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WKLB Thoughts

O

Out Of Towner

Guest
I was in New England for the week visiting family and thought I'd listen to WKLB, I've read a lot about their success over the last year or so, but never really listen because I live in Dallas.

I checked them out several different times on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday before flying home, I have to admit... I don't get it. The presentation is stale, the music is blah and the jocks aren't anything to write home about. And I think a good part of Thursday and Friday were voicetracked! Come on, it's market #10! They can't pay a part timer to work on Thanksgiving during the day? Instead of a live jock, it was generic tracked nonsense that was probably recorded Wednesday afternoon in a rush to get out for the holiday.

The imaging just didn't say anything. I found it odd that they use the phrase "another extra-long music sweep" as a music quantifier. First of all, how long is "extra-long"? Is it ten minutes? An hour? And "sweep" is a radio term, to the listener it's something you do with a broom. It means nothing, the phrase is useless. The imaging should be capturing the lifestyle of the listener and how popular the format and artists are right now.

I know they've had success over the last several months, but I have to guess its because the format is hot and there's no one else doing the format in town. I also am not sure Boston could support a second country station, so the odds of someone else signing on and cleaning WKLB's clock are slim.

All in all, not what I expected to hear. No sizzle, no pop, nothing relatable from the jocks or imaging and bad a lame music mix. Just my two cents, but there's big room for improvement there.
 
It has done well recently indeed and people seem to like it. Thus I don't think it'd change. If they had lousy ratings or billing they could become yet another sports station or any number of formats. Yup it has the country audience to itself (though there are rimshotters
like 97.5, 98.1, etc.) and it was said for years that Boston wouldn't embrace country. Those from places with lots of stations, well done ones, can probably see it as stale or watered down. (Like the Monty Python joke about American beer being like having sex in a boat:
it's effing close to water.) But there is a bit of country following here and Kenny Chesney sold out shows at Gillette very fast, and they do like WKLB.

Places like Dallas and of course Nashville will have all sorts of country stations (indeed when I flew to Music City and got my rental car I scanned both dials and got a huge amount of country stations). Are you sure Hank done it this way?* Well, in Boston the audience
(mainly female, young-middle aged etc) has only one CW station in town and it seems to work. Some were shocked when KLB
hit #1, etc. Mike Brophey and the gang at 55 Morrissey Blvd. are sittin' pretty and that's all the GM beancounters
want.

*-- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNpLSaCirj8

http://bostonradiowatch.blogspot.com/2011/02/wklbs-brophey-named-no.html
2011:
>>WKLB/Country 102.5's program director Mike Brophey has been recognized as the best in the business.by Radio Ink...Brophey who joined WKLB in September 1996 has been named as the No. 1 large-market radio programmer in the country.
... the station is coming off its best ratings period ever.

---
This is Boston...This Ain't Dallas :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CwY1WJgRkw
 
Last edited:
Out Of Towner said:
All in all, not what I expected to hear. No sizzle, no pop, nothing relatable from the jocks or imaging and bad a lame music mix. Just my two cents, but there's big room for improvement there.
Click to expand...

WKLB is like the Magic 106.7 of country stations. It's dependable, easy to listen to as you work... but it's very music-focused, rather than personality-focused. If you've ever listened to WSIX in Nashville, in particular Bobby Bones in AM Drive, you'll see it's a lot more like the Kiss 108 of country. And that might have something to do with WSIX needing to differentiate themselves from WSM, WSM-FM, and WKDF. While WOKQ and WCTK do make it into parts of the market, WKLB pretty much runs the show in Boston.

But I think your observations are spot-on, and with all due respect to the great team at WKLB, I'd agree that their recent success stems from the popularity of country nationwide, rather than any particular happenings at 55 Morrissey.
 
Washington, DC has one Country station. Baltimore has one Country station. Philly has one Country station. Et cetera, et cetera.

Boston & WKLB used to be considered unusual, but not now. Why? Because agencies won't buy Country two-deep. And, unlike the myriad variations of pop, rock & Urban, the Country audience doesn't seem to facilitate slices of Country--at least not well enough to generate sellable demo numbers.

But, back to Boston--has KLB always been extremely conservative and a cash-flow machine. Yup. It's the way monopolies work.
 
And while it does get good ratings/billing, various owners here haven't seen the need to try and chip away at the KLB audience. This is why we don't have CBS trying it on 104.1, CC on 101.7 etc. Would "classic country 1200" work for CC? No, so they get $ from Bloomberg. We've joked about it--and in fact when WFNX re-emerged under CC ownership as "the Harbor" there was a snippet of a country song before "Dirty Water" played a few times, almost jokingly leading us to wonder if it would be country! Nope.

Those who want other choices here,should WKLB not please you:
--The Wolf, WKLB-FM HD2 (also on smartphones & computers)
--The rimshotters
--Various country, folk, bluegrass channels on XM/Sirius
--Smartphone apps like TuneIn. If you want a country station from Vermont, Pittsburgh, Nashville, Tucson, Dallas--you got it!
On just basic web streaming on the computer. There are also streams on apps like Screamer Radio.
 
