at the radio station to do anything except maybe reboot a computer if it breaks.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 If the station does have some local ads, they can be inserted by the computer.<\/p>\n

Some stations carry True Oldies only part of the day – like an AM station that goes to 5 watts power after the sun goes down and can’t be heard more than a block away from the transmitter, but is still required by the FCC to be on the air.<\/p>\n

I’ve created a “Flagship” station for True Oldies, even though there is not any radio station that carries that actual designation (although WPLJ\/HD2 perhaps is).\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Those stations that are a 24\/7 True Oldies station and don’t even have a web site will just be set up as a “True Oldies Simulcast” in the database.<\/p>\n

One problem with simulcasts is there is almost know way to know when they end.\u00a0\u00a0 If a True Oldies station switches to ESPN Deportes 24\/7, it could be years before I find that out.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you haven’t heard it, the True Oldies Channel is a musical programming format that was produced by ABC Radio and now owned by Cumulus Media.\u00a0 It plays music from the 1950s through the early 1980s.\u00a0 Here is where you … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-the-guide"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5102"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5108,"href":"https:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5102\/revisions\/5108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}