Category: WEXL

From the MCRFB NEWS archive: 1970

WDEE: CAN THE DETROIT NEWCOMER BEAT WEXL TRADITION?

 

 

 

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DETROIT — What happens when two stations of comparable signals compete in a major market and both airing respective country music formats? The answer may soon develop here as WDEE marches into a fray with WEXL, which has been a country music station since around 1962.

Slowly, but surely, in many markets good facilities are coming along in new country music formats and busting the hold of small-wattage or daytime only stations. Only in a few markets have daytime stations or small wattage stations been able to hold their own against the bigger newcomers. . . and largely only because of the growing role of FM, which these stations use to extend their broadcast day.

But here in Detroit, two 24-hour AM stations are now waging war against each other. On one side, the most traditional station — WEXL — which believes it has established a strong listening habit in Detroit. On the other, WDEE (the former WJBK, a top 40 station before having made the switch), is perhaps a little more expansive in its approach and willing to play popular, though country-oriented, record hits in its format.

WDEE has the advantage, if you talk to Chuck Renwick, regional radio manager who is responsible for markets such as Toledo, Cleveland, and Detroit in the Storer Broadcasting chain. “WDEE has a far superior signal,” Renwick said.

But WEXL, said program director Bill Mann, “has a fairly good signal in comparison to WDEE in spite of their 50,000 watts. Too, we got the image in the market. As far back as 1933, this station has a ‘Sagebrush Melodies’ program featuring country music.”

Go Further

WDEE claims that WEXL has commercial religion on Sunday, which doesn’t help their country image one bit. “In addition,” said Renwick, “WDEE will be aggressive in it’s promotion — running television spots and newspaper advertising. We’ll also be sponsoring our own concerts. We’ll swamp them out in promotions and with the quality of our personalities. But, in order to be successful, we feel that WDEE has to go further than that. It’s more than just beating another country music station. We don’t think our audience on WDEE will become Top 40 or middle-of-the-road as well as the potential country music fans in Detroit. But WDEE will not be zeroing in on strictly a country music audience. I’m not sure that the country music audience, as such, exists anymore, especially in a market of this size,” he said, pointing out that listeners in general were more sophisticated today. “And there are a lot of No. 1 country music stations who’ve certainly gone beyond the normal boundaries of country music fans for their audience. . . in a sense, creating additional country music fans.”

To counter WDEE in the market, WEXL is not doing anything different, said Mann. “We’re going along pretty much the same as always. That’s one of the problems WDEE has had over the years. . . . they’ve never stayed long with anything. The past six months, under the call letters of WJBK, they were a top 40 rock station. For the eight or nine months before that they were playing good music. One thing I can’t understand is why they don’t stay with any particular format long. But I don’t think that their going country music is good for country music business. It might wake up agencies to the fact that country music is important, considering that two stations are fighting for the audience.”

Adjustments

WEXL, however, has made some adjustments in its programming. Mann said that the format has been tightened up some. And the psychology of having competition has been good for the WEXL personalities. “So, we’re probably sounding better than before.” WEXL has about 50 records charted, but plays 65, plus album cuts and oldies. The station also checks out single sales, but only to an extent. “The biggest problems about singles sales in the area is that only certain stores will carry them. And even those that carry country music don’t have all of the records.”

WDEE will feature a “pretty broad-playlist,” said Renwick. “We’ll probably publish a playlist of the top 40 country records. Already, we are presenting them on the air. But we’re working off a playlist that includes up to 100 records.” One of the things WDEE is doing in order to build up a rapport quicker with Detroit listeners is that each deejay goes on the phone for a half-hour after doing his show. During this half-hour, he takes requests and chats with listeners. He is free to insert these requests into his program the next day.  Besides the singles, WDEE airs between 40-60 current and recent album cuts. The major 40 records, of course, gets most-frequently play.

WDEE has just installed a package of jingles created at Spot Productions in Dallas. Production of the sound of the station is something between an easy listening and a contemporary approach, said Renwick. The deejays have now began to pull their own records, although for the first five or six weeks the station was on the air with its country music format, all of the records were slated for them. Renwick also said all the deejays had done a “lot of homework” about country music. Now they do their own shows within certain guidelines.

These guidelines include pacing in terms of tempo and a mixture between modern sounds like those of a Glen Campbell and traditional country sounds like those of a Stonewall Jackson or Faron Young. “WDEE plays the traditional things that occur in today’s hit lists. . . though the trend is towards the modern sounds,” Renwick went on to say. To put a balanced sound hour at WDEE, the deejay would play to or three of the modern-sounding records, then a Wanda Jackson: then two or three more of the modern-sounding record and a Faron Young. Album cuts are used to pick up the pace. . . to bring up the tempo. Then there are guidelines to put a separation between records that have the same kind of stories. For example, to keep a song about Carolina from being back-to-back with a song about Oklahoma. “It’s what we call a ‘thinking jocks’ format,” said Renwick. “And so far we’re getting a pretty good response on the telephone. Those half-hours that the deejay spends on the phones after his show gives us a pulse of who’s switching from other stations to us and how many of them are hardcore country music fans.”

On February 11, the station sponsored an agency party for all local time buyers, advertisers and the press. Leroy Van Dyke and his band performed. Other country artists on hand to spread the word abut country music included Jeannie C. Riley, Lynda K. Lance, Nat Stuckey, Tom T. Hall and Hank Williams, Jr.

WEXL will probably not go so “modern” as WDEE. In fact, WEXL program director Bill Mann believes that Ernest Tubb and Kitty Wells are virtually important to its programming. “I think you have to play them or you’d lose your country identity,” said Mann. Jimmy Martin won’t get exposed that much, nor the harder bluegrass sounds of the Osborne Brothers and Flatts and Scruggs. “But we do play their softer sounds. The truth is that there’s just not that much bluegrass being put out today.”

The overall sounds of WEXL seems to be good, Mann said, “from what people tell us. Of course, listeners around Detroit have never had anything with which to compare us. The competition might pick up some listeners, but I think we’ll keep the vast majority of them. And I don’t think they’ll pick up listeners from other formats because the other stations in Detroit– the Top 40 and the easy-listening stations — are playing Glen Campbell and Eddie Arnold.”

WDEE-FM also plays country music — the stereo country music package distributed by International Good Music out of Bellingham, Washington. This package is aired 6:00 A.M. through 5:00 P.M., at which point the FM station simulcast with the AM. WDEE-FM signs off at midnight at the present. END

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(Information and news source: Billboard; February 28, 1970)

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A MCRFB Note: In 2009, Detroit country radio legend Deano Day passed away. For more on this story, see Mike Austerman’s michiguide.com. Also, former-Detroit country great Tom Dean can still be heard on the world-wide web today, here.

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