[LenGroat]

That is a REAL shame – I LOVE the Sunny FM cut with the DEEP Sono end “O R L A N D O “ !!

[mjb1124Member]

“Adds some life to the station.”

Personally I thought Sunny FM was already the most lively-sounding Classic Hits station in the CBS stable, if not in the entire country. And while that wasn’t entirely because of the JAM jingles, they were definitely a big part of it – the sheer variety of cuts they’ve gotten over the years (I even heard a resing from Philadelphia Story!), along with the way they were integrated into the sweepers and jock breaks. Can’t say I saw this coming as PD Rick Stacy seemed to really love his JAM/PAMS jingles, and had recently added more ’90s JAM cuts into the mix. But I guess the K-Hits package must have made an impression on him – either that or the higher-ups intervened. I’ll have to hear how it sounds with the new jingles when I get a chance to listen.

[DuncanNewmarchMember]

Each to their own but I loved those Sunny sonovox cuts, full of energy, excitement and they really stood out. I’ll admit to being a JAM fan through and through but I can still appreciate a good jingle from other companies (the Radio 2 stuff from Wise Buddah for example) but sorry, those few cuts I just heard from reelworld have left me cold.

[ratnobMember]

…those few cuts I just heard from reelworld have left me cold.

Ditto.

[mjb1124Member]

Now that I’ve listened, I have to echo the negative sentiments. It’s not that the new jingles sound *bad* per se – I liked this package well enough on K-Hits, where it didn’t seem to change the overall feel of the station that much, and they did a good job here customizing it to the Sunny FM logo. (Unlike another station I heard this package on, where they tightly squeezed the frequency in place of “K-Hits”.)

But contrary to the sentiment expressed by the OP, I feel like these jingles, along with the new sweepers/liners and imaging voice, have caused the station to lose a lot of its personality. It used to be a station I’d go out of the way to listen to despite it not being much different musically from other Classic Hits stations, but now it’s starting to feel like just another station playing the same old ’80s hits. And it feels like a downgrade to have a massive library of classic top 40 jingles, many with distinctive sonovox touches, thrown out in favor of one new package with comparatively little sonic variety.

[IainJohnston]

There’s a lot of upheaval in the world of CBS radio at the moment as the suits are intending to spin it off soon;
especially the “US radio tradition” of firing well-paid (and often very-high QUALITY) staff just before Christmas.

e.g.
http://www.musicradio77.com/wwwboard/messages/432756.html
http://www.musicradio77.com/wwwboard/messages/432843.html

As for the jingles – standard RW-USA fare – can their US vocalists actually sing any different notes,
or the production staff / musicians actually create anything different-sounding over the past 15 years
or so?
(NB – the UK/Euro-based RW people though seem to have a fresh innovative flair that RW-USA don’t IMPO)

While it “does what it says on the tin” solidly enough – what happens when EVERY music station in a city
all have RW-ish material that SOUNDS THE EXACT SAME as their competitors/sister stations now matter
what the actual format is? Will listeners be able to pick out any difference between the logos, identical
singer vocalisation, and same-sound production/reverb?
Or does no-one care now in their world of advertiser-prioritised PPM audience metering?

[blubbo]

what happens when EVERY music station in a city
all have RW-ish material that SOUNDS THE EXACT SAME as their competitors/sister stations now matter
what the actual format is?

Well, it seemed not to hurt much in the 80s and early 90s when every station in a market had JAM.

Will listeners be able to pick out any difference between the logos, identical singer vocalisation, and same-sound production/reverb?

Again, the world seemed to survive when JAM was doing the exact same thing. That’s not a shot at JAM or RW, for the record, just stating facts. The TOH in Denver audio from the JAM website pretty much proves that point. While the logos were different, the five and seven voice groups sounded pretty much the same between packages, both vocally and production-wise, with only what they were singing being the real difference.

And while listeners can absolutely sing a jingle back to you (part of what makes them so great), it would be silly to think their minds go so far as to pick out logos. That’s what WE notice, not Joe or Jane Sixpack.

[jlehmann]

My first post here in quite a while… What a shame. I guess the end of JAM in major markets could be near. We should all be ready for CBS-FM eventually dropping them as well, probably sometime during 2017. The only stations we can expect to add JAM at this point are small stations, stations in small markets, LPFMs, etc.

[LenGroat]

“We should all be ready for CBS-FM eventually dropping them as well, probably sometime during 2017”

Hopefully that will not be the case – but to get ‘Back to Basics’ the fact is that most REAL ‘radio people’ escaped or left radio in the 1990s, early 2000s. Hundred of talented PCs / DJs were discarded after years of service in financially-driven decisions made by ‘suits’ or ‘consultants’ that were nothing to do with the listener preferences.

Just because the ‘suits’ choose one jingle company over another is more to do with fashion/ radio politics – it is NOTHING to do with the quality of the tracks vocals. There are very few songs that ‘work’ musically/tempo-wise after the screechy UP ends on the Reelworld jingles.

JAM jingles will continue to be heard on stations where there are RADIO people in charge/on-air – and let’s not forget that Jon and his small but ultra talented team created THE longest -lasting jingle company in the World!

The size of the stations that use/love JAM is not important, it’s the fact that they love RADIO, and Quality vocals and tracks, more than the almighty $$$…….

