Posted by KCJackson on July 18, 2004 at 19:13:04:
In Reply to: Joe McCoy: Another Opinion posted by Allan Sniffen on July 18, 2004 at 08:49:04:
I think CBS-FM under McCoy's leadership can be analyzed by asking one question:
Was CBS-FM never challenged because it was a great radio station, or was CBS-FM perceived to be a great radio station because it was never challenged?
From my observations, I would have to say it likely leaned toward the latter segment of that question. CBS-FM basically lucked out in the early 80s from the lack of one move: the ABC brass didn't opt to simply pick up and move Musicradio WABC to 95.5 lock, stock, and barrel. Had they done that in 1982 when 770 went talk, you would have still had guys like Ingam, Lundy, Howard Hoffman playing CHR for years into the 80s. (This move also likely would have prevented the formation of WHTZ, but that's another subject.) Instead, there was the lesser attempt by ABC to make WPLJ a CHR brand after its AOR run, and McCoy was able to capitalize on radio fans who missed the "sound" of WABC. While that was a good move, it didn't make CBS-FM a great station. There was still too much repetition of the pre-Beatles music, the top-40 jocks were never encouraged to be who they were (except for Morrow), and even with the reworked PAMS/WABC jingles, McCoy seemingly worked hard to distance the station's image from NYC's top 40 heyday/history. It was almost like he was saying to the audience "OK, well, if you know who Ron Lundy is and recognize PAMS 31, that's fine, but don't make a big deal of it!" This was most evident on Ingram's 40th anniversary show in 2001 where all of the airchecks had "WABC" poorly edited out. McCoy tried to make 101 a tribute to the radio past without actually acknowledging it.
Fortunately, it worked well enough in the 80s and early 90s to put CBS-FM on top, and like WLTW today, no one had the guts to challenge them. We've seen over the last 40 years that the best radio comes when two stations go right after each other... WABC vs WMCA, WBLS vs WRKS, WHTZ vs WPLJ, and today WQHT vs WWPR. Had some broadcaster had the wherewithall to say "Hey McCoy, I think I can do Oldies radio better than you" and put forth a serious challenge to the CBS-FM format, we probably would have seen how good a PD McCoy really was. Alas, that challenge never came, not even from WTJM at the outset.
Instead, we will get to watch Infinity try to figure out how to program two FM music stations in trouble - WCBS-FM with a dying format that now won't ever see a competitor because there's no money in it, and WNEW-FM which played Format of the Month for so long, even Frankie Blue may have trouble getting it back on course.