Where Everybody Knows Your Name..

A great picture of a rock and roll airstaff...from the website of WEZX/Scranton (Rock 107).

Today: Spring book begins. Late today: A look at some spring promos from around the dial.

Bringing In The New Year with Classic Rock

26° - overcast at 9:45pm

Classic Rock Radio brings in 2008.

Countdowns appear to be the main event; but there's some other great features around the dial too.

In progress: CFMI/Vancouver kicked off a 500-song countdown on Boxing Day (that's the day after Christmas for us here in the States) and it runs through New Years Day.

KZOK/Seattle began a Top 1000-song countdown on Christmas Day - concluding on New Years Day.

In Scranton - WEZX/Scranton is in the midst of their Top 1007 countdown.

WAXQ/New York is replaying its Top 1043 songs of all-time (it did this over Thanksgiving) starting New Years Eve at 1pm.

Tucson's KLPX is spending the last day of the year counting down the Top 25 Classic Rock Albums Of All Time" as voted by listeners.

WAOR/South Bend is soliciting listener votes on their three favorite classic rock songs for a Top 30 Countdown on New Year's Eve. Voting by text message.

Check out WAOR's execution of the voting process here.

In Kansas City, KCFX is doing their top 1001 classic rock countdown. KZEP/San Antonio is all party songs starting at 8pm New Year's Eve.

WZLX/Boston does it live - live performances of classic rock favs by request starting at noon New Year's Eve. WTKW/Syracuse is bringing in the New Year with an A to Z marathon.

WABX/Evansville doing all requests ("happy YOU year") from Workforce members now through New Year's Day.

PD John Hager and WGRF/Buffalo celebrating the last day of the year 6am to 9pm by playing "the last cuts from Classic Rock's greatest albums".

Starting at 9pm its a commercial-free request fest with live reports from Buffalo's (and 97 Rock's) 20th Annual Ball Drop. Just like Times Square - but in Buffalo.

And on the first day of 2008 - John keeps the theme going with "by playing the first cuts from Classic Rock's greatest albums". All-Request starting at Midnight.

WKLH/Milwaukee is giving the airstaff New Year's Day off with a schedule full of syndicated specials - many of them encore presentations from the past year. See the lineup here.

Spring Book, PPM and Special Programming

73° - partly cloudy at 10:20am

Spring Arbitron: Yesterday's New York City numbers showed classic rock WAXQ flat 12+ from winter - but dropping #4 to #6 A25-54 and from #1 to #2 M25-54; likely affected by revived rocker WXRK.

David Martin noted on his blog that the "new" WXRK moved from #14 to #5 A25-54. PPM hits NYC starting with the fall survey - should benefit both WAXQ and WXRK.

Added: Will classic rocker WAXQ soon feel the squeeze from the other side? Tom Taylor rightfully speculates "that the new classic hits/oldies incarnation of CBS-FM will be the most-watched station of the current Summer Arbitron." Read Tom's newsletter here.

Added: (Speaking of CBS-FM) - Sean Ross emails a link to his latest piece - talking 80s with oldies - classic rock - and even AC/Hot AC. Read here.

Back to Monday Arbitrons:

In Allentown - classic hits WODE maintained a solid #2 position 12+. In Wilkes-Barre/Scranton - classic rock combo WEZX/WPZX jumps from #4 to #2 12+. More markets released today include Chicago, Milwaukee, LA - after 5pm in the usual places.

More special programming: Fred Jacobs writes today about PPM and programming - and why things like "Top 500" countdowns continue to pull for radio - even though "many programmers have come to dislike these "evergreen events" because they often sound essentially the same year after year."

Fred offers some thoughts on keeping them fresh.

Yours truly has been (and continues to be) a fan of these programming staples. They seldom fail - and I believe the audience comes to expect them as part of the "classic rock experience".

Not long ago I stumbled across an on-line discussion room - archived from Memorial Day Weekend 2006 - where listeners were discussing the countdown that was on my station - arguing over the rankings of various songs. They were so into it. Very cool to read - even a year later!

Fred also notes that "people love lists" and "A look at VH-1 shows you the importance of "List Programming". Fred's entire piece is a great read - here.

Meanwhile - a few months back I compiled a "list of lists" from various CR outlets; perhaps this can be the start of some brainstorming at your station. Find that here.