[1] "Classic hits" have been seen as a successor to the oldies format on the radio, with music from the 1980s serving as the core example.
[2] Oldies radio typically features artists such as Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, The Beatles, Jerry Lee Lewis, The Beach Boys, Frankie Avalon, The Four Seasons,[3] Paul Anka, Neil Sedaka, Little Richard[4] and Sam Cooke; as well as such musical movements and genres as early rock and roll, rockabilly, doo-wop, soul music, Motown, British Invasion, early girl groups, surf music, teen idol singers, teenage tragedy songs, and bubblegum pop.
A drawback to this concept is the constant heavy rotation and repetition of the station's program library, as well as rejection of the format by active listeners.
[6] Oldies is known for the near-total and sometimes arbitrary exclusion of some acts that were very popular in their time, including The Osmonds[7] and Barbra Streisand.
KOOL-FM in Phoenix became one of the first radio stations to play Oldies music, at that time focusing on the 1950s and early 1960s.
There were also syndicated music format packages such as Drake-Chenault's "Solid Gold" format, frequently used on FM stations that needed separate programming from their AM sisters (due to then-new FCC rules on simulcasting), that functioned as a hybrid of Oldies and the adult-oriented softer rock hits of the day.
The popularity of the movie American Graffiti is often credited with helping to spur the 1950s nostalgia movement of the early 1970s.
Among these Oldies stations were WNBC in New York City before 1988, WDRC-FM in Hartford, Connecticut, WODS in Boston, WOGL in Philadelphia, KLUV in Dallas, WWSW in Pittsburgh, WJMK in Chicago, and CHUM in Toronto.
This period also saw the rise of syndicated radio shows specifically aimed at an Oldies format.
They included Soundtrack of the 1960s with Murray the K, Dick Clark's Rock, Roll & Remember, Live from the '60s with The Real Don Steele, Cruisin' America with Cousin Brucie, and Rock & Roll's Greatest Hits with Dick Bartley.
At the same time, WCBS-FM featured slightly more pre 1964 songs than the average station playing as many as five of those per hour.
WCBS-FM canceled their "Doo Wop Shop" program and began playing only one pre-1964 oldie per hour; by 2003, there were fewer than 50 songs from the 1950s and early 1960s in the regular rotation.
On June 3, 2005, New York City's WCBS-FM, an Oldies-based station for over three decades, abruptly switched to the Jack FM format, resulting in a tremendous outcry from Oldies fans in the Big Apple and a huge decline in revenue followed.
The Oldies format returned to WCBS-FM on July 12, 2007, in an updated form featuring music from 1964 to 1989 without the word "Oldies", but rather "Greatest Hits" in the on-air positioning, with songs such as "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" by Cyndi Lauper, "Gloria" by Laura Branigan, and corporate rock hit "We Built This City" by Starship in rotation (though the original WCBS-FM played current hits mixed in with its Oldies as late as the late 1980s and the three songs mentioned here during most of their years).
Some of the most successful major-market Oldies stations today include KRTH "K-Earth 101" in Los Angeles, XHPRS-FM "105.7 the Walrus" in Tijuana-San Diego, KOLA 99.9 in Riverside-San Bernandino KYNO in Fresno, California, 98.1 WOGL in Philadelphia, WMJI "Majic 105.7" in Cleveland, and KSPF in Dallas.
However, KFRC had already evolved its format and positioning to classic hits at the time it changed to "Movin".
KZQZ, which aired in St. Louis, and began playing Oldies in March 2008, held onto the traditional Oldies format, playing a wide variety of top 40 Billboard hits from the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s, until the FCC forced the station off the air in 2020.
In North America, satellite radio broadcasters XM and Sirius launched in 2001 and 2002, respectively, with more than a dozen Oldies radio channels, with XM offering separate stations for each decade from the 1940s to the 1990s, and Sirius doing the same for the 1950s through the 1980s, initially all in prime single-digit channel positions.
[14][15] These pay radio channels boasted thousands of songs in their libraries, ensuring far less repetition than traditional broadcast stations.
In November 2008, following a merger of Sirius and XM, the two services shifted to a unified group of decades channels, with the playlists for most cut back to reflect a more conventional style of Oldies programming.
From the late 2010s until 2022, shortwave radio station WTWW operated an Oldies service in the evening hours.