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Today's Warm 106.9 tweaks format

Bongwater said:
The non-industry folks have the advantage of real-life, street level observation. Whereas the insiders tend to view it through the corporate prism, which can distort.
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The industry has been watching WFEZ (and, consequently WDUV, KISF and KYXY) for some time. Remember, WFEZ had a horrible start, going to old and too soft (Fleeetwoods, anyone?) and spent several years figuring out how to make a non-current/recurrent based AC work with 25-54. The early results were very discouraging, and it was really not until last year that we saw really good sales numbers.

A lot of credit goes to the programming team of WFEZ and Cox for sticking with the idea and developing it: Jill Strada, OM / Gary Williams, PD / Jeanne Ashley, MD. Bravo to them!

I don't think advertising is as big a problem as it's being made out to be, not with all these "Breeze" stations popping up everywhere. That wouldn't be happening if ad agencies were rejecting it. So there's something besides age demos at work here.
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There is, so far, no issue with ad revenue where the stations have proven themselves. But remember, agencies buy on longer-term rolling averages of many books, so it will take each of these converts time to monetize any ratings improvements.

On the other hand, in markets like Buffalo where most business is local, this format may actually have greater appeal to advertisers as it's quite likely that many of them will also be listeners.
 
Bongwater said:
You can't always judge the future based on the conventional knowledge of this time two years ago. If someone said Soft AC was making a comeback in 2016, they would have been laughed off this board. Not anymore.
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We were all looking at WFEZ in Miami back in '16. And, realizing it was going to be big in 25-54, our concern was whether it would continue to grow and expand its 25-54. It did.

Is it a fad? Or a course shift? Time will tell. But there's no iron clad rule in anything these days. It always takes just one renegade from the conventional logic to shake everything up. And when that happens, it isn't the renegade's fault for not sticking to the script, it's everyone else's fault for being too self assured to think outside the conventional norms.
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WFEZ has spent a year in the top couple of stations in 25-54, WDUV the same, and both DS and SF have similar records. All started leaning older, but then more and more 25-54's came to the stations.
 
Leave it to the out of towners to de-rail a productive conversation about a Seattle AC station.
 
AQH said:
Leave it to the out of towners to de-rail a productive conversation about a Seattle AC station.
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Ah, yes, those pesky out-of-towners.

196.9 owned by Hubbard out of the Twin Cities in Minnesota.

The market's top biller is owned by a Salt Lake City company; it's followed by ones based in Maryland, Philadelphia and San Antonio.

In fact, all those out of town owners control all of the top 15 stations in revenue. It is not until you reach 16th that you find local Crista Media with a station.

And where do you think the final major programming decisions come from?
 
Yeah, pesky out-of-towners. I spent a good part of my life north of Seattle, so I still keep up with trends. Not to mention, I'm moving up to Ellensburg next year, and I'll be able to watch at least 2 or 3 Seattle stations on cable and a digital translator for KCPQ.
The two main owners of stations here in Yakima come from Townsquare (Connecticut) and James Ingstad under license Radio Yakima (but from 1100 miles away in Fargo, ND). Bustos isn't even based here and they own KZTA 96.9 along with other Spanish stations. KDNA-91.9, also Spanish but non commercial, does come from a local owner.
The PPM ratings should come out for December soon. I'm sure KRWM got a 10 share, or more. But what about KSWD? We shall see......
 
DavidEduardo said:


The pioneer station, WFEZ, began to hit its stride "a couple of years ago" as it figured out how to beat WLYF, the "conventional" AC station in Miami, in 25-54. They hit on the formula but it was not until going into 2018 that they reached dominance in 25-54 over WLYF and went to #1 in that demo. It took, obviously, a lot of tweaking.

By then, Cox decided to change WDUV, formerly the failed model for WFEZ, to the WFEZ formula, adding Jacksonville later. And we got early adopters in San Francisco and San Diego, confident that the format had legs. Later we got Seattle, and now the last 60 days has seen a mad rush to rediscover softer AC from Lethbridge to Buffalo.



The core years of this format are about 1983-1990, with nearly nothing pre-1975 and lots of suff up to 2016-2017. There are plenty of Bruno Mars, Kelly Clarkson and Taylor Swift songs to sound fresh without being too "pop" in tempo. KISF has just over 20% of its library in the 2000-2017 period, and 25% from the 90's. So it is basically 50% 80's, 45% 90's to 2017 and 5% late 70's.

WFEZ has a bit over 450 songs in regular rotation (played at least every 2 weeks outside of overnights). KISF has a smaller just under 400 list, same for KYXY. All are 100% gold, with no recurrents of currents (by industry standards).
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If you're talking about The Breeze, I heard "My Girl".
 
