This is highly contestable. Classic hits is shifting, sure, but you’d never hear a 2000s recurrent on a station like Cruise Adelaide, 4KQ Brisbane or 2CA Canberra for instance.
Remember that Australian radio - for all of its flaws - never has and never will fall into the easy format boxes that US radio does
Exactly. Music from the 60s and 70s is now between 40 and 59 years old, which IMO is still perfectly appropriate to be played on a station like 2CH.
Infact…I’d probably say that the current music format of 2CH is primarily aimed at the listener who would’ve been listening to 2SM and 2UW during the 1960s & 1970s. Similar philosophy with top Sydney FM stations Smooth & WSFM, who’s target demographic largely seems to be one that would’ve been listening to 2DayFM, Mix 106.5 and (to a lesser extent) Triple M in the 1980s and 1990s.
In the US, a station playing 60s and 70s would be termed ‘Oldies’ rather than ‘Classic Hits’ nowadays. Certain stations like WLNG Long Island pride themselves on playing ‘the best oldies’, though even they like to sneak in the odd 80s hit at times.
I happened to look at the playlists for both KRTH (LA) and WCBS (NYC) today which are the standard- bearing Classic Hits stations in Trumpland; both play mostly 80s hits with the odd very popular hit from the 70s thrown in. I even saw Hootie And The Blowfish on KRTH! Stations like Wuss and Mold 104.3 are of course similar and almost certainly look to these US stations for ‘inspiration’…even though the variety on offer on all these stations is less than inspiring.
That said, I’m happy with 2CH using the Classic Hits slogan. If nothing else it uses the call sign well The term ‘oldies’ has never been used in Australia and has a slightly pejorative tone. Baby Boomers, the progenitors of rock and roll, probably don’t want to be referred as elderly just yet.
I don’t usually listen to 2CH’s woeful weekend evening output, but this week have decided to take one for the team so the rest of Media Spy doesn’t have to.
Aaron Wright (presuming that he’s now the regular presenter) would probably be doing his 2CH show a world of good if he utilised social media a bit more in an attempt to attract some listeners over from Open House on Hope 103.2. It also seems pretty obvious which side they’re taking in the NSW abortion legalisation debate, with MP Damien Tudehope and someone else representing a pro-life/anti-abortion legalisation group among the interviewees during tonight’s program!
Meanwhile last night, just about the only highlight of Bob Roger’s “Reminiscing” was his use of what sounded like Brian Henderson saying “For those who are in love and for those who can remember” during the Opener. I’d still vastly prefer to have a more upbeat Jukebox Saturday Night-type program but if Bob Rogers regularly plays soundbytes from Hendo, I might tune in again.
I personally wouldn’t recommend doing that. Talking Lifestyle was hardly a success, so I doubt that 2CH would do much better with Lifestyle programming.
One thing I would like to see (or more to the point, hear) though is 2CH using instrumentals from 60s & 70s Classic Hits in their promos. At the moment and indeed since the latest relaunch in February, there have been some promos on 2CH which have used backing music from pop songs you’d probably be more likely to hear on KIIS or 2DayFM - very jarring for a station trying to position itself as one that’s Sydney’s New Home of Classic Hits from the 60s & 70s!
Yeah. While I have heard 2CH play the odd newer song which doesn’t completely disrupt the flow of their format, the use of instrumentals from relatively recent pop songs (Locked out of Heaven, Moves Like Jaggar, Happy and Catch My Disease come to mind - I’d bet 2CH would never play the full vocal versions) in promos just doesn’t sound right to me.
Surely there are instrumental tracks from the 60s/70s Classic Hits they could use? Better yet, how about commissioning a proper jingle package? If the likes of Smooth and WSFM can incorporate a jingle package (OK so Smooth uses their jingle package a bit more heavily than WSFM, but since there’s a news theme based around a jingle I would probably say that WSFM’s can be classed as a package) as part of their station branding, then I think 2CH 1170 and in stereo on DAB+ would benefit from one too!
2CH could drag out their old Australian musician played Musak type cover tracks of overseas songs they played in the 1960s and 1970s to comply with the Australian radio music content regulations.