When I was 15 years old, AM radio was my constant companion. My first transistor radio, with a single earphone, was the Zenith Royal 50 (pictured). It received all the local radio stations (there were two, WBEC – AM1420 & WBRK – AM1340) and the big Top 40 radio stations from Albany-Schenectady-Troy (WPTR -AM1540 & WTRY – AM980).
When the sun went down, this little radio would pick up WKBW – AM1520, WLS – AM890, WCFL – AM1000, CKLW – AM800, and depending on atmospherics, lots of other AM radio surprises. Listening to radio when I was growing up was so exciting and every radio station sounded distinct and different. Their air personalities all seeming to compete to out-do one another in creativity.
My 15 Year Old Granddaughter
Sue & I spent this past weekend with our 15-year old granddaughter. She’s engaging, smart, fun and, like me, a good talker.
One of the places we dined at had a juke box with a song selector terminal in every booth. My granddaughter brought with her a stack of quarters to play her favorite songs.
What most amazed me were the songs she played and sang along with. Songs like, “Be My Baby” by the Ronettes, “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” by Whitney Houston and “American Pie” by Don McClean, to name just a few.
Her playlist of songs, matched all the songs I grew up with at her age and is basically the playlist of the songs I play on my radio show over WMEX-FM every day.
So, I asked if she had a radio in her room. She said “No.”
Is there a radio in her parent’s house? She responded wrinkling up her nose and forehead, “I don’t think so.”
Today’s Radio
Now I was super curious as to where she found these songs, and the answer was “Spotify.” Yes, that streaming service is her “radio station.” She told me that Spotify suggests songs she might enjoy hearing based on songs she already likes. This exposes her to even more of the music of MY life. (I feel like I’m 15 again!)
The Music of YOUR Life
Al Ham created a new radio format in 1978, he called it “The Music of YOUR Life.” In 1979, the radio station I earned my first GM stripes at, WUHN – AM1110, began airing Al Ham’s format with great success. Tony Bennett, who passed away on July 21, 2023, was the singing voice that delivered a very distinct jingle image for Ham’s format.
Here I was the manager of a radio station who’s programming was designed to reach a 50+ listening audience and I was only 27. The inside joke of us young folk was one day The Rolling Stones would be playing on the Music of YOUR Life radio stations.
Well, now I’m 70 years old, Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones just turned 80 and while the radio station I volunteer at calls the music we play “The Most Amazing Oldies” that day has indeed arrived.
Is Commercial Radio Missing Out?
When I spin the broadcast radio dials, AM or FM, it’s almost impossible to find this music being played. However, when you have a streaming service like Spotify, Pandora, Amazon, Apple or SiriusXM, you can find it with ease.
In fact, my recent purchase of a new Mac Mini computer came with a six month free trial of Apple Music. Apple’s sell line to me was “Discover Radio Reimagined.”
And Spotify now has Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) disc jockey’s like this video promotes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fnewsroom.spotify.com%2F&source_ve_path=Mjg2NjQsMTY0NTA2&feature=emb_share&v=ok-aNnc0Dko
Putting Quarters in the Juke Box
There are somethings that seem likely to never change, getting your picture in a newspaper or magazine, playing your favorite songs on a juke box or hearing your favorite songs played on the radio.
Listen to the excitement in Leanna Crawford’s voice when she hears her song playing on the radio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-mCOmgR9cI
99.1 – JOY FM is a commercial-free, listener-supported FM radio station licensed to Clayton, Missouri and serving the Greater St. Louis listening area. It’s a Christian Contemporary radio formatted radio station.
The current state of the broadcast industry is “somewhat challenged.”
It’s “challenged on the audience side and it’s challenged on the revenue side.”
-Caroline Beasley, CEO Beasley Media Group
The commercial broadcast radio industry is also like Elon Musk, abandoning its brand; “Twitter” for “X.” It’s worth noting that Musk is also facing challenges on both the audience side and revenue side.
Spotify Radio, Pandora Radio, Apple Radio, Radio Tunes etc. are all pureplay streamers that embrace the powerful image that the word “RADIO” conveys.
Having a teenager tell you their favorite radio station is “Spotify”
should send a chill down your spine.
DickTaylorBlog 
Another “reality check” for an industry that’s struggling to remain relevant in an ever changing media landscape. As always, thanks for sharing and posting these articles.
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Thank You for stopping by the blog to read them and share the thoughts with others.
