[garyberk]

KBOQ in Monterey…but they do not stream yet, but will be hopefully soon. Robin…every custom is a challenge in a different way. You start out with a blank piece of paper and work you way into it. There really is not one that stands out as most challenging. I love each of them for many different reasons…PRO Radio, WROR and WJR custom cuts, Berkotron (of course I like that one!), all the Q series packages as well as the NIC…Then there was Keyframes for Q92.9 in Pittsburgh and of course Up2 Date for KEZK in St Louis. The best part of custom’s is the trip to Dallas to hang with the Jam guys for a week!

[garyberk]

KBOQ in Monterey…but they do not stream yet, but will be hopefully soon. Robin…every custom is a challenge in a different way. You start out with a blank piece of paper and work you way into it. There really is not one that stands out as most challenging. I love each of them for many different reasons…PRO Radio, WROR and WJR custom cuts, Berkotron (of course I like that one!), all the Q series packages as well as the NIC…Then there was Keyframes for Q92.9 in Pittsburgh and of course Up2 Date for KEZK in St Louis. The best part of custom’s is the trip to Dallas to hang with the Jam guys for a week!

[RobinBlamires]

I didn’t know you worked on the “Pro Radio” package. The demo stands out mind, and sets the standard for what was to come later on.

An impressive list of packages too.

[ratnobMemberAuthor]

Gary

Some of us feel that there’s a new generation of programmers who don’t really ‘get’ jingles: they think they are uncool or irrelevant or old-fashioned. As a result there are loads of stations with butch voices and sweepers, but nothing that provides memorable musical identification.

Is this your experience, or are you optimistic that there will always be a market for sung station jingles and that it’s only a matter of time till we hear more of them on the air again?

[Bigdave]

Gary…Have you heard the versions of the It’s Nice image song resung for the TV show TV Offal? If so,what did you think?

Speaking of which….here’s a surprise item

Back in 2007,one of the UK’s biggest jingle fans,Pete Wilson,used JAM to mark his 30th anniversary of jingle collecting,by having one of his favourite cuts resung. Needless to say,the end result was…how can we put it…well,it’s nice!

http://www.pete-wilson.net/media/great.mp3

The lyrics represent Pete,his home town of High Wycombe and current home place of Bracknell in Southern England,his love of jingles (see how many UK and international jingle companies get a mention)and the British Sci-fi serial Dr Who,and were written by…. me!

[loujosephs]

Problems really not with the PD’s but in some cases the GM’s and the owners who tell the consultant what they think the ‘AUDIENCE’ wants..and you know what that gets you autotuned jingles that don’t cut it.

[loujosephs]

Jam is the standard for jingles..I did a station in Moscow that used TM-Century at the time..the jingles just didn’t cut it. I was also involved with Fun in Paris, who used some local stuff that was as cheap as it sounded on air. At Radio Nederland we went with top format..and they cut thru the static… Before I went full time into IT I did a lot of consulting…

[WAVAMember]

As a result there are loads of stations with butch voices and sweepers, but nothing that provides memorable musical identification.

But this is nothing new. Big voices have been part of radio for decades. Look at the late Ernie Anderson who voiced some of the biggest top 40 stations in the 80’s. Not all ran sung jingles.

[ratnobMemberAuthor]

As a result there are loads of stations with butch voices and sweepers, but nothing that provides memorable musical identification.But this is nothing new.

It’s the scale of it that I think may be different, and stations cost-cutting, and management that may see sung jingles as a wasteful luxury rather than central way of building the station’s on-air sound.

[Barras]

The “BerkoTron” package was created by Jon Wolfert (as you all know I am a MAJOR Jam guy). We did some custom cuts for WHYT in Detroit and Jon put them into a package called “Berkotron”. A jingle freaks dream..having a package named after him. Almost as good as being on a demo!

Speaking of “The Berko Tron” package, here`s some of them with an introduction by Andre Gardner @ Z106 Philadelphia…this dub is thanks to Geoff Barton who several years ago, sent me the reel-tape to digitize, as ever, great JAM jingles !

http://www.4shared.com/audio/1KuQ3IvG/BARRAS_MONTAGES_-_JAM_BERKOTRO.html

[loujosephs]

Never saw the need for big voiced stuff..one of my PD’s John Holiday did hence we did a sweeper ID from wxlo that as soon as he left we added jingles from Thompson Creative that made the sweeper useless… I may be a stage the younger PD’s go thru the voice with balls…

[loujosephs]

Reading the Steve Jobs bio, the one thing you get is he would have been a great consultant, he basically got the record industry to do what he wanted and changed how we get music.

