Y’know, MikeG, you and I have it a lot better than other “road warriors” out there (about 20k miles for me annually), living in Chicago. From what my friends in other parts of the country tell me, we have it REALLY good.
If you like any “classic rock” and don’t listen to Drive FM (97.1) ,give it a try…they play a lot of non-single tracks.
As I just mentioned, we have a “Drive FM” in Chicago. about 2 years ago, I was wondering if the “deep cuts” theory was goin to be the next ig format-thing. Do any other posters have a really good 60’s/70’s rock station in their cities?
NothingMan. I have heard the same things from other radio friends. One of them got a job at XRT, and he’s been there for 15 years without fear (supposedly). I guess that there are stations immune from the whole format-switch issue?
Uckkkkhh. Do you really listen to Q104.3? It’s awful. Classic Rock? I think it should be renamed Homogenized, Test-Marketed, Repetitious Pebbles.
Here’s a shocker, as of 10:45AM today - on their website, the last 6 songs they played:[ol][]Captain Jack - Billy Joel[]Sometimes You Can’t Make It on Your Own - U2[]With or Without You - U2[]Touch Me - The Doors[]L.A. Woman - The Doors[]You’re My Best Friend - Queen[*]Somebody to Love - Queen[/ol]2-Fer Tuesday…Twice the Bleak as the Rest of the Week. :eek:
Somehow I doubt it. I think the aim is to give a perception of bigger variety, and for a while, that might seem to be tha case. If the previous station played 350 songs, soft rock, from 1990 - '05, then playing 350 songs pop-rock from '75-'05 is gonna seem to be more varied. They can avoid this with plateau programming. But the idea that the DJs pick their own music - not gonna happen.
The radio stations are trying to shuffle around the same old stuff, re-label it, promote in a different way, but let’s face it, any major market station, be they Clear Channel or indie, that goes on the air with a playlist of more than 500 songs will fail.
I notice that Q104.3 is doing Twofer-tuesday… Didn’t that concept die in '97?
The other “bads” in my experience - pay stinks for most everyone except a relative few in the biggest markets.
Plus, you work for crazy people. Often they are obnoxious, crazy people.
Anecdote: Once upon a time I worked for a radio station that could have served as an inspiration for WKRP in Cincinnati (our boss was actually known as “The Big Guy” and we had a sales manager named Herb). I was driving into work one day when I came upon a road accident. Someone had veered into the oncoming lane and forced Herb’s car into the ditch. When I arrived at work and reported this, there was spontaneous cheering.
Fie on thee, Zev. I think Jack is the best thing that has come along in rock radio for ages.
I’m guessing I’m probably in the same demographic as you; I grew up in the ‘classic rock era’, but man, that stuff was getting old! IMO most of those bands were second rate and merely riding on the tails of the really good bands of the Sixties and Seventies. The classic rock stations seemed to be recycling the same hits by Bad Company, Boston, Foreigner, BTO, etc., ad infinitum. If I never hear “I Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love” again, it’ll be too soon…
(whew!!)
On the other hand I don’t know why they had to fire all the DJs. Mickey Dolenz, for instance, has been a successful musician since the Monkee years, and has even acquired some street cred.
I grew up listening to WCBS-FM. I think I still have a couple of the Christmas albums they released. Cousin Brucie was like another family member. Anytime I went anywhere with my mom as a kid, that’s what we listened to. This is sad for radio. Very sad.
you would think the jack format would be right up my alley, I listen to SoundGarden-Steely Dan, K.D. Lang-Kings of Leon, Henry Mancini-Helmet but sadly Jack seems to play 90% of the crap we all wish would never see the light of day again.
if you find yourself in the Seattle area I Highly Recomend you check out Kmtt (103.7) they have a great crew and a very varied song list AND they have a 9-12:00 show called the “chill side of the mountain” where they play a mix of acid jazz style electronica and other kinda mellow grooving music…keep in mind this is a major station in the Seattle market.
http://www.kmtt.com/ you can sign up for their membership thing and then stream over the net here.
I haven’t heard anything like this on our Jack station. To be fair, though, it might be worth pointing out that years ago, as the opening act of one of its annual Christmas concerts, K-ROQ in Pasadena had none other than The Village People. The headliner was Adam Ant. I don’t know why they would have chosen the VP, unless it was for their nostalgic or camp value. The station you tried listening to might have chosen that music for similar reasons.
I’d like it a lot less if the ‘Jack’ station in my area had replaced an alternative rock station, but it didn’t.
