the story over at dcist on the switch is worth checking out... this quote from Clear Channel shows just how out of touch they are with what listeners of all ages might want out of a radio station.
"The audience [for oldies] is getting older and going away, it's hard to attain new audience [with the format]. We have to make the music more accessible to more people. We think this is a natural evolution."
DCist The fact of the matter is that as the commenters are pointing out people of all ages can like oldies... Beatles, Beach Boys, Motown, etc are at this point timeless. If Clear Channel would only program something other than a very limited number of oldies then they could create a viable station. Little Steven plays "oldies" and he has a popular show.
It's a shame Rhino Records hasn't gotten into the radio programming business, they could come up with interesting playlists oldies or otherwise and use it sell their products.
One could hope that at some point after the big corps have squeezed out every ounce of creativity and still not covering their huge debts, a fire sale of radio stations takes place and savvy local business people can snap them up and bring back to the airwaves the creative programming that made radio interesting in the past. WNTY has a nice ring to it...