What's the deal with these "Jack-FM Classic Rock" stations?

[Carol_the_Impaler]

Huh. I dunno, I’m suspicious.

I’d be curious to see how the whole request thing goes. Do they actually play the stuff you request in a reasonable time frame?

I’d also be assuming that all the music is loaded onto a computer and randomly shuffled - but still according to a larger plan, or “clock”, like todd33rpm describes. Also, you can have a handful of jocks who don’t even reside in the market, but rather record out of a studio anywhere. Upload to a satellite, insert the occassional traffic report/weather to “localize” the broadcast, and all these stations (which sound to me like they’re all owned by Infinity) could be originating from anywhere and just loaded for bear with music on the PC. The no jock thing also kinda sucks because that means automation and a bunch of people just lost their jobs.

However, I have to say that most radio does suck, and it’s about time that there is at least some kind of “backlash” (even though I cynically think it’s not as independent as they want you to think it is) against the heavily formatted/consultant-ized crap that is everywhere. Everyone I know hates it, and all these folks are the demographic that advertisers want!

[Hunter_Hawk]

FWIW, Lisa Wood’s blog (she’s a DJ at KEXP) has some info and commentary on this.

[ElvisL1ves]

Boston also has Mike 93.7 - “We Play Everything”, although their mix is a little different from WBOS’s.

[amarinth]

It just started in Seattle, and whatever the ulterior motive is, right now, I like it. It reminds me of radio when I was in high school. (Or how I remember radio being when I was in high school - nostalgia does funny things to your memory)

Plus, on Sundays, the Rock station does the ipod thing with their collection, which also works.

[Savannah]

@Rodd Hill

I live in a city which is in the overlap zone of two “Jack” stations.

The Vancouver “Jack” is somewhat better than the Victoria “Jack” in terms of more obscure or forgotten 70s-80s stuff getting played.

I have, however, noticed something interesting on at least eight or ten occasions: both stations playing different songs by the same artist concurrently.

Interesting. I’m going to have to check that out. Usually I listen to CBC or NPR on the morning drive, as The Mountain’s reception isn’t great.

Here the stations’ slogans are “playing what we want”. I did kinda doubt that they were really doing exactly that.

[Savannah]

@Rodd Hill

I live in a city which is in the overlap zone of two “Jack” stations.

The Vancouver “Jack” is somewhat better than the Victoria “Jack” in terms of more obscure or forgotten 70s-80s stuff getting played.

I have, however, noticed something interesting on at least eight or ten occasions: both stations playing different songs by the same artist concurrently.

Interesting. I’m going to have to check that out. Usually I listen to CBC or NPR on the morning drive, as The Mountain’s reception isn’t great.

Here the stations’ slogans are “playing what we want”. I did kinda doubt that they were really doing exactly that.

[rackensack]

Atlanta’s DAVE FM (92.9 WZGC), mentioned by a couple of other posters, has been on the air in that format for a while now – at least six months or so, with the tag line “Rock without rules”. Prior to that, it was a Lite Rock station called Z93. It’s also an Infinity Broadcasting station.

Yes it’s corporate, and yes it’s programmed, but’s it’s still a whole lot more listenable than any other commercial station in the Atlanta market, IMO. I’m too old to have the patience for college radio these days, and I just never developed a taste for classical, so my options are pretty limited. I listen to NPR during the news programs, but WABE goes classical from 9 am to 3 pm and again in the evenings, so during those times my car radio is on DAVE FM. It’s sort of like hanging out with a lot of the people I went to college with; not as hip as it thinks it is, but better than the alternatives (which pretty much means silence in my car, since my tape deck has died and I don’t have a CD player). I think I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve listened for more than a half hour without hearing either the Cars or the Police, and they’ve raised U2-worship to a new level. They have a few local on-air personalities, who do claim at least to have some input into the programming, and they’ve done some cute stunt programming (We Love The IRS weekend a couple of weekends ago, when they played mostly stuff from IRS Records the weekend after Tax Day, was my favorite so far). The also run Little Steven’s Underground Garage on Sunday nights, which definitely gets some obscure stuff onto the air, and makes me like them that much more.

In an ideal world I’d have better options, but until that day comes, it’ll do. At least it rarely drives me to turning it off.

[cbawlmer]

@davmilasav

How do we get Jack/Bob/Ben here in Houston? I’m sick of the morning crews here and I’d like a “deep cut” to be a song that I don’t recognize in 3 notes.

Me too, I say! Houston radio largely sucks. What is the frequency for the station in Austin?

[Stillwell_Angel]

I haven’t listened to it yet, but here in Indiana they are running the Jack-FM commercial on TV about every ten minutes it seems. I do want to give it a listen though. I was a teenager in the 80’s and it seems they play alot from that era.

They are also touting Hank-FM for the country lovers. Don’t plan on listening to that one anytime soon.

[BiblioCat]

I skimmed past this thread when it was new, but I just realized today we have a Jack-FM here in Baltimore, 102.7. It used to be an oldies station, playing lots of 60s stuff, mostly Beatles. It had been oldies for a couple of years at least.

Now it’s Jack-FM, and they have the tagline about “playing what YOU want” and being like an I-Pod shuffle. They seemed to play a lot of 80s and early 90s music, with a little bit of late 70s rock thrown in, and IMO it was a great mix - of course in someone else’s opinion it was all crap.