Another iHeart Atlanta Program Head Bites the Dust

[RoddyFreeman]

It was just 2016 when Radio Ink named iHeart Atlanta SVP/Programming and Bull PD Brian Michel as the 16th best country PD in the U.S. Last week he was let go and replaced by Meg Stevens, who was with iHeart in the Charlotte market.

I don't know the reason, but I'm guessing iHeart management feels the Atlanta cluster is underperforming. While I agree, changing that is going to be a challenge. I look at Atlanta stations that have replaced their PD's this year--Star 94-1 and Kicks--and increasing ratings has still been difficult.

 

[TheBigA]

It's not good when the top station in the cluster is The Bull. The rest of the cluster is underperforming, and Meg began her career in rock, so I'd expect she'll focus a lot of her attention on growing the cluster in some strategic ways.

 

[jabba17]

Has CHR (and for that matter, country) hit one of its periodic doldrums? It looks like share has been trending down across the board for both formats.

If so, where are the listeners going? AOR seems strongish right now.

 

[RoddyFreeman]

Has CHR (and for that matter, country) hit one of its periodic doldrums? It looks like share has been trending down across the board for both formats.

If so, where are the listeners going? AOR seems strongish right now.

CHR has been in one of its low cycles over the past couple of years.

 

[RoddyFreeman]

It's not good when the top station in the cluster is The Bull. The rest of the cluster is underperforming, and Meg began her career in rock, so I'd expect she'll focus a lot of her attention on growing the cluster in some strategic ways.

The only 2 big signals in the iHeart Atlanta cluster are the Bull and Power 96-1. Both 105.3 and 105.7 are sub-par signals, especially 105.7.

What's so unusual about a Country station ranking higher than a CHR in the South when you have only 2 competitive signals?

 

[TheBigA]

What's so unusual about a Country station ranking higher than a CHR in the South when you have only 2 competitive signals?

That's not my point. Even the Bull isn't a Top 10 station. Atlanta may be the only major market where iHeart doesn't have a station in the Top 10.

 

[redman58]

I think that the lack of quality in country music right now is the cause for the downturn in the genre and the radio stations that carry it. What you hear just isn't any good.

 

[TheBigA]

I think that the lack of quality in country music right now is the cause for the downturn in the genre and the radio stations that carry it. What you hear just isn't any good.

I don't agree that there's a downturn in the format now.

Country is a Top 5 or better format in Baltimore, Denver, Seattle, Sacramento, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Austin.

Country is #1 in Columbus, San Diego, and Charlotte.

Country is underperforming in Atlanta, and iHeart has hired Meg Stevens to fix it.

 

[RadioDoogie]

Has CHR (and for that matter, country) hit one of its periodic doldrums? It looks like share has been trending down across the board for both formats.

If so, where are the listeners going? AOR seems strongish right now.

I personally feel that the more rhythmic the CHR mainstream chart gets, it drives away listeners elsewhere. The CHR chart has been trending that way in the past couple of years. This was the case in the early 90s and early 2000s. In the early 90s the listeners fled to Alternative and Country stations. We are not anywhere now as rhythmic as we were back in those days but we are more so than we have been in recent years.

 

[davideduardo]

I personally feel that the more rhythmic the CHR mainstream chart gets, it drives away listeners elsewhere. The CHR chart has been trending that way in the past couple of years. This was the case in the early 90s and early 2000s. In the early 90s the listeners fled to Alternative and Country stations. We are not anywhere now as rhythmic as we were back in those days but we are more so than we have been in recent years.

You can say that the whole world is going much more rhythmic. Whether it is J-Pop or K-Pop or reggaetón in all Latin America and many parts of Europe or pop dance in other nations, the traditional rock leaning pop and rock-flavored ballads are not making it. Even dancehall and highlife have moved even more rhythmic.

 

[TheBigA]

I personally feel that the more rhythmic the CHR mainstream chart gets, it drives away listeners elsewhere.

And what drives the chart? It's coming from the tastes and behaviors of listeners.

No one in radio is seeking to play music that drives away listeners. Counter-productive.

 

[RadioDoogie]

And what drives the chart? It's coming from the tastes and behaviors of listeners.

No one in radio is seeking to play music that drives away listeners. Counter-productive.

I don’t think they’re trying to drive away listeners. I guess the point I’m trying to make is that the CHR format doesn’t play all country, all R&B, All alternative, All Jazz, all classical, all hot AC and all rhythmic. There’s formats for these types of music. The CHR format is right in the middle. When it’s chart starts to drift more into these other formats (because listeners favor that type of music), I feel it starts to lose its steam. The CHR chart in the early 90s played a lot of rhythmic and alternative hits. Hence more people turned towards rhythmic and alternative formatted stations and away from CHR stations because that type of music was more popular then.

 

[TheBigA]

When it’s chart starts to drift more into these other formats (because listeners favor that type of music), I feel it starts to lose its steam.

The common thread is that CHR is supposed to play the hits regardless of format. They play what is the most popular songs. That was the case in the 60s when Louis Armstrong and Johnny Cash had Top 40 hits, and it's the case now. What changed is that format radio came along in the 60s and gave artists specific formats for their music. However, as the music is becoming less attached to genre (and this is a change in the music that doesn't involve radio) where there are country songs such as Dan & Shay's Speechless that can chart on the CHR chart, you have a blurring of the lines. There was a time just a few years ago when alternative artists started to see that all they had to do was adjust the production of their music, and they'd have pop hits and make a lot more money. That hurt the alternative format.

That's why I believe that there will come a time when all of the traditional radio formats will begin to disappear, and you'll simply have various music mixes that will define station identities. On the ownership side, that's why it's important to balance your formats within your cluster, in order to give advertisers a wider range of customers.

 

[jabba17]

I personally feel that the more rhythmic the CHR mainstream chart gets, it drives away listeners elsewhere. The CHR chart has been trending that way in the past couple of years. This was the case in the early 90s and early 2000s. In the early 90s the listeners fled to Alternative and Country stations. We are not anywhere now as rhythmic as we were back in those days but we are more so than we have been in recent years.

That happened in the late 1980s through 1981, as what was left of disco morphed into urban crossover. Or was that an effect of the lack of quality Top 40 material, where urban, country, and especially AOR crossover started filling the charts due to the vacuum left by the lack of traditional CHR material?

 

[secondchoice]

Looking at the non-revenue 6+:* The Bull is still ahead of Kix101. It appears Power had a bad month or two even getting beat by 94.1. Is either 96.1 or 94.9 Voice Tracked most of the day or evenings? I suspect Power will get the most attention early on. I wonder if she has a budget to change a lot of programming? Or will she be held to the “corporate” model: Anything to increase revenue has to not significantly increase expenses.

*https://ratings.****************/cgi-bin/rol.exe/arb047