The Jack format began five years ago in Canada as a looser, younger variation on the traditional oldies format, with a much wider playlist than is usual in commercial radio. Aiming to recreate the experience of an iPod set to shuffle, the creators of Jack cultivated the sometimes jarring juxtapositions long derided in the radio industry as “train wrecks” — Bon Jovi following Whitney Houston, for example, or Pearl Jam abutting Ricky Martin.
The format spread quickly throughout North America and has been successful in many markets; besides WCBS, CBS Radio has eight Jack stations. But Jack failed to attract much listener attention or advertising revenue in New York.
WCBS-FM Reconsiders, Deciding Oldies Are Goodies Again
By BEN SISARIO
Two years after an unceremonious dismissal that drew street protests and appeals from figures like Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Senator Charles E. Schumer, the oldies radio format is returning to WCBS-FM.
The New York City station, owned by CBS Radio, is expected to switch back to oldies next week from the Jack format, a broad mix from the 1980s and ’90s, with irreverent, prerecorded sound bites instead of live disc jockeys, according to a person who was briefed on the situation but who was not authorized to speak publicly. A report on the switch was posted this week on Radio Business Report’s online newsletter.
WCBS, which first switched to an oldies format 35 years ago today, changed to the Jack format on June 3, 2005. At that time, the station dismissed longtime D.J.’s who had been familiar to New York listeners since the early days of rock ’n’ roll, like Cousin Brucie (a k a Bruce Morrow), Dan Ingram and Harry Harrison.
“There was a lot of resentment when they fired Cousin Brucie,” said Paul Heine of Billboard Radio Monitor. “And they replaced it with something where the appeal is that it essentially doesn’t have a personality. It’s a jukebox with some attitude between the songs.”
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