AQH said:
Leave it to the out of towners to de-rail a productive conversation about a Seattle AC station.
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Obviously the drive-by posters didn't get your point that this is a thread about SEATTLE, not Miami, San Francisco, Tampa, Buffalo, etc. etc. They should do away with market-specific boards since no one stays OT anyway.
 
Rob Piotrowski said:
Obviously the drive-by posters didn't get your point that this is a thread about SEATTLE, not Miami, San Francisco, Tampa, Buffalo, etc. etc.
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It's not about Seattle, but about a Seattle radio station that is doing a format that is being duplicated in other markets.

However, if you'd like to offer specific local information, such as hiring of talent or maybe the color of paint in the studio, we'd all be interested.
 
Rob Piotrowski said:
Obviously the drive-by posters didn't get your point that this is a thread about SEATTLE, not Miami, San Francisco, Tampa, Buffalo, etc. etc. They should do away with market-specific boards since no one stays OT anyway.
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And, as BigA says, a format that pretty much mirrors other soft AC stations in music library, rotations, era maps, etc. This is a format that, in its present form, originated at a Miami station after much research and experimentation with the blend, age of songs and such.

In other words, other than the name, there is no local playbook on this one.
 
iamarussianpirate said:
They're just trying to keep up with KSWD who's played Kokomo 319 times in 2018...4 times this week.
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That's interesting because according to Mediabase KRWM has played Kokomo more than any other AC station in the US, accounting for 2974 spins since it was first added in March of 1998. More than WLIT in Chicago.
 
crainbebo said:
Yeah, pesky out-of-towners. I spent a good part of my life north of Seattle, so I still keep up with trends. Not to mention, I'm moving up to Ellensburg next year, and I'll be able to watch at least 2 or 3 Seattle stations on cable and a digital translator for KCPQ.
The two main owners of stations here in Yakima come from Townsquare (Connecticut) and James Ingstad under license Radio Yakima (but from 1100 miles away in Fargo, ND). Bustos isn't even based here and they own KZTA 96.9 along with other Spanish stations. KDNA-91.9, also Spanish but non commercial, does come from a local owner.
The PPM ratings should come out for December soon. I'm sure KRWM got a 10 share, or more. But what about KSWD? We shall see......
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Oh you guys... don't you know Ingstad is out.
 
Wasn't James Ingstad that guy who sang "Yah Mo B There" with Michael McDonald in the '80s?
 
Ah, lol. James Ingram, of course.
'Love her todayyyyy, find one hundred ways!' Great song, same with 'Just Once.' Both got plenty of KWJZ airplay back in the day. And 'Yah Mo B There' was also spun on 98.9 mHz, long before The Bull, Click and Rock 98.9 were ever thought of.
 
TheBigA said:
That's funny. How about the Pina Colada Song from Rupert Holmes?
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Hey now. Being a good tourist and driving through this post, might I ask why you would bring up Pina Colada, BigA? Laugh if you will. You may recall one of the longest winning streaks in radio history was WJXA in Nashville. Only a lightning strike to the tower and signal issues could break the streak of hundreds of books in a row at number uno. And it was a highly well-known local fact that NO OTHER radio station on the planet had such a wonderful streak of about 1 billion+ spins of Rupert's loved-by-ALL fabulous song. In fact, even ole Rupert himself was in on my attempt to celebrate Bryan Sargent's 25 years on the air (and at least a half billion spins, himself) at Mix by thanking Sarge for making him a wealthy man. Sarge, being a humble man despite achieving such a lofty goal, well, basically used guilt to back me down from that prank on him, but let's just say, because the people demand excellence, Pina Colada IS still gleefully played in Nashville. Not that many songs are as timeless and yet so cutting edge. Admit it. You still secretly dance when you think of the first three notes of the song. I get it. I dance, too.

Now, as for actually engaging this discussion with an observation that "we" all have made watching things unfold with this "format." This may be a bit of a stretch, but note that a fair number of the songs being played on these stations being discussed were out of major airplay for a number of years. And a number of classic hit stations have pretty much had to play the same "overplayed" 300 songs for decades.... Is it possible that these old softer leaning songs that were de-emphasized for a while "sound new" again and are a refreshing break from the songs everyone complains about being run into the ground, only to become fatigued sooner than later and the format goes the way of the 80's format of bringing back Disco? Perhaps the stations are about to get a reality check? Much like getting caught in the rain? ------ Seriously, where will this format be if you fast forward another year or two? I have my belief that the classic hits that we all know as true classic hits will be tried and true and Air Supply, etc. does not have the long term "oh wow" factor.
 
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