Motor City Radio Flashbacks

WJBK Drops, WKNR Tops, WXYZ and CKLW Remain in Motor City Top 40 Race

 

 

 

DETROIT — The Motor City will soon lose its distinction of being the only city in the U. S. with four full-time contemporary music formatted radio stations.

WJBK, the Storer-owned station, will drop its rock-pop music format on Aug. 16 in favor of an all-album, conservative music format.

The post-TV situation saw a battle for the pop market between WXYZ, the ABC-owned outlet, WKMH with Robin Seymour leading the way, and WJBK.

Six or seven years ago, the 50,000-watt CKLW, just across the river in Windsor, began to feature a younger deejay line-up and more of the current pop singles. The RKO General station with its big wattage has been effectively carving an important niche for itself in the Detroit market as well as in secondary markets in Ohio, Michigan and Indiana.

The next significantly important change in the contemporary station line-up was the switch of WKMH to a standard, no rock policy, leaving the field to WXYZ and WJBK, with CKLW contributing its share to the hot pop scene, but not to the same degree.

ENTER WKNR

The most exciting change in the status quo took place in November of last year when WKMH pulled a complete 360– degree switch in music format and call letters. With its new call letters, WKNR, came a 30 plus 1 contemporary music format, promotions galore, razzle dazzle and several new swingin’ air men.

The impact of WKNR greatly altered the market picture, rating-wise and pop music-wise. The tight play-list formula and concentrated on and off-the-air promotion drove the station’s ratings from obscurity up to a position of prominence.

Although many factors must be taken into consideration in reasoning why a station decides to change its format, many programmers label any format changes as a certain sign of defeat. Industry observers opinion that the mitigating factor in the forthcoming WJBK change was brought on primarily by the impact of WKNR on the market, along with the solidifying of WXYZ’s influence on its pop music audience and coupled with increased competition in the same area from CKLW.

Other important factors to be taken into consideration is the affinity of the Storer Broadcasting Company for conservative and subdued music formats. WJBK will, along with WGBS, Miami; WHN, New York City; WJW, Cleveland and KGBS, Los Angeles, be programmed musically from Storer head quarter’s music department in Miami. At present Storer’s 50,000–watt station in Philadelphia is the company’s foremost and highly successful exponent of contemporary music. Top-rated Storer station. WSPD in Toledo, also features a pop music, news and personality format.

CURRENT RESEARCH

WJBK is presently in the survey of the listeners in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties to keep in touch with their tastes, desires and preferences in radio. “Although we have only completed approximately half of the current survey we are learning that a majority of the people polled are desirous of the type of format we will be launching in August,” said John Grubbs, WJBK program manager.

According to Billboard’s May 16 Radio Response Rating for Detroit, WQTE and WWJ reported conservative music formats. WCAR and WJR features music of the standard variety, culled primarily from albums. “WJBK’s ‘Sound of (Just Beautiful) Music’ and ‘Total Information News’ format is being designed to incorporate all members of the staff,” said Grubbs. “Our air personalities are all top pros and are capable of handling any format.”

WJBK staffers include Marc Avery, Clark Reid, Bob Lee, Robin Walker, Bob Edgington, and Bob Layne. Grubbs scotched rumors circulating in the trade in recent weeks that he is being transferred to WIBG in Philadelphia as program manager replacing William Wheatley. “The rumors circulating to the effect that I am being moved to WIBG or any other station are not in any way based on fact,” emphasized Grubbs. END

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Information, credit and news source: Billboard, August 1, 1964