-DT
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It’s not what’s in the name. It’s what you do with the name. All these radio companies dumping the name radio from their corporate names, like it’s something their ashamed of, are putting the kiss of death on radio thru the way they operate their stations. Changing their corporate name isn’t the answer. A company that I spent over 10 years with recently dumped the word radio and replaced it with media. Ironically, their name was the most well known corporate media name in the state they operate in. Iconic names are pure branding gold. Last time I checked NBC, CBS and ABC still had broadcasting in their names. IBM is still International Business Machines. RCA was always the Radio Corporation of America. And the list goes on. Today’s radio companies are quick to jump to change their name and eliminate the word radio like it’s some kind of curse. It ain’t the name radio that’s causing the problems.
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Thank You for sharing your perspective Mike.
You made me wonder if changing the name of “Radio City Music Hall” in NYC to “Media City Music Hall” would be an improvement, but as you so rightly pointed out, it’s not just about a name but what you do with it that counts.
Brands, like reputations, take years to build and only seconds to destroy.
-DT
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I always enjoy your blogs, Dick. I grew up listening to WMEX AM…..Fenway, Melvin X Melvin, Dan Donovan and of course “Woo Woo”.
I remember my first transistor radio–much like yours. Your social status back then depended on how many transistors your radio had. Four was OK, six was better, but if you had an EIGHT transistor you were King of the Hill.
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You know, I forgot about how one’s social status was tied to the number of transistors one had in their radio. Thanks for the memories, Rick.
-DT
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Great article. I remember years ago when I was driving my daughters to high school, (they were one year apart), they had their AirPods on listening to their Favorite music. I motioned to them in the backseat, “did you hear what the Gerry House said this morning on WSIX?”
I could see their reactions in my rear view mirror.
With a puzzled look on their faces they said, “Dad, who?”
At that instant, I knew radio of which I spent 40 great years, was in serious trouble.
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WOW! Gerry House ruled the airwaves in Nashville. That IS a sign that change is underway Joel.
One of my best students at WKU, Cameron Coats, wanted to get into radio because he loved listening to Gerry House.
Today, Cameron is the Online Editor for Radio Ink magazine and doing an incredible job.
-DT
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You’ve heard it before, Dick.
The sponsors don’t want to pay for advertising on stations geared to “Older folks”. Yes we still buy groceries, and cars, but many of the purchases we make are by habit. Young folks, just setting up a home are buying everything, couches/sofas, chairs, beds, sheets, etc. That’s where the money is in radio.
It’s sad but true.
My first full time job in radio was at an Adult station that played the Billboard MOR chart, and NBC’s Monitor on the weekends. At 20 I was the youngest guy there and my photo was never printed publicly. We used to joke when an hearse went by the station, we’d say “there goes another listener.”
Just like Al Hamm’s target audience, the cemetery is full of them today. I grew up on rock and roll but have an appreciate for “the American songbook” and love all styles of music including jazz and classical which we learned in school. That is not the case of the younger generation like your grandchildren. There are no music appreciation classes in elementary or junior high anymore where kids will be exposed to it.
Be thankful your grand daughter knows who the Ronettes are. Be My Baby is a great song, but I suspect she knows about it through osmosis. Just being in the room when an older person played it.
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Yes, Paul you’re right. She heard her mom play it (on the car satellite radio).
But once she called the song up on Spotify, that service began exposing her to other songs of that genre and era. She now has quite the repertoire of songs she knows and loves.
I’m betting she’s not alone.
-0-
Oh, I heard all those stories about older people stuck in their ways when I was running a Music of YOUR Life radio station. However, once I had an advertiser try the station, they stayed on-the-air. Why? It’s simple. We rang their cash register.
-DT
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As I now look in the twilight of my years, I realize how blessed I have been to have been allowed to do what I loved and play the music I enjoy now for almost 5o years.
My 33 year old nephew has the music he likes and his tastes are very diverse. He can be listening to some strange death metal song one time, and the next be listening to Sam and Dave. And why?
Because he had an uncle who was on the radio playing oldies every day. His first “rock concert” was Paul McCartney. Why? Because I bought the tickets. I took him to see “Jersey Boys” and he sang along with all the songs. And when I asked how he knew the lyrics of all those songs his answer was, “What were you playing on WCOL, and who do you think Dad and I were listening to in the garage?”
So, now I have my local broadcaster’s Hall of Fame award. It sits next to my “Mini Marconi” award the country FM I work for nabbed in 2016. And on the living room wall are the APME and SPJ awards I won for “Best Spot News Reporting” a few years back. In my bedroom on the wall is an Addy “Award Of Excellence” I won for promo production at WCOL.
