THE BACK PAGE: WCCW 1310 Traverse City flips from sports to oldies

8.20.18
WCCW 1310 TRAVERSE CITY FLIPS FROM SPORTS TO OLDIES
New format focuses on 50s and 60s classics

It used to be that if a radio station's music was aimed towards those over 60, it was a sore spot for advertisers.

Take my now-deceased grandparents, for an example. They lived in a nice, three-story home overlooking Elk Lake near Williamsburg. When they moved there in 1986 from Troy near Detroit, their favorite radio station was WMBN 96.3, which played super-soft easy listening music.

However, in 1990, 96.3 flipped from beautiful music to adult contemporary as "Lite 96", which it remains to this day. I heard that the reason for the flip was due to the death of owner Ken McDonald and his daughter Trish was instructed by her mother to flip the station since it was part of her father's wishes. My grandparents were only slightly younger than Ken was (he was 67, Grandpa was 63 and Grandma was 60, mind you), and they were pissed that their favorite station had been modernized. Songs with vocals, oh no!

Eventually, Gramps and Gram found a new radio home with WCCW 1310, which aired an adult standards format carrying ABC's "Unforgettable" network. However, over time, Unforgettable transitioned from standards to more of a soft oldies format. I even remembered in the late 90s, they were playing Lorne Greene's "Ringo" and Grandma had asked, "WHAT HAPPENED TO MY STATION?!?"

Well, my grandparents moved to Florida not long afterward, and in 2000, 1310 - which had been one of the lowest-rated radio stations in northern Michigan - flipped to ESPN sports. My grandpa died in 2001 and I remembered putting on 1310 on for Grandma as we were driving around in northern Michigan. Oddly enough, she wasn't shocked that they flipped. Why? She uttered three words: "we're dying off".

Of course, a radio station aiming for seniors had been a problem for advertisers. Common knowledge has it that they try to preserve every dime and penny from their pension. True, but in the case of my grandparents - my grandmother was a special ed teacher and my gramps was a mailman - they had a few bucks here and there. They had nice furniture and always drove nice cars. Grandma owned a 1993 Buick Skylark that she got from Bill Marsh while Grandpa leased a new Cadillac from Chet Swanson (what a great, great guuuuyyyyy....) every two years. Oddly enough, Grandma claimed that she bought the Skylark from long-time WCCW jock Michael O'Shea, whom, I think was off the air at the time and was selling cars.

Well, it was recently announced that after 18 years of airing jock talk that didn't appeal to many in Traverse City, WCCW 1310 was flipping back to an all-music format: oldies. Of course, the format is somewhat similar to what their FM counterpart at 107.5 had for years. But in more recent times, WCCW-FM had been airing a 70s-centered format with some 60s and 80s sprinkled in. Anything pre-1964 was verboten.

The format change was announced in an ad published in the Traverse City Business News earlier this month. Last night, the station stunted with three different versions of "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" by Gladys Knight and the Pips, Marvin Gaye and Creedence Clearwater Revival. This morning, the station launched officially. Longtime station manager Brian Hale hosts the station's morning show while the rest of the day is automated save for pre-recorded episodes of shows hosted by the long-deceased Wolfman Jack and Dick Clark.

(I kinda think that Wolfman Jack, however is not a perfect fit for AM13 since Monday's show had not-so-oldies like The Vapors' "Turning Japanese", Led Zeppelin's "D'yer Maker" and Devo's "Whip It".)

The station streams online at am13radio.com. It appears that the other Midwestern Broadcasting stations are slowly reintroducing streaming on their websites as well; they abandoned streaming years ago due to royalty issues. They will continue to carry Detroit Lions football and daytime Detroit Tiger games.

Now, I think the station will do eons better than the .6 it got in the ratings last Spring. It's definitely better than most of the right-wing hate talk carried on sister WTCM 580 and others. But how will advertisers react? Granted, they broadcast from the "Goodyear Auto Service Studio", so there's at least one advertiser there. Personally, I think that Midwestern should have gotten an FM translator for AM13 so at least the people of Traverse City could hear them without static. But then again, the majority of their tunes were first heard on AM radio back in the day. And yes, WCCW did play many of those tunes in the 60s and 70s as "Radio Double C". With TC being a haven for fogies, this station does have the power of doing much better than trying to compete with a product that's already on a better signal on FM.