Aug 10, 2014 5 min read

Barry, Barbra and Bobby are looking for a home.

WJAS, the AM radio outlet that focused on the mellow music of the ’50s. ’60s and ’70s, is evidently pulling the plug on the music of Manilow, Streisand, Vinton and its branded easy listening style of the past three decades. Unfortunately, that music genre also branded WJAS as a go-to station for senior citizens, an age category that is a programming death knell.

As of last week, WJAS was still spinning the Carpenters, Englebert Humperdinck and Frank Sinatra, among others, but hosts Jack Bogut and Chilly Bill Cardille were nowhere to be heard. Posted on the station’s website along with a photo of those personalities was this: “Thank you for listening and for the memories. We know you’ll miss us. We’ll miss you, too.”

Radio Partners LLC purchased the station from Renda Broadcasting last week. Late last week, WJAS confirmed its news/talk format by picking up the Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck shows from 104.7-FM (WPGB) which, in turn, adopted a “new country” format.

While WJAS at times sprinkled in softer sounds from acts such as the Beatles, Olivia Newton-John and Stevie Wonder,a nd also had infused its playlist with newer acts such as Harry Connick, Jr., it never moved the needle from its primary appeal to an older generation of music fans. Those fans now have nowhere to go, as virtually all “adult contemporary” stations here and around the country have adopted a “brighter” format that focuses on Katy Perry and company. (Journey and an occasional Lionel Richie tune are about as old as these stations dare to go).

There was a report that the new WJAS owner was considering a soft-oldies format sans most of the ’50s act. Although that report never panned out, such a format might well have been viable.

The Internet is alive with rumors about the future homes of Bogut and Cardille; we’ll keep you posted if those rumors materialize into fact.

WJAS certainly filled a void in the area radio market; for many baby boomers, it was also a yoga button for instant stress relief. Nonetheless, it’s unlikely that void will be filled anytime soon – if ever – as radio continues to cater to younger listeners.

This email is from Ronald Cianelli: Are there ratings on each KDKA talk show as to how they do against their competition? How are the KDKA shows ranked against each other? Also, are time slots for these talk shows more valuable than others?

Many radio stations subscribe to detailed ratings services, but those ratings are rarely released to the public. In the most recent Nielsen ratings for Pittsburgh (most suburban stations such as WJPA do not subscribe to the service), KDKA was 10th overall in cumulative audience- the number of individuals who tune in during a given week (WRRK, WKST, WWSW, WDVE and WBZZ were the top five.) In PPM (Portable People Meters) ratings – which calculates the number of people exposed to a station – KD is No. 6. KDKA, however, remains the top-rated AM station, and had been the No. 1 overall station in the Pittsburgh area for decades. On KDKA, as on other stations, the most critical time periods are morning and afternoon drives, roughly 6-9 a.m. and 4-7 p.m. While ratings for individual programs may not be readily available, it’s easy to determine personalities or programming that don’t measure up – they’re either replaced or moved to a non-essential timeslot.

Ron Boone comments on our last column concerning network morning shows.

I watch the CBS morning show and perhaps I saw something that you overlooked. The advertisements. One morning I counted over 60 of them in the first hour – one for each minute that the show is on, and it is one bombardment after another.

These ads are getting out of hand… I do realize that ads help support the O-R, but I can skip over these printed ones if I want. The next time you watch the CBS morning show and you hear that “Today’s eye opener is brought to you by (fill in the blank)” you will remember this note.

Have a good morning and a great cup of Maxwell House Coffee that is still “good to the last drop”.

I didn’t count the number of ads on the morning shows, but I agree that it is excessive. If you add number that to the local break-ins for weather and traffic, as well as the teasers for upcoming stories, there’s plenty of time to get a second, third or fourth cup of Maxwell House between actual network content. In general, I found that after the first 20 minutes of any of those programs, the information mostly becomes either non-essential or repetitive, so there’s no need to sit through all of the commercials. While networks no doubt want people to tune in for the full two hours, they realize many viewers are watching or listening to the show while preparing for work and just catching 10 to 20 minutes of the program.

The barrage of commercials has increased across the board. For many prime time dramas, a full one-third of the hour can now be devoted to advertisements. As one industry pundit noted, “TV programs are created now mostly as fill-ins between commercials.” He’s not far from the truth.

Terry Hazlett can be reached at snowballrizzo@aol.com