How could two people have invented the Variety Hits format separately? What gives?
Is it really that surprising? Hits=ratings. Howard Kroeger’s creation in Winnipeg came as the result of trying to find hit songs from the past and present that appealed to P35-54 (Adults ages 35-54, to put that in non-radio terms). Bob Perry, meanwhile, was an old-school jock who had disdain for what corporate radio had become with its tight playlists and narrow formats. Longing for how things used to be, he made an internet radio station (Jack FM) that went against all of what’s out there today. The grand irony, of course, is that what Perry created is now what major media companies are licensing to use and/or copying and modifying slightly for their own taste. The idea of a non-format format (which is what the Variety Hits format is, in a nutshell) was an idea whose time had come. It just so happens that two people came about it in very separate ways at about the same time. These things happen.