[theniceguy]

Reading the Steve Jobs bio, the one thing you get is he would have been a great consultant, he basically got the record industry to do what he wanted and changed how we get music.

Mmm a station programmed by Steve would probably play the entire Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Beatles collections over and over again. Including the bootlegs and concert tapes. : )

Imo what steve really accomplished was that we finally could get LEGAL music downloads at an affordable price and we no longer need to buy complete albums. Downlading, ripping and mp3 already existed (remember napster)?

But i,m still a huge steve fan. Bought my first apple in 1988 and never looked back.

[ratnobMemberAuthor]

Could you tell us a bit about the way you developed the concept of Fresh 102.7 NewYork. It felt like a radically different sound; the jocks were very tightly formatted (just first names); and really different jingles. What was the story?

[garyberk]

Fresh was all about being a different kind of AC. A more contemporary one and that included the jingles. I had Jon involved with that project from day one. The idea was to have jocks, but we pretty much kept them over the jingle ramp beds. That station was all about the music, but thanks to the jingles, really stood out. After the first few months on the air, we did focus groups and the women were already referring to Fresh like the jingle did…”Fresh..!” now isn’t that why you run jingles? I say yes!

As for the new generation of programmers that do not get jingles…you are right. That’s my job in life. To educate them! It’s not always easy.

[TaterStud]

Gary – You are one of the guys who still knows what that intangible “wow” factor is in the business…and that’s why I love ya.

Roth

[loujosephs]

You have to realize that what Gary did here was nothing short of a miracle, he reinvited a station that had the baggage of two previous formats, talk and heritage AOR. And he changed the perception of the audience which is what ever programmer hopes to do.

[ratnobMemberAuthor]

Gary

Tell us how you approach the business of building a station image around a big personality – say, Dick Purton. The risk is that the DJ eclipses the station, isn’t it? What’s your approach?

[WAVAMember]

he reinvited a station that had the baggage of two previous formats, talk and heritage AOR.

Don’t forget Blink and Mix 102.7 as well. That’s 4 formats.

[garyberk]

Thanks for all the kind words on Fresh, NY. Please remember that we had an incredible team working that project. From Sr. VP of Programming Greg Strassell to my PD Rick Martini, and all of our research partners, CBS Radio really got behind this project, providing us with everything we needed to make it right, including a custom jingle package! They also gave us a tremendous amount of autonomy to “create” a new brand for 102.7. Even though that frequency had been many things before Fresh, I believe listeners have a very short memory. As radio people, we make more of a stations prior history than the listeners do. Give them something new, different and likeable and they quickly forget the past and go forward with your new brand. Fresh was an experience that will always stand out as one of the greatest times in my professional life. When I was in NY I would look up at the Empire State Building and think…”Wow, my radio station is beaming out of that tower”!

[theniceguy]

Gary,

Some years ago you and jam started 1330 llc, with idea’s about syndication. How did that work out?

[IainJohnstonMember]

(and just to add to that…was “1330” the one-time STREET address of WABC???)

[garyberk]

Yes, Jon and I formed 1330 Networks with the idea of syndicating former KVIL personality Valier Smith. It did not work out as we planned, but we both learned a lot about syndication. We continue to work on content development. Since we both grew up in NY listening to WABC, we named if after the address of WABC at 1330 Avenue of the Americas. The picture on the logo is the actual building.

[ratnobMemberAuthor]

Gary: You moved from presenting, to programming to consulting. Do you ever itch to get back on the air yourself?

[jammin]

berko! welcome aboard! been listening to the packages you appeared on, and am glad to say….. some of those packages you did, i’m gonna get as personal cuts! well…… once money comes in. it’s nice, q cuts, and right on q are just a few. one question, for you, or john. on the demo for “it’s nice,” when they showcased the ways that the package can be resung, there were 2 that came as a shock. they did one for LA and another for San Francisco. out of all my years living in So Cal, with station from Northern Cal ocasionally reaching here, i’ve never heard that package redid like that. were they just for show, or did the 2 really order the package. i’m really hope that we can here what you put on the air for KABX, and KBOQ. speaking of KABX, if they were still on-air as an oldies/classic hits format, and with you at the wheel, jam would’ve been a shoe-in! haha, that’s just my opinion. i think you might agree, though.

[Author]

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