Today I received a call from the radio station I worked at a couple of years ago. They needed some helping fixing a server I had built for them when I worked there and apparently I hadn’t shared all of my secrets with the necessary people so they were a little confused by my wizardry. I snuck over during my lunch hour and had them up and running in no time.
While I was there, I met up with the owner of the company and we chatted a bit just like old times, like that time I had to sit in his office and tell him that DJ Repulsive had told listeners that Britney Spears was at the station for an interview and when they found out she wasn’t, they had mobbed the parking lot and were disassembling the van.
Anyways, while I was there, I asked him if I could borrow the jingle CDs from over the years so I could make copies for my growing collection of radio jingles.
I think I’ve mentioned before that my absolute favorite part of being Program Director of a Top 40 radio station was orchestrating the sound of the station. I loved being clever with those little “Mr. Voice” thingees you heard between songs (i.e., “Let’s keep it simple, the other station sucks. This is Wow FM, The Beat of Central New York.”) Once I was bestowed with a budget for that sort of thing, I went for the big time and bought professionally made jingles every year.
I love radio station jingles. You can travel all over the country and hear the same jingles from your favorite station back home, just with different words. I knew that I had picked the right jingles for the station when I heard a group of kids singing them in the mall. I called this jingle “The Anthem”.
The Anthem. If you lived in Seattle in the mid 1990s, this probably sounds familiar from KUBE 93.
I first introduced the area to the screaming diva jingles with this one. This would sound familiar to someone living in Indianapolis and listening to “99 and a half ZPL”.
I picked another jingle to play every hour beginning at Friday 5:00 p.m. and going right through until Sunday at midnight. That would Weekends Sound Best. If you listened to 103.5 ‘KTU in New York in the late 1990s, that one probably sounds a little familiar.
I have a generic version of the jingle I call Move To It, and I often play it between songs while I’m spinning in a club. Another ‘KTU favorite.
And of course, simple is always best, as illustrated with one of the basic jingles you’d hear sprinkled between your two favorite songs.
Back in the day Earl would occasionally comment that I had the gayest sounding radio station in the land (go figure), as we’d kick off commercial free music with “Get ready for another Wow FM Beat Blitz (random sound clip, for example “Thank You Sir, may I have another!” or “Oh Zephyr Winds which blow on high, lift me now so I can fly!”) and then segue into a screaming diva jingle*.
Ah, the good ol’ days.
* When I first contacted Reelworld Productions to produce our jingles based on what I had heard elsewhere, I found out the female singer’s name was Karen. I was surprised by this, because I always thought she sounded like a Shaniqua and I told them so. They’d heard that before.
