Jack

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Well, it seems like the "Variety Hits" format on the radio is spreading across the country like a deadly virus. Got its kick start in Canada back in 2002-2003. I first heard about it when CISS-92.5 Toronto flipped to it in June 2003. Then in 2004 Timnath-Denver-Ft. Collins got KJAC "105.5 Jack FM" and Chicago got WRZA/WKIE/WDEK "Nine FM" and Dallas got KJKK "100.3 Jack FM" and it just kept coming and coming and coming especially this year. Stations like this have really wierd names for a radio station like like "Jack" "Bob" "Dave" "Mike" "Charlie" "Joe" "Doug" "Sam" and "Nine"

Friday Chicago and New York lost their oldies stations. WJMK Chicago and WCBS New York. This personally affects me because WJMK Chicago was not only a favorite station of mine since I was in 3rd grade, but also because it was the only station in the area that still played all my favorite oldies songs from the 50s, 60s and early 70s. There is 95.7 WRIT out of Milwaukee but they play mostly 70s now. The WCBS/WJMK story hit national news last night. So now Chicago has 2 of these stations and no regular oldies station at all except for 1690 WRLL which doesn't have the best signal and only plays 50s and early 60s music.

I went out to mow the lawn Friday afternoon thinking about the station. Then I come back in and find that they just flipped to the new format while I was out mowing the lawn which is ironic.

I don't mind the new format (as I like a LOT of music and types of music)

Some of the songs they play now include:


ELO - Turn To Stone, Nickelback - Someday, Yello - Oh Yeah, Toni Basil - Micky, Beatles - I Want To Hold Your Hand, Dishwalla - Counting Blue Cars, Dire Straits - Sultains Of Swing, Nelly Furtado - I'm Like A Bird, U2 - Sunday Bloody Sunday, Guns & Roses - Paradise City, Def Leppard - Love Bites, Evanescence - My Immortal, Marvin Gaye - Lets Get It On, Billy Squier - The Stroke, Phil Collins - Take Me Home, Fountains Of Wayne - Stacy's Mom, Heart - Magic Man & Foo Fighters - Learn To Fly


Anybody else have a station like this in your area? If not, you probably will sometime soon.

This sort of thing is happeneing everywhere (in North America) and in all genres. It's simply the result of the cost cutting at radio stations. When you have a central office publishing the play lists and you carry syndicated material then you can reduce staffing.

Vancouver got it's version (96.9 Jack FM) about 2 years ago. I like their music. The fact that they don't take requests is refreshing because it means I don't have to listen to Brittany Spears or Rolling Stones all day long.

This type of chain-store radio has been around for more than 20 years. We had the "Q" revolution in Canada back in the early 80's (Q104 Halifax, Q107 Toronto, etc.).

Automation and sydication is the bain of radio in my opinion.

Where I live, 102.3 FM went syndicated in 1992 while it's sister station, 1240 AM which use to be local until midnight started to go to it's over night syndication feed at 9pm. Now it's 6pm when they don't have sports on.

However, we still have oldies stations around here. 103.9 WVBO in the Fox Valley, and here locally, 1590 AM WTRW in Two Rivers.

the one i can pick up from my house is KBPA in Austin, TX which switched from oldies about a year ago..its recent ratings show it to be #2 in Austin, and #23 in San Antonio (i can pick it up in my area, but only in certain areas)

NYC's in an outrage over Jack. CBS Infinity just switched WCBS to Jack after 33 years of oldies. Haven't heard it yet but it doesn't sound like it'd be exceptionally worth it. I'm sticking with XM for now.

The switch to Jack actually worked for me. I'm a die-hard 80's nut, and Jack plays a lot more 80's music than any other radio format.

Having said that, I don't generally listen to radio. I loaded my car's MP3 player with 144 songs that I play in the same sequence over and over again. There's just something very comforting about reaching the end of a song and knowing what's coming next. When I listen to the radio and they play one of my songs I always feel stressed when they follow it with the "wrong" song.