So, I’ve done ok. And our stations do ok. Everything’s a challenge anymore. But I think it’s because we run things differently from the rest.
I worry about the future of the business, though. We can and must do a lot better than we’re doing now.
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Great story Kevin. Thank You for sharing.
-DT
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Dick, your question is thought-provoking. Are radios even sold nowadays? In a previous post, you mentioned the elimination of AM radio from cars. Today’s cars are primarily designed for streaming, sidelining traditional radio signals. This prompts us to wonder if radio stations can maintain and grow their influence. Our current era witnesses technology slowly phasing out radio, reminiscent of how cassettes made 8-tracks obsolete.
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All great questions Victor. I’m not sure anyone knows the answer.
However, maybe it could be like the movie “Field of Dreams;” if you build it, will people listen?
-DT
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Radio is “somewhat challenged.” Right there, in two words, the root of everything that’s wrong with the industry. Denial. I have never met Caroline Beasley. I don’t know her. I have nothing but respect for the history of her company. But, this parsing of words, this denial by those in charge of the industry, are leading to its ruin.
When issues the radio industry is facing are discussed, the so-called solutions, the solutions that never work and simply dig the whole of irrelevance deeper, are suggested by the same people that led the industry into its current, collapsing state. At the remaining radio industry conventions, the same people that allowed the industry to deteriorate participate in panels, talk amongst themselves in their echo chambers, and rarely have any original ideas to correct this mess. The truth is they have no idea how to fix it. Nothing will change until many of these people handover their positions of “expertise,” get washed out of the industry, and allow a new generation of entrepreneurs to pick up the pieces of what is left.
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Thank You Darryl for weighing in with your perspective.
(BTW…nice job on the stairs)
-DT
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I agree with you, Daryll, for the most part.
Radio has consistently chased the bright, shiny object of whatever happens to be the trend du jour and it’s often technological “solutions” to problems that don’t exist.
I submit that the fundamental problem is that radio people in general are happiest to concentrate on recreating nostalgia – particularly the screaming Top 40 radio of the 60’s. Instead, there should be a concentrated effort to learn was appeals to Gen Z (and millenials – some fo whom are now past the big 4-0) and implement whatever that is – whether it is incremental change or something completely different. My experience working with local college students is that they still love radio but how they use it, approcach the medium and what they expect it to be is different from today’s jukeboxes and yesterday’s Boss Jocks.
Do the traditional programming maxims that McLendon and Storz came up with still apply. They sure do! Human nature has not changed. The execution, however, must change.
I’m frankly tired of all the “Radio is dead” and “no one is inetersted in radio” doomsday talk from (mostly) old men who supposedly “love the industry.” It’s well past time to stop the bitching and kvetching and actually dig down and do the work. It takes willpower, resources and the fortitude to change.
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Thank You for stopping by the blog and sharing your perspective.
-DT
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So Dick do you drive, Ford or Chevy? When’s the last time you pounded out a letter to a friend on your Royal manual typewriter? Yeah, it’s kinda like that. I can’t remember the last time I listened to an AM radio station. Even though I worked at them for the majority of my career. The saving grace is the music. It’s still fresh instantly takes you back to the first time you heard it. There’s a certain magic to that. My favorite outlet is SiriusXM. They have a wonderful interface for iPhone. You can pick a cluster of stations that you enjoy, see what’s playing on each, and quickly access the cut you like. Kind of like picking the music for your own show. It’s kind of like listening in the car and switching the dial, I still enjoy hosting and listening to my own 60s and 70s show, but I’m told not many outlets want 60s music anymore, and interest in music of the 70’s is starting to erode. the 70s are starting to erode. I guess it’s evolution. Back in the 70s the oldies game from the 50s and 60’s. Fast forward to the 2020’s. What’s an oldie now? I like to think it’s fresh new music for a young listener just tuning in. That’s what it was for us the first time we heard it. I use my iPhone as a modern day transistor radio. I don’t even use the headphones sounds great and just like an old transistor radio without them. It’s the best of the best anytime you want it on demand. I suppose we begrudgingly have to say that’s progress. Thank you for your work on WMEX. As we can both attest – the only thing that beats listening to the radio is being on it.
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Well said my good friend. You & I made lifelong careers in the radio business and lived our best lives while doing it.
If we didn’t love it so much, we wouldn’t still be doing it in our retirement years.
-DT
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Apologies for the typos. While iPhone is a neat substitution for a transistor radio, it’s not great to edit copy on.
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Oh Dick….the world is changing and nothing like it was when we were 15 (1965 for me).
Frank
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Like the old saying goes, “the only constant is change.”
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