Posted by Allan Sniffen on July 18, 2004 at 08:49:04:
Vince Santarelli wrote a glowing tribute to Joe McCoy in his last edition of “Apple Bites”. While Vince and I agree on many things, Joe McCoy is not one of them. There is no denying CBS-FM’s success over McCoy’s 23 years but I think he was simply lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. Let’s consider some specifics:
McCoy made two very good moves that sustained the station over this run. First, he cut down on the fifties emphasis when he arrived (as Vince points out). That was an obvious move. The station had been beaten by Pete Salant’s WYNY over the previous few years—a station that was playing a lot of sixties music and therefore appealing to the audience CBS-FM should have already had in its camp. Recognizing WYNY had tapped into a groundswell of interest in sixties/early seventies music was as obvious as reading the ratings. As the Post-Salant WYNY began to pull away from that core (a big mistake), sliding CBS-FM into that role was something any competent program director would have done.
The second good move was hiring and maintaining the station’s airstaff. But it was Bob Vanderheyden, McCoy’s predecessor, who initiated that strategy by hiring Harry Harrison in 1980. As far as McCoy’s other hiring’s of former Top 40 personalities, is there any PD who would not have? Morrow, Lundy, Ingram, Daniel, Baer etc were out there so of course CBS-FM hired them. Whoever the PD was during those years would have.
Once these two moves were made, CBS-FM was pretty much on autopilot. Virtually nothing changed. Yes, they had those reunion weekends that were fun and McCoy gets credit. And, yes, they had some promotional events. But over a 23-year run, six reunion weekends aren’t exactly earth shattering. The radio geeks like me loved them but a few weekends don’t make a station.
Objectively, the real reason for CBS-FM’s success was it was the right format at the right time. As the baby boomers moved through the coveted 25-54 desired demo range in the 80’s and 90’s, the format did very well most everywhere. In New York, where there was a history of great Top 40 radio in the sixties and seventies, any station that tapped into that was bound to do well regardless of who was running it. It would have been far more noteworthy to have failed than it is noteworthy to have succeeded.
What CBS-FM did not have was any real competition. People argue that WNBC’s “Time Machine” qualified. It didn’t. It was a weekend/overnight format on an AM station struggling to survive. By 1988 no AM music station was seriously competing with FM… especially a station only playing music part time. The other station that gets pointed to as a competitor was Jammin’ Oldies, WTJM. Perhaps, in the beginning it was a threat. But it veered off course so badly by becoming some kind of urban-based AC that it gave CBS-FM a pass. What was interesting was CBS-FM’s response to it. McCoy added Drake sounders and told his airstaff not to back sell records. Those moves made no sense at all even if Jammin’ had been a threat. Changing the on air elements of a station in that way only makes sense when you have a competition between stations with nearly identical music content. For example, in the 80’s WPLJ and WHTZ were close enough musically so that each station’s presentation was a way to distinguish them. A similar situation was WMCA/WABC in the sixties. Or even Power 105 and Hot 97 today. CBS-FM never had a competitor like that. The station has had the mainstream oldies format to itself. Tightening up the presentation had no impact under those circumstances.
We hear constantly that CBS-FM’s wider than average playlist was some kind of amazing innovation. It wasn’t. The station got away with that because it had no competitor. It could throw in lesser know cuts because the audience had no alternative. Anytime a music format has the whole genre to itself, it can open up more. Just listen to WLTW today for an example. Had CBS-FM had a real competitor, that wide format would have immediately tightened. That’s not to say that CBS-FM’s wide playlist was a bad thing. In fact, it was terrific. But it wasn’t great programming that allowed it. It was circumstances.
Vince points out his positive relationship with McCoy and there’s no doubt he had that. I would speculate that was because Vince never said a bad thing about the station or criticized it in any way. Naturally that was going to lead to friendly phone calls. My interactions with McCoy were just the reverse. It was clear he had no use for the Internet and didn’t much care for the criticism he got from the NYRMB. He even instructed his airstaff not to mention this board even though, as it turns out, much of what was being said here turned out to be accurate.
Once again, I don’t deny Joe McCoy’s success. 23 years is a long time and a great run in any radio market. But it was done with a format that was bound to succeed. Failing in this market under these circumstances would have taken some incredible ineptitude. CBS-FM did very little other than play the same music with the same station elements year after year. That’s fine in that there may not have been any reason to change something that was working. But that doesn’t get you to the Mt. Rushmore of great New York radio programmers.