| RUSH LIMBAUGH ON TOP 40 RADIO -- (?)
Like him or not politically you have to see with interest the
transcript that Rock-it DJ Clarke Davis shared with us.
As a caller into his show got him off of Politics and a conversation
ensued on Top 40 Radio. Here is the transcript of the call.
Would Top 40 Radio Work Today?
December 03, 2010
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Chip in Rutherford, North Carolina, nice to have you, sir, on the
EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hello. Good afternoon, Rush. Mega dittos, and Merry Christmas.
RUSH: Same to you, sir.
CALLER: Yeah, I was talking to Bo about maybe changing topics a little
bit and get off the political train for a bit. I wanted to revisit Top 40 radio
and talk a little bit about those days in the late sixties, early seventies.
Do you think Top 40 radio could work today?
RUSH: Well, it would, of course, depend on the music.
CALLER: Yeah, exactly.
RUSH: You're gonna have to help me out. I hate to admit this, but since I lost
my hearing I don't know what new music there is 'cause it all sounds the same.
I haven't listened to music since the early parts of this decade because I can't
hear it. The only music I can listen to is music that I knew before I went deaf
because my memory supplies the melody. I don't really hear it, 'cause I
don't have the hearing sensitivity anymore to do it, so my memory does.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: So is there any music out there that is comparable to Top 40 in
the sixties and seventies?
CALLER: Well, you know, I don't think there is. The Billboard charts are still
published, of course, and then you've got your oldies stations and --
RUSH: See, the oldies stations are the closest thing to Top 40 that there is, and
that format works depending on the music rotation, how big the play list is and the
jocks. Nostalgia is a big thing. I think it could be made to work. If John Rook
could come back around and put WLS back together the way it was in the
'60s and '70s, it would be fun to try it; it could be interesting to see.
KXOK St. Louis. Oh-ho-ho. KFI Los Angeles. It was KHJ back then.
Those would be fun to see. But I think as retro as our society is I don't
think there's any question it could be made to work if you had the right
people behind it, led of course by me.
RUSH: As a radio guy I got my start in Top 40. We had a guy with a great
question, "Would Top 40 work today?" And, you know, I've always believed
that all media, but particularly including radio, it's content, content, content.
That will determine whether something will have an audience or not,
not so much the format, not so much the frequency, just content,
content, content. I'm convinced that a number of you, if you had to, would
use string and tin cans to listen to this program 'cause if that was the only
place you could get it that's what you would do. Now, with Top 40, we do
have a retro society. I look at the TV show Mad Men. People love that
show because it is an exact depiction of life in the sixties. It's especially
relevant to me because it's about the advertising business, and it's just
right on the money culturally, too.
So Top 40, '60s, '70s version of Top 40, what would be the primary competitor
to that today? The primary competitor would be iPods or MP3 devices,
which is the thing facing all music formatted radio today. If you can put
whatever music you want and listen to it however, in what order and
whenever you want to on your iPod or MP3, why tune to an FM radio
station and listen to some program director's choice of what you get to
hear and the order in which you get to hear it, and then a bunch of dumb
disk jockeys in the middle of it? So what would you have to do, if the music
is available to people, they go back and they can listen to Top 40 music in
the '60s, '70s that audience can get it any time they want on their iPod, what
can't they get? They can't get great talent; they can't get great disk
jockeys. It would have to be more personality oriented radio than it ever
was allowed to be throughout the broadcast day. Mornings and nights you
could pretty much cut loose, but it was tightly regimented during the day.
It could be done, but it would emphasize my point that content, content,
content, talent, talent, talent would be the determining factors here because
the music is now available to anybody, anywhere, any time and it's specifically
what they want. If they want to listen to ten songs one day, they can do it.
If you have an obsession over one song there's no way you're gonna listen
to a radio station for that one song. You might hear it once every three hours,
if that, and then you'd have to make sure you're listening all three hours
to hear it the second time they play -- (interruption) what, Snerdley, what's
the question? Snerdley says personalities have always been the determining
factors, so why have program directors deemphasized personalities?
Well -- (laughing) do you want me to tell you the truth? All right, here's
the reason -- and I know this 'cause I did it. The one thing in a format
a program director can't claim credit for is the talent of a particular
disc jockey. He can claim credit for spotting it and hiring the guy,
or the girl, he can claim credit for the music rotation, he can claim
credit for the format clock, claim credit for all that stuff, but not for
the jock, other than hiring the jock. Plus it was budgetary. I mean the
bigger star you make outta somebody the more they're gonna be able
to demand from you.
What really killed Top 40 -- this is gonna be sacrilege to a lot of people --
what really killed Top 40 was the Bill Drake, Chenault and these kind
of guys that came along and basically deemphasized, I mean the jocks
were cookie cutters and they all had the same names from market to
market to market, Johnny B. Johnson and George B. Georgeson,
other than the morning guy, which they allowed to cut loose. But those
guys, their purpose was to establish the music and the format as the
reason people listen, not the talent. And if you were in tight with those
guys as a talent you did well, you could do okay, but if you weren't you
had a tougher road to go. But I think it could still be done. It would be fun
to try, and you could try it on the net, you could try it first, test-market it
on the net. Believe me, radio stations are going to be looking for all kinds
of programming solutions as more and more programming is in the cloud,
music's in the cloud now, meaning on your iPod, you download it from
somewhere, it's in the cloud. But it would be interesting to see if it could
be done again. Certain things from the past you can't replicate, can't bring 'em
back, they're best maintained as the past and as nostalgia.
END TRANSCRIPT
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