[mjb1124Member]

“I guess the end of JAM in major markets could be near”

Yeah, that’s where a lot of my concern comes from – not from any thoughts against RW or the K-Hits package in particular. (Though I stand by my comments about Sunny losing its personality.) Classic Hits is the only format left that JAM has a significant presence on, and that presence seems to be diminishing. Unfortunately, at this rate, they may soon have to get by on small-time stations, internet radio, and personal cuts. But I do hope I’m wrong.

As for CBS-FM in particular… the station has already significantly diminished the jingle presence, and that among other factors has caused the station’s appeal to significantly diminish for me in the last few years. (Though I’ll grant that they must be doing something right based on the ratings.) But JAM losing them as a client would still be sad just because of the station’s heritage, as well as that of Scott Shannon with Z100. Said heritage is probably why CBS-FM has held on to JAM this long despite their PD being a self-proclaimed “Reelworld guy”. I’d expect KLUV and WOMC to switch before them if anything, but with CBS-FM it’s probably still a matter of “when” rather than “if”.

[ratnobMember]

(NB – the UK/Euro-based RW people though seem to have a fresh innovative flair that RW-USA don’t IMPO)

Agreed.
And, hey, let’s not get into a spiral of gloom based on speculation. JAM continues to produce great jingles for great stations.

[bobgreenradioMember]

no cobwebs on sunny.

good for them. its all about a quality air sound, not a memory from decades gone bye

[DuncanNewmarchMember]

“Not a memory from decades gone by”
Eh? They play nothing but oldies! Remember that this is the season of goodwill, time to drop old grudges

[bobgreenradioMember]

i think youre missing the obvious. we have museums to store antiques. radio is a hot and
live media product. the listener is most demanding.

but, living in the past is a choice….i guess.

[LenGroat]

Dear BobGreenRadio

“Living in the past is a choice…. I guess”

It is , but I wonder how many radio stations will be getting today’s Reelworld jingles re-sung in 2046 ?

Surely the problem is that US radio has forgotten the heritage carved out for many decades by impassioned programme controllers and deejays on thousands of local radio stations – most of it now emanates from a few central computers, with heavily-scripted announcers and research-driven music….

[bobgreenradioMember]

but lenny, the station is question is not being run out of a “box”.
kickass personality driven formats rule.
the problem you will have is what do you do when the resingers complete the cycle and die?
and interestingly, why were they so hot once upon a time and dead in the water today?
simple. theyre living in the past.
not alone mind you; nobody ever thought the public would get sick of big macs, but they did.

[mjb1124Member]

For what it’s worth, I listened during the morning show and heard a few JAM elements still in use. Mostly acapellas, but I did hear one of the Skywave stagers in full during a Christmas promo. Unfortunately the awesome morning show TOH from Philadelphia Story is gone – should’ve recorded it when I had the chance.

[tyty21]

Me too! I used to have that on my drive, but it’s gone! I sort of knew something like this was coming via the CBS spinoff, but i don’t want to bash or rain on a parade. It is what it is, and i’ll leave it at that. Although, I don’t think that’s anything on Rick’s part, probably a new hire up.

[tyty21]

In fact, Rick was one of those few jingle peeps I look up to when it came to jingle choices whenever I could get the money, and or get some sort of PD job. If there’s any people i look up to, it would be him, Berko, Chris Roth, and our own Jeffrey T! They’re the ones who are the non-traditional jingle fans who decide to step out of the box, and see what magic they could pull! Oh, Len is good with this as well!

[mjb1124Member]

Are those the lyrics to “The Reelworld Song”?

I’m not hearing many jingles on WOMC these days at all. All I heard was a sonovox acapella in the TOH. The station as a whole seems to be leaning heavily towards classic rock, even moreso than other CBS stations. Though there were some nice surprises in their playlist.

[mjb1124Member]

Thanks for the heads-up. The last couple airchecks I heard of WOMC had no jingles at all, so I can’t really say this is a change for the worse.

EDIT: And having heard a cut now, at least they kept their traditional logo melody, unlike CBS-FM.

[dianablanton1984Member]

Hmmmmm…. this is bad. After WOMC going to Reelworld, I can definitely see their K-Hits package in WOGL’s future, with their new PD.

Truly an end of an era.

[mjb1124Member]

For what it’s worth, JAM jingles still air on WOMC-HD2.

https://beta.tunein.com/radio/1043-WOMC-HD2-s52364/

[mjb1124Member]

They’ve had those WMEE Turn Me Up cuts since summer 2015, along with cuts from Home of the Hits, Xyrock, and Nonstop Power. Right now they’re near the end of their Memorial Day A-Z countdown, which has been a tradition on the station for years, and I think the current one started right around the time Anne Gress was let go (give or take a day). I’m thinking we might hear some changes tomorrow when they get back to “normal” programming, but we’ll see.

Also, the WOMC weather bed you’re referring to comes from their Motown Gold TM custom package. That was the only jingle I heard in about 3-4 months’ worth of airchecks, and only seemed to be used because of severe weather. I’m guessing they’d use the Reelworld K-Hits weather bed now.

[glen]

I’ve come to the sad conclusion the radio industry has passed yours truly and others by.

[Author]

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