The Old is new again and more popular than ever.

Many of you who know me through the pages or from seeing me around town from time to time know my choice to earn a living and provided for my family is in the radio industry. That’s the traditional or ‘terrestrial’ radio industry. It’s a business like many others. Good days, bad days, indifferent days. One of the things about radio that’s always attracted me is its endurance. Even with the onslaught of satellite radio, more people choosing to listen to c.d.’s or digital recordings your ‘regular’ radio station of choice has survived, occasionally thrived and has and still withstands the test of time. I’ve been around radio advertising sales since the early 90’s. You name the format I’ve either sold it or have been closely associated with communicating the value of the listening audience to advertisers. Country, rock (various forms), news, news and talk, oldies, easy listening and more have a place on my resume.

A few months ago after pining away in the corporate end of my industry for over a decade I decided to take a shot at being in the sales department for a locally owned, call it a neighborhood radio station that serves Philadelphia. I signed on and this small station with a signal that covers the city, but not much else, was featuring an eclectic brand of modern rock that was doing well since no other station in the city had been showcasing this music. After some success a few larger stations with bigger and better signals took our lead and developed their flavor to our product and our uniqueness was quickly losing its luster. Media outlets, radio stations chief among them are formed with the intention of putting on programming and content that has a ‘stand out’ factor. If your product doesn’t set itself apart you become less relevant. The same holds true in any business and distinguishing a product or service becomes a compelling reason you and I go to purchase. When a radio station is in the boat we’re in ( a pretty crowded boat ) – you like to set sail with something different, content not being done and again restore your status as ‘set apart and unique’.

Back on Friday August 31st my company brought back a format that had not only been gone in the city for three years but has quickly been disappearing from the airwaves nationally. Standards returned to the dial in Philly on AM 1340 with little promotional output other than receiving a few mentions in area newspapers to inform the public mostly on this change in format. Standards are a format steeped heavily in artists such as Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Sammy Davis Junior, Dean Martin, Peggy Lee, Ella Fitzgerald and more. Newer artists following this genre of music include Michael Buble, Harry Connick Junior, Diana Krall and more. I was a bit worried when this signed on; even in a city such as Philadelphia that to this day has a love affair with Frank Sinatra. Everything we’ve seen indicates this format attracts America’s most seasoned citizens, a demographic Madison Avenue and the country’s top ad agencies aren’t attracted to for showcasing their clients. This is mostly because big time advertising executives figure that older Americans have arrived upon their products or services of choice and are tough, if not impossible to convince to try something else. Whether that argument holds true is undetermined, but what is true as I’ve been discovering is this is a loyal bunch of people.

Since we’ve switched over to ‘standards’ featuring artists mentioned early singing ‘America’s songbook’ the response has been nothing short of overwhelming. This isn’t a commercial for our station as much as it is for the music and content clearly a lot of people have been searching for. At the announcement our phone lines were blitzed and the station’s email feedback line received over 18 pages of emails from fans applauding our move and the most amazing part was the ages of those who called and emailed. My first thought was just the over 65 crowd would be attracted to ‘standards’. Not so, not at all the case. Many listeners and those responding on email are in their 30’s and 40’s, some even as young as in their 20’s praising our move to choose this ‘standards’ format. What is it about Sinatra, Bennett and these other artists that keeps people tuning in, not just once in a while, but many listeners who’ve sworn they will leave us on all the time? I have a few ideas as to why this is the case. Pop music has changed, often times not for the better. Try understanding some of today’s rock and pop singers lately? Good luck, you need an interpreter. Catch Brittany Spears on an awards show recently? Just plain sad. What I think many people are telling us by tuning into this programming is that good music is good music. People are starting to want for music sung from artists who became and are still legendary. Whether these artists are old and the songs decades old is immaterial. If you produce a good product it will withstand the test of time and never go out of style. That phrase certainly applies to those timeless artists that even in the year 2007 are making waves in the radio world in Philadelphia. If you haven’t listened lately pick up a c.d. or recording from one of the early named artists. You may be surprised how much you’ll enjoy. See ya around town.