Thank you, The Gaspode. I was going crazy reading everyone bash Clear Channel. Believe me, I have reason to despise CC as much as anyone (they fired my brother when they bought the station he worked at) but in this case Infinity is the culprit. And when it comes to the radio business, there’s enough hate to go around.
What strikes me as most odd about this situation is that Infinity has two other FM stations in New York. One has been totally adrift for the past two years or more and the other is not doing well in the ratings books and is about to lose Howard Stern. Why flip the one marginally successful station you have in the world’s biggest market instead of one of your two weaker entries?
If I decided to start a station, and found that there is a potential for an 80’s oldies station, I have to try to decide what 80’s music. Michael Jackson, The Cure, Beastie Boys, Bon Jovi, Madonna, Prince, Chicago House, late 80’s techno, Depeche Mode, Phil Collins? Some of these are possible to combine, others aren’t. A fan of early 80’s new wave won’t be very happy with a station that programs Milli Vanilli, and vice versa.
When we made the market test, we didn’t only find out that there’s a potential for an 80’s station, we also found out that it should play top40 stuff and be mainstream (more on this later). So typical songs would be Material Girl, Easy Lover, Purple Rain, Livin on a prayer, Bad, Money for Nothing.
Quick - name 500 great songs that fit the bill.
OK, take your time. It’ll still be hard. Now, you might say that you don’t like this music, but as a station owner or PD or music director, it’s dangerous to let your own musical taste influence you too much. This is a business, and you need to cater to your audience.
Anyway, you found about 800 songs from the 80’s that fit the format. Some are more obscure (e.g. Tempted by Squeeze) and some can’t be avoided (Billie Jean). Now it’stime to test them on a focus group. There are a whole bunch of parameters, but to keep things simple, let’s say we ask a 1000 people, and they get to grade the songs on a scale from 1-10. We find that 80 songs get the score ten. These are obvious choices and must be played. You might feel like vomiting when you hear Foreigner - I want to know what love is, but the focius group give it a ten, so you’d better play it.
Let’s add all songs that get nine: 105 more. All that get eight: 130; seven 175. This makes 485 songs. If you start adding more songs, you’ll basically add music that’s not very much liked. For every song that rates at six, you’re gonna have a bunch of potential listeners that go “huh?” or “What? Not that again!”
Of course, there are a whole bunch of people who, when they hear the type of songs that are played on your station, decide to never listen again: New Wave fans, metal hair fans ASF. But you’re not catering to them - you’re trying to win the people who want light rock, pop, top40 from the eighties. And if you don’t fulfill their expectations (By playing Madonna, Michael Jackson and REO Speedwagon) you’re gonna get bad ratings or open yourself to a more focused station.
Sometimes you might survive, not by design, but by default, since there is no competition, but the minute Clear Channel realizes this when they’re looking for a new format for a new station, you’re gonna get creamed.
But why pick this format? Basically because the potential audince for this station is very big - and this is because most people aren’t really interested in music. They like music and will prefer a station which plays songs that they can hum along to, as they commute. But their interest doesn’t reach a level where they might decide to even download Tempted by Squeeze, let alone buy a greatest hits compilation by the group.
This is, of course, the fault of the FCC, which took away the rule about owning five stations, the subsequent consolidation, and - mostly - the cutting edge marketing machine of Clear Channel. We might not like the way CC programs teir stations, but they have been very sucessful for a long time and have forced the competition to play along.
However, I predict the death of FM radio as we know it in less than ten years. The new radio platform will be cellphones. What that’ll mean for how stations are programmed? I dunno.
On preview: Critical1, I’d love to see a cite for that 5000 number, which I doubt very much. I’ve just gone through their homepage and can’t find a reference.
The Gaspode, former PD, and alumnus of working with Coleman Research.
I have to retract some of my earlier enthusiasm about Jack radio. It so happens that I just heard a piece about it on NPR, and was disappointed to hear that it’s still all ‘hits’. The only difference is that the hits are taken from a wider range of decades. So I shouldn’t expect to hear cool album cuts or interesting new stuff.
While I still think it’s better than the old classic rock format, it now appears that’s the best I can say about it.
Ummm…it’ll make the other 2 stations look a whole lot better?
In conventional business it’s often said that you “Don’t mess with success.” In media, you very often do mess with success, especially if it keeps the marketing heads happy.
They changed WJMKs format??? That sucks. I liked to occasionally listen when I was in the oldie mood.Maybe I should hang on to the station T-Shirt Dick Biondi gave me for being so cute. Think it’ll be worth anything?
