When
I began at 66
WNBC in New York the station had
an amazing unduplicated cume audience of approximately 3.5
million people a week. It seemed incomprehensible that that
many people could be listening to one station. But what
about being heard on over 100 stations (135 to be exact)
coast to coast?
Back
in the days when I was Program Director of Q94
in Bakersfield, I was aware of an AM station in the market,
KGEO that played Oldies. The production value of the station
as well as the quality of the on air staff was way too good
for a market that size. It didn't take long to determine
it was an affiliate of the Unistar Radio Network (Transtar
had recently merged with United Stations to form Unistar).
Because
I was familiar with how that station sounded on the local
end I explored opportunities at Unistar once I was in LA.
Although I initially applied for a position on the soon
to be launched 'Hot Country' format, I was hired on the
'Oldies Channel' in part because of my experience with the
format at
66
WNBC.
The
'Oldies Channel' was tightly formatted with modern day mechanics
applied to the on air presentation. Custom liners were recorded
for each affiliate to create the illusion that the DJs were
actually in that particular station's market (hence references
heard on this tape to 'KOCN, Oldies 105', an actual affiliate
in Monterey, CA). At no time was it ever revealed that we
were actually in Hollywood on Sunset Boulevard.
This
created unique on air challenges (notice how the hour of
day is never mentioned specifically in time checks, merely
stated as" 'X minutes past / before the hour").
This was particularly so during the rioting in the aftermath
of the Rodney King police brutality verdict in LA. As armored
vehicles were literally patrolling
the street
below us, we could only refer to events unfolding before
our eyes in vague, roundabout ways such as "You've
probably seen on CNN (who were in the same building as Unistar
coincidentally) how bad things are in LA!".
During
my six years on the 'Oldies Channel' I also assembled many
of the special weekend and holiday features and would do
music logs from time to time. Mid way through that period,
Unistar was acquired by Westwood One for whom I would go
on to work down the hall on two other satellite formats,
the '70's Channel' and 'Groovin'
Oldies'.
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