True Oldies 106.7 now officially Atlanta's Greatest Hits 106.7 with 1970s the focus

On Thanksgiving, the music became much more  heavily 1970s mix as opposed to a blend of 1960s and 1970s.

So fans of the Dave Clark 5, Herman's Hermits and the like won't be hearing much from that crew anymore. A few choice cuts from big '60s acts such as the Supremes, Elvis Presley and the Beatles remain but now it's more about Elton John, Fleetwood Mac and the Doobie Brothers.

On Thanksgiving, only 49 songs, or about two an hour, were from the 1960s. The 1970s? 256 songs, or more than 10 an hour. There were also 37 songs from the 1980s or one to two an hour. The average age of a song was 1973 and 74% of the songs were from the 1970s, up from 44% the previous Monday.

On November 22,  in comparison, six songs were from the '50s, 175 were from the 1960s, 157 were from the 1970s and  nine were from the 1980s. The average age of a song was 1970.

UPDATE on Dec. 4, 2010: It appears the weekly playlist is about 800 songs, still considered very deep, though less so than under the old format. The core music used to be 1964 to 1974. Now, it's 1969 to 1979. On Friday, Dec. 3, the top 9 most played artists were the Eagles, Elton John, James Taylor, the Beatles, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Chicago, Neil Diamond, Fleetwood Mac and Paul McCartney. The average age of the song that day was 1974.

The station, whose listeners had been naturally skewing older with its music mix, is chasing after people in their 40s and 50s by adding more 1970s and '80s music. The hope is to draw more advertisers who prefer younger listeners. Greatest Hits is also targeting a similar audience as that of 97.1/The River (which is dubbed "classic hits" and is all rock) though the sound is much softer and includes R&B and pop on top of rock.

The station will presumably continue to play a deeper playlist. As True Oldies, it would often play more than 1,000 different songs a given week. The River has only about 250 different songs on its playlist.

Here was a typical hour of True Oldies a week ago Nov. 22, before the shift, according to Mediabase 24/7:

4:01 p.m. Beatles "Good Day Sunshine" 1966

4:04 p.m. Billy Preston "Nothing From Nothing" 1974

4:06 p.m. Procol Harum "A Whiter Shade of Pale" 1967

4:10 p.m. Linda Ronstadt "That'll Be the Day" 1976

4:13 p.m. Four Tops "Baby I Need Your Loving" 1964

4:15 p.m. Johnny Nash "Stir it Up" 1972

4:18 p.m. Arthur Conley "Sweet Soul Music" 1967

4:25 p.m. Stories "Brother Louie" 1973

4:28 p.m. Mamas & Papas "California Dreamin' " 1966

4:31 p.m. Three Dog Night "One" 1969

4:40 p.m. Crystals "Da Doo Ron Ron" 1963

4:42 p.m. Seals & Crofts "Get Closer" 1976

4:45 p.m. Natalie Cole "This Will Be" 1975

4:48 p.m. Badfinger "Baby Blue" 1971

4:57 p.m. Pointer Sisters "Fire" 1978

Here is an hour of Atlanta's Greatest Hits from Sunday November 28:

4:01 p.m. Leo Sayer "When I Need You" 1977

4:04 p.m. Eagles "Witchy Woman" 1972

4:09 p.m. Bread "Make It With You" 1970

4:12 p.m. Wilson Pickett "In the Midnight Hour" 1965

4:14 p.m. Roberta Flack/Donny Hathaway "Where is the Love" 1972

4:17 p.m. Sly & the Family Stone "I Want to Take You Higher" 1969

4:20 p.m. Men at Work "Down Under" 1982

4:23 p.m. America "A Horse With No Name" 1972

4:27 p.m. Vicki Lawrence "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia" 1973

4:31 p.m. Hall & Oates "Private Eyes" 1983

4:38 p.m. Cliff Richard "We Don't Talk Anymore" 1979

4:42 p.m. Dr. Hook "When You're In Love With a Beautiful Woman" 1979

4:45 p.m. Three Dog Night "One" 1969

4:48 p.m. Elton John "The Bitch is Back" 1974

4:55 p.m. Pilot "Magic" 1975

4:58 p.m. Beatles "Something" 1969

The station has also extended Randy & Spiff to 10 a.m. from 9 a.m. And local jock Kristen Charles takes over the mid-day slot today at 10 a.m. from Scott Shannon, as reported last week.

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By Rodney Ho, rho@ajc.com, AJCRadioTV blog