I noticed the other day that ALT 92.3 is now running spots. The imaging is freshening up too. Any thoughts on who air talent will be?
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ALT 92.3
- Thread starter leethalweapon
- Start date
I saw a billboard for it on my way to work today, so I listened to it for a while. The mix of music is a lot better. Feels fairly conservative (everything that they were labeling as "new" or "discovery" is stuff that's been out for months in other places, but at least they're stretching a bit). I didn't hear anything that I would not think of "alternative", which is a major improvement from their first days on air. Decent mix of 90s alternative with new stuff, but the 90s stuff is definitely "best of". Not a lot of "back of the wall" stuff to be found. Still, the mix of music was good enough for me to keep it on for the 30+ minutes of my commute, so I'd say that's a positive for sure. I will still be curious to see what their billings look like in the coming months to see how sustainable the format really is. I mean, RXP never did great, and I thought they did some great stuff programming wise.
Sampling them today from here in Orange County, CA; not bad at all, decent selection, uptempo, really nice segues, I'd say they are doing fine; Had to laugh when I heard the liner about discover new music and they played Moon Taxi's "Two High", LOL. Oh well probably better than the rest of the dial for good rock music
It takes a new format in a major, transactional metro like NYC 6 months to a year to develop significant billings.
Agencies generally look at 3 to 6 month rolling ratings averages, and if they buy on early trends, they will be asking for discounts... significant ones.
We know that the best this format is capable of doing is about a 3 share over all. If they can get top 5 in the adult male demos it will be a success for this format in New York. Then there is the fact that outside of heritage stations, alternative formatted stations get very low billings for their ratings. In Philly 104.5 has been top 3 in all the best demos yet is one of the lowest billing full market signals. I just hope that the expectations are kept reasonable. I love the station. It seems to have more variety and tempo then any of the hot ac and chr offerings in the market!
The hopeful thing to consider is that iHeart in Philly has a different cluster make-up than Entercom NY. Entercom's NY sales staff is selling WFAN. What's their demo? Adult men. So if they cross-sell sports and alternative, that can be an effective pitch. The additive numbers are pretty good.
Maybe, but sports station that chase very similar male demos as alternative stations do(sure a little older for sports) get a boatload of cash, their ratios of sales to ratings is the best of all formats. Look at Philly. 97.5 with sports has super low ratings, the lowest ratings in the market for full market signal fms. Yet, they out bill 104.5, even when 104.5 was #1 and #2 in 18-34, 18-49, and 25-54! Obviously the thought from the beginning was to package the fan and 92.3 together as a strong combo for reaching male adults in NYC. It remains to be seen just how well that will work out for Entercom. All markets are different, Philly is not as ethnic as NYC is for sure, but all over the nation alternative stations get very poor sales for the numbers they bring in outside of a few heritage stations.
I would argue that the make up of today's Alternative audience is now female skewed. With a lot of the artists having crossover potential, I would say that there might be more audience sharing with FRESH or PLJ. That's a pretty ease sell.
That could be, and it might help broaden the demo base for the format. But from what I've seen, the easiest way for an alternative act to kill off their fan base is to give in to the lure of a cross-over hit. I'd imagine the more an artist heads in that direction, the less appeal they will have to fans of the format.
and it wouldnt hurt to throw in some 70s punk ala pistols/ramones type tunes, 80's early 90s ala flys/screaming trees type, that was the main staple when WRFF was born over 10 years ago until they became more female friendly, but like everyone agrees, thats the audiance they want, not hard Alternative that is male driven.
How big a role does auditorium testing and the like have when trying to, basically, re-establish a format that has been moribund to nonexistent in many markets for years? Do songs still have to "test well" with a broad range of people before being broadcast or will the ALT-branded stations be allowed to throw stuff at the wall initially and see what sticks?
I think the answer depends on the station. Entercom's CEO has made a point to say CBS had not done enough research with their stations, and they were going to change that. In this case, we're only a couple months into this format, and we're not at the point where they have to prove anything yet. So my sense is they're using these early months to throw the spaghetti at the wall, and then they'll do more active testing as they approach the spring. Ultimately, if you have the luxury to test on the air, the results should be more definitive than testing off air.
How broad do you want it?
http://www.insideradio.com/this-is-...cle_e431b3fe-fa99-11e7-bcf7-ef9157f2f5bc.html
"Today’s alternative stations are not like those that dotted the radio dial during the early days of the format. Alt outlets are breaking artists like Twenty One Pilots, Imagine Dragons and Portugal. The Man, which have gone on to have mainstream success at hot AC and CHR. The format has also matured beyond 18-34 appeal, with a strong pull for the 25-54 demo. And guitar-driven grunge is no longer the main course; it is now the spice to a music playlist with much broader appeal.
“Today’s audience, regardless of format, doesn’t put the sonic boundaries on the music that sometimes the industry does,” Entercom Alternative Format Captain Michael Martin tells Inside Radio. “Alternative today is not limiting. It’s an exciting format that can, and is, stretching beyond the previous music boundaries."
I'm not questioning what you're saying about the radio format. What I'm saying is the alternative audience is perhaps the least musically tolerant of any genre. All you have to do is dig up the threads about RXP. Endless complaints about practically every song they played. It's why some programmers steer clear of the format. There's no question that you can homogenize alternative just as you can country or any other style of music. All I'm saying is there are consequences when you do it.
Library testing has a big role in launching or relaunching a format.
Caveat: the testing itself is as likely today to be done online as in a meeting room or "auditorium"
The hardest thing is to define a core audience for a station with no heritage and a format with an erratic history. Generally, listeners are recruited in such cases by, first, being in the target demo and, second, listening to several pods of compatible music and if they like most of the pods, they get invited to be part of a test.
Online testing is based on a direct recruit, and is not self-recruiting.
I heard a promo on ALT 103.7 in Dallas, the eluded to a real-time music test, all day next Tuesday. I’ve also heard Radio 94.7 in Sacramento do a smaller weekly version of the music test on Sunday morning.
Generally, that kind of on air music test is done as a stunt to show listeners that the station cares about playing the "right" music.
A self-recruited sample is generally useless for anything except the promotional value, although in limited form they can add a little guidance to more formal research. Generally, though, they are audience involvement promotions, not research.
I remember when WWYZ, the country station here, used to do a "make it or break it" feature every Tuesday -- play a new song, then take listener calls while the next two or three songs are playing, then announce the results and whether the song will be added to the playlist or not. The only time I ever heard a rejection was for Vince Gill's "When I Call Your Name." True to their word, the song wasn't added that week. But it was brought back the very next Tuesday as a "make it or break it" song, and won! Obviously, Gill was red hot at the time and that song was guaranteed to become a huge national hit, so you'd think WWYZ would have had to add it at some point -- which makes me think the "vote" results the second week were going to be reported as positive no matter what. Still, I wonder to this day why they went through the trouble of putting a can't-miss single by a current star to a "vote" for two weeks.
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