What's with the New York radio industry?

New York's FM oldies station, WCBS-FM, changed its format on Friday from oldies (music from the '50s through the early '80s) and is now calling itself "Jack." It has expanded its playlist from about 500 songs to about 1,400.

One radio executive told the New York Post: "Now there's no oldies station in the world's largest radio market."

Well, if you have satellite radio, you can fiddle between stations dedicated to '50s, '60s, '70s and '80s music to get your fix. If you have an iPod, you can just store and listen to your own.

A few months ago, New York's smooth jazz station changed its format to something called "Chill" (essentially, fewer "smooth jazz" songs and more Moby and island music.) The station's ratings have barely budged since.

Change in anything is inevitable, but it seems radio programmers around the country are pushing the panic button as satellite radio and iPod Nation are taking ears away. But one of the things local radio has always done best is community-building - the very thing now being done well on blogs, in Podcasts and, to an extent, on satellite radio. And, if you count that iPod owners are in many ways coming to think of themselves as part of the same "club," Apple is creating a community as well.

Radio stations are taking what communities they have left, and, in many cases, telling them to hit the road. Jack.