#1 recently, wasn't it? Maybe it dropped some shares but it did finally hit #1 and has been among the top stations in recent books
 
Maybe 103.3 Amp radio should try country? If programmed right, e.g. good live personalities and promotions, mixed with good country music that is not just the same old overplayed songs could generate some numbers and take a chunk of listeners, probably not all of course, from WKLB. What do they have to lose, it might possibly perform better in the ratings than the Top-40 programming on 103.3 now? They could even use the WBCS calll letters! "Were 103.3, WBCS, Boston's Country Station with yesterday's classic country and today's hot new country all on one station!
 
wcozBoston said:
Maybe 103.3 Amp radio should try country? If programmed right, e.g. good live personalities and promotions, mixed with good country music that is not just the same old overplayed songs could generate some numbers and take a chunk of listeners, probably not all of course, from WKLB. What do they have to lose, it might possibly perform better in the ratings than the Top-40 programming on 103.3 now? They could even use the WBCS calll letters! "Were 103.3, WBCS, Boston's Country Station with yesterday's classic country and today's hot new country all on one station!
Click to expand...

How far back do you want to go with "yesterday's classic country"? If you go much farther back than the "new traditionalist" explosion of the late '80s (Randy Travis, Clint Black, Garth Brooks, Keith Whitley, Patty Loveless, Pam Tillis, etc.) you risk playing music that will bring more poison 55+ listeners than the ad agencies want to see. Maybe some of the "outlaw" era stuff would still work (the harder-edged Hank Jr. and Waylon Jennings stuff, for example), but reintroducing '70s/early '80s acts like Eddie Rabbitt, Don Williams or Loretta Lynn to the market would make as much sense as putting Hank Sr., Ernest Tubb and Kitty Wells on the playlist.

Actually, I'm not sure there are many listeners in the upper end of 25-54 -- the ones who might have gotten interested in country during the Clint Black, etc. years -- who are at all interested in what's being sold as "country music" today, so a "hits of yesterday and today" format may be just too diverse to build an audience that will stay tuned for long stretches.
 
I never understood the "long music sweep" imaging either...too inside radio of a term. WKLB is a good station, not great, but you don't need to be great when there is 0 competition. However, unlike the author of this post, I think the jocks are very good at what they do there.
 
Out Of Towner said:
I was in New England for the week visiting family and thought I'd listen to WKLB, I've read a lot about their success over the last year or so, but never really listen because I live in Dallas.

I checked them out several different times on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday before flying home, I have to admit... I don't get it. The presentation is stale, the music is blah and the jocks aren't anything to write home about. And I think a good part of Thursday and Friday were voicetracked! Come on, it's market #10! They can't pay a part timer to work on Thanksgiving during the day? Instead of a live jock, it was generic tracked nonsense that was probably recorded Wednesday afternoon in a rush to get out for the holiday.

The imaging just didn't say anything. I found it odd that they use the phrase "another extra-long music sweep" as a music quantifier. First of all, how long is "extra-long"? Is it ten minutes? An hour? And "sweep" is a radio term, to the listener it's something you do with a broom. It means nothing, the phrase is useless. The imaging should be capturing the lifestyle of the listener and how popular the format and artists are right now.

I know they've had success over the last several months, but I have to guess its because the format is hot and there's no one else doing the format in town. I also am not sure Boston could support a second country station, so the odds of someone else signing on and cleaning WKLB's clock are slim.

All in all, not what I expected to hear. No sizzle, no pop, nothing relatable from the jocks or imaging and bad a lame music mix. Just my two cents, but there's big room for improvement there.
Click to expand...

I think your first paragraph sums up your entire synopsis. You're from Dallas. WKLB is a Boston station. The product is consumed different in Dallas than it is in Boston.
 
Well it is true that you don't want to go way back--Aaron Tippin and Kitty's "Dust on the Bible" back to back!

Some little AM stations playing classic country might work. But not necessarily here. (I think I do remember one in Randolph VT
for awhile....and someone used to send me tapes of AM 1090 in Seattle, classic country; that later went to prog talk and is now
CBS Sports).
A tape trader from Texas used to send me "K-T-F-Dubya..."

There are other options for those who want classic country--Hillbilly at Harvard still on? Maybe even some cuts on MBR's Backwoods.
And the occasonal Marty Robbins song on WJIB :)
 
They are great. The only thing they need to do is put on "The Big Time" (Westwoodone.com) Put that on Monday-Fridays, and "The Big Time Saturday Night" put that on Saturdays. That is one of the best radio shows.
Other than that, this station is great
 
MR. JAROME_CALVIN said:
They are great. The only thing they need to do is put on "The Big Time" (Westwoodone.com)
Other than that, this station is great
Click to expand...

We're baaaaaccck!

Nice to see Lauro is still suggesting more syndicated programming from Los Angeles as to what would make our Boston stations great again!
 
Agree with the OP. When you're the only game in town, why try very hard?
 
While their presentation is more music intensive and less "wow" factor.....who says they are not trying?

They must be doing something right....aren't these the best Country ratings ever in Boston?
 
I tried and tried looking on this whole topic for a (Laura) whoever he or she is, they have every right what to write and respond. If you don't know about the response, don't say nothing at all. Who cares what she or he write. What do you know about it. Do you know anything in their response? If not, keep your words to yourself and shut up
 
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