Shawn Quinn - Program Director

2020 Vision for Classic Rock

"In this bright future you can't forget your past.” -Bob Marley, No Woman No Cry. The first quarter of 2020 isn’t just the start of a new year, it's the start of a new decade. And although Bob Marley first sang those words five decades ago they ring just as true today in the world of classic rock radio. Following the huge success of the 2019 film “Bohemian Rhapsody”, based on the rise to fame of classic rock core artist Queen, and the Motley Crue tale of debauchery “The Dirt” that was a hit for Netflix, plus the inclusion of the Who, Foreigner, Aerosmith and more in major advertising campaigns; 2020 is set to be an amazing year for classic rock. Even the Super Bowl 54 halftime show, a performance by two of the biggest Latin American female artists of all time, took time to pay tribute to Led Zeppelin and Bruce Springsteen. Programmers must take advantage of the continued rise in the sales of artists’ back catalogs, vinyl records outselling CDs in 2019, and more classic rock bands back on the road investing in multi-city multimillion dollar tours. With other media and advertisers continuing to utilize the music we program on our stations daily, combined with more artists on the road, plus the adoption of classic rock in fashion, and more core artists growing from “a good band” to “an iconic brand”; the future seems very bright for those of us who still love hearing guitars shred, drummers rock, and singers wail while we are behind the wheel.