Company News · July 9, 2007

Jack Hits The Road In New York, But Hold Your Fire

By Edison Research

The switch to Jack-FM two years ago at WCBS-FM New York spurred a million articles and TV news features about the end of personality radio, the death of Oldies, or both. And the return of Oldies to that frequency on Thursday will undoubtedly prompt a similar spate of articles declaring the Jack- and Bob-FM movement over, most of them written not in St. Louis, Portland, Ore., or Norfolk, Va., where some of the format’s torch-bearers remain more-than-viable, but in the city where an oft-reviled Jack-FM never achieved traction on par with Los Angeles, Phoenix, or even Philadelphia.
Even with the inevitable tapering off of any gold-based format, the detractors-and they were there from the beginning–have been surprisingly quiet up until now. Instead, the early buzz surrounding the format just kind of tapered off, particularly once it became clear in markets like New York, San Diego, and Chicago that the format wasn’t always going to consume the entire radio dial. But both the WCBS-FM change and the fifth anniversary of format originator CFWM (Bob FM) Winnipeg, Manitoba, demand that this early fan of the format again take stock of Bob and Jack.
It was during that period of hype that the most important thing about the Classic Rock/Hot AC hybrid got lost. The magic was never in Jack-FM’s “playing what we want” or a score of other variants, never in the “iPod on radio” concept, never in the jocklessness of some key U.S. outlets (more a matter of expedience than an aesthetic choice anyway).
What was important was how, from Bob/Winnipeg on, the best of the Variety Hits stations gave the audience that grew up sometime between Boston and Guns ‘N’ Roses their own music. Classic Rock stations often seemed embarassed by Journey and Pat Benatar. Hot AC stations doled out the ’80s between Matchbox Twenty records. At its best, the format replicated the Oldies format for an audience 15 years younger. And it reassembled the Rock and Pop coalitions thought to have been torn asunder in 1974.
We can say right here that the classes of 1977 through 1993 will never lose the desire to hear the songs they grew up with, any more than Oldies fans did, regardless of what happens to the stations that play those songs now. The short-lived “all-’70s” formats that sprung up in the mid-’90s just confirmed for some PDs that the ’70s had no legs. But a decade later, “I Will Survive” and “Staying Alive” were AC mainstays.
That doesn’t mean that three years haven’t at least dissipated the “shock of the new” that Bob- and Jack once enjoyed. For all the “oh wow” songs those stations played, they still had their hits, and some of the biggest-“Summer Of ’69” and “Jack And Diane” in particular-now show dismaying amounts of burn for most stations. Even “Sweet Home Alabama,” which two years ago had replaced “Unchained Melody” as pop music’s most universal song, has started to fry, perhaps because it’s used to sell fried chicken.
Jack-and Bob-FM tore Hot AC’s “’80s, ’90s and now” coalition apart. In 2004, clinging to the “’90s and now” portion of that coalition wasn’t a very attractive proposition for Hot AC. In 2007, AC and Hot AC suddenly have a “now” worth celebrating–K.T. Tunstall, Corinne Bailey-Rae, the Fray, Amy Winehouse–artists who at another time might have belonged mostly to VH1. And just as an occasional “Jessie’s Girl” couldn’t keep the ’80s listeners on Hot AC, once Jack came along, it’s hard now for Variety Hits PDs to take ownership of “How To Save A Life.” And since new music isn’t the calling card here, it’s unwise of them to try–but it was inevitable that many would, given the surprisingly small number of PDs who can come to grips with not playing new music.
And like any hot format, Bob-and Jack-FM drew the operators who were bound to diminish it: the owners who only saw it as an excuse to go jockless and put (some of) the money into TV again; the programmers who spread the same wrong records from market-to-market because they thought that research would somehow spoil the magic, or because they were just so excited about playing their own favorites again.
In New York, Jack-FM got off to a spectacularly rocky start. It replaced a station people loved with the most aggressive possible distillation of the format–too broad and deep; too current for the existing cume; too edgy presentationally. A year ago, the combination of new PD Brian Thomas, more cohesive music and new marketing finally began to move the needle, making Jack-FM a top 10 25-54 station, but never an L.A.-level monster, something that might just not have been possible given its launch.
But even if there is no Jack-FM in New York, there is still an audience for something newer than Classic Rock WAXQ (Q104.3), more music-intensive than WPLJ, more ’80s-based than WWFS (Fresh 102.7), and broader than WKTU. (And if that seems a little overly specific, well, so did the notion of an AC station between WLTW and WPLJ.) WLTW can play some of the big ’80s songs–even Bon Jovi–but they’ve got to stop short of “Sweet Child O’ Mine” and “Funky Cold Medina” (or should). And without the stigma of having fired Cousin Brucie, some listeners may give themselves permission to enjoy a new station in a way that they might not have with Jack. The CBS folks seem determined to head this off, announcing from the outset that the new version of CBS-FM will extend into the early ’80s.
I’m not unhappy about having CBS-FM back. In an ideal world, the New York radio dial would have sprouted an extra frequency in 2005 so both Jack and Oldies could exist on the radio. The hole for Oldies never disappeared in New York–only broadcasters’ willingness to pursue it. Now with the advent of PPM, the format may be considered rehabilitated for the wrong reasons, but it doesn’t mean the results are wrong.
That said, if the ratings of WBEN (Ben-FM) Philadelphia are any indication, PPM would have helped Jack-FM as well, and will likely help any successor. So will a few months of rest and rehabilitation for “Your Love” by the Outfield and “Obsession” by Animotion. The listeners who grew up with those songs-and bigger blockbusters like “1999,” “More Than A Feeling,” “Like A Prayer,” and “Pour Some Sugar On Me”–will be a desirable audience for at least another decade (more, perhaps if an Oldies resurgence helps re-educate the ad community on the value of 45-plus). And if the industry has lost any fascination with the package that these songs came wrapped in for the past several years, maybe they’ll design a new one that works.

Get our latest insights delivered to your inbox.