Posted on 08/23/2006 8:53:29 PM PDT by LdSentinal
Chattanooga’s oldest radio station, WDOD, has ended its 11-month experiment with progressive talk radio.
At 10 a.m. this past Monday, the station switched to a format featuring musical oldies and standards from the late 1950s and the 1960s and 1970s, according to Danny Howard, director of programming and operations for WDEF and WDOD.
The new format, which is locally controlled, is known around the station as Ruby AM 1310.
Who’s Ruby?
“It’s kind of funny,” Mr. Howard said with a laugh. “When we started talking about doing this, it turned out that everybody had an Aunt Ruby or a grandmother named Ruby who would like this kind of programming. And then, of course, Chattanooga has Ruby Falls . . . So we decided to name it after all the Rubys.”
One highlight of the new format will be Ruby’s Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting, when host Chris Adams will play Southern Gospel music. Adams also will host a similar show on Sundays called Ruby’s Fried Chicken Sunday Dinner.
WDOD will continue to simulcast WDEF TV’s early morning news show on weekdays, as well as WDEF TV’s 6 p.m. newscasts.
The decision to drop Air America talk show programming grew out of the format’s failure to attract adequate advertiser support, Mr. Howard said.
The fact that Air America is only a few years old and has been through some tumultuous times made it more difficult to attract advertisers and listeners, he said.
“I think they will continue to do well in some markets, but we thought it was time to try something else here,” he said.
Mr. Howard said the new format will be similar to that used at WDOD prior to switching to talk radio, but it will be aimed at a younger audience.
The previous musical format, which was network driven, featured music from as far back as the 1940s, and failed to attract either listeners or advertisers, he said.
“Some of what they played, you wouldn’t recognize it unless you were 80 years old,” Mr. Howard said. “It was good music, but lots of people just weren’t familiar with it.”
Heh... "ROCK AND ROLL IS HERE TO STAY!" lol
CUE THAT MUSIC!!!!
"Bum..bum...bum......Another one bites the dust! HEEYYYYY ANNNND another gone and another one gone and ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST!
Looks like the Girls & Boys Club money is running dry!
Air America makes MSNBC look like a big success.
LOL...now THAT made me spit on my keyboard!
BWAHHHAHAAAHAAAHAA!
Sounds like a bunch of stuff I have on my playlists: Sons of the Pioneers, Jo Stafford, Bob Wells, Artie Shaw, Count Basie, etc.
Nobody wants to listen to Al Frankin? Wonder why?
I told someone the other day that I listened to stuff like Duran Duran on my car cd player. She said, "Oh, the old stuff." :)
muzak would attract a bigger audience
BWAAAAAAAAA!!!! HHHHHAAAAAAAA!!!!! HHHHHAAAAAAaaaaaaa!!!! HHAAaaaaaaa!!!! hhhhaaaaaa!!!!
Yep, had nothing to do with Air America being dishonest, liberal, hate radio. No... People just didn't know about it. Funny how that's the same reason liberals give for losing elections: "People just didn't hear the liberal message." No, they hear it loud and clear and turn it off, or switch to 50's music, whenever possible.
11 months was an incredible run for ErrAmerica here. That is probably more of a testament to the fact that the station owners let its other stations carry this one for so long.
IOW, those "evil corporations" (a.k.a. advertisers) gave them the finger...
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