You keep saying that as though it's true. But there was a time when the listeners started using other devices for music, and it happened when Morey was still there. The listener base started leaving a long time ago. They could see listenership decline and change first. Had listenership stayed where it was, had the music remained exciting, the station would have seen no reason to make any changes. The listeners and the music business play a part in all of this, not just "corporate." The music was dead because it wasn't growing. It wasn't selling as well as it had in the 90s. That affected the audience and ultimately it affected radio.
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
What is kroq gonna do?
- Thread starter hotpatrick2004
- Start date
You keep saying that as though it's true. But there was a time when the listeners started using other devices for music, and it happened when Morey was still there. The listener base started leaving a long time ago. They could see listenership decline and change first. Had listenership stayed where it was, had the music remained exciting, the station would have seen no reason to make any changes. The listeners and the music business play a part in all of this, not just "corporate." The music was dead because it wasn't growing. It wasn't selling as well as it had in the 90s. That affected the audience and ultimately it affected radio.
Let's focus on this for a minute. What is AAA? It's Adult ALBUM Alternative. What's its middle name? Album. What happens when people stop buying albums? The whole purpose for the format disappears. Cumulus had nothing to do with it. Consumers screwed it up. AAA isn't a genre, it's an invented radio format, based around local record sales. That made sense 30 years ago, when people went to Tower Records and bought albums. But all that ended a long time ago. There are no local record stores and there are no albums. People stream songs they like. The whole metric for music has changed over the past 20 years, and the metric for radio has not. It's still built around local audience. But that local audience consumes music that is measured GLOBALLY. How does that translate in a usable way for local radio? It doesn't. That's the basic problem. So people want their radio station to somehow stay the same, with local formats and talent, while their own patterns as music consumers have changed. Radio HAS to change to reflect the changes in music consumption. So these AAA stations are not really viable as commercial concerns any more. There may be a couple left, in areas where the music is still happening, and the heritage is strong enough to drive some loyalty. But it won't last long. We need to see new music formats created around the new ways people buy music. That will take some time.
Disagree. It was a debt problem first. Money is fungible and nobody says, "we are cutting your local budget to pay for our corporate debt", but that is in fact what happens when you are over-levered and the debt must be paid. Corporate debt is always the first expense item that gets paid, because if it doesn't nothing else will be paid afterwards. So any cuts by definition go to service the debt first.
What facts do you have for that? Here's my fact: The size of the debt remained constant throughout the term of the debt. They paid the interest on the debt whenever it was due. That was a set amount, until renegotiated. They NEVER applied any of the budget cut money to lower the debt. It wasn't enough to offset the debt. The corporate debt is a very different thing from local station operating expenses. The GM knows how much it costs to run his station. He can see the rent increase, the utility increase, and the insurance increase. That's what drives his budget.
Meanwhile, we can see tangibly that local radio revenues were dropping during the last 15 years. The revenues dropped before the budgets dropped. The drop in revenue caused the drop in the budget. They can't pay more for someone who is bringing in less money. That's just dumb. We know revenues were dropping and we know the number of People Using Radio was dropping. Both of those things happened BEFORE the budget cuts. So listeners went away while their favorite local talent still had jobs. The listeners just listened to the station less, because they were listening to other devices. All that affected revenue. So it was a listener problem first. They knew what the debt was when they signed the papers. So did the bank. What they didn't plan on was listeners changing their habits and the 2008 recession.
Your argument is WHY they were over-levered, and I agree with you on that and overall general timing of events. All I am saying is when your local budget is cut because you are over-levered, the cuts by definition go to service the debt first regardless of stated reason. This is not an operations discussion, this is a finance discussion.
This IS a finance discussion. Once again, the local budget is based on local revenues. The corporate debt doesn't show up as a local station expense. It's a corporate expense. Your local budget is cut because your local expenses exceed your local revenues. Salary increases, rent increases, insurance increases. This was at a time when insurance costs were skyrocketing. That increase alone was enough to cause several people to get fired. Add to that the drop in revenue, drop in spot rate, new costs for new media, and on and on and on.
Look at Cumulus LA. They owned two stations, only one of which made any money. They were very honest about that situation. They were getting their sales behinds kicked by Entercom and iHeart. That had nothing to do with debt. Even when the debt was eliminated, they needed to leave LA and NY. It wasn't a debt problem, it was a local revenue problem.
One more local example: Saul Levine. No corporate debt. Just local expense. Every chance he gets, he cuts staff. I've had more than a dozen friends over the years fired by MWB, and it's not because of corporate debt.
Last edited:
Between 2000 and today, using inflation adjusted dollars, radio revenue is off by over 60%; in fact, just a tad under two-thirds depending on whose total industry numbers you use.
Around the "turn of the century" billing had approached $21 billion nationally. Today it is around $11 billion (not taking into account the disaster that this year will be). it's off nearly half just on "pure numbers". Add in inflation, and you have today's revenue around the equivalent of $6 to $7 billion year 2000 dollars.
Many things have to change.
But first, expenses increased. In CA many forms of taxes increased, ranging from station vehicles to business licenses. Utilities have increased dramatically, and insurance even more. Employee benefits went up, along with a nearly 100% increase in the minimum wage. Equipment is more expensive, and the conversion to digital studios added more costs. In essentially every area of operation, expenses for KFOG are way up, while market revenue and industry revenue is way off. The Perfect Storm.
Blaming this on debt is disingenuous. Debt, as BigA says, is fixed. The problem is that industry revenue has disintegrated. Each station had to adjust to achieve profitability. The debt service is not he local station's chore, but making a profit is.
How many businesses do you know that can lose two-thirds of their real dollars without making enormous changes?
The problem facing broadcasters is to find another source of revenue to eventually replace the :30 spot. A day will come when that simply won't cover the cost of doing business. Some radio companies are building new revenue streams but none of them are really feeding the beast of the on air station. I keep reading comments from people (mainly boomers) saying on-air is all that matters, and all other revenue should be directed to that. But it's a tough argument to make when audiences are declining for on-air, and the use of real-time media on all platforms is at an historic low. If the listener base had stayed the way it was 20 years ago, none of this would have happened. But you can't blame the listeners.
And yet that is exactly what Kaplan did in his interview with Variety, and historically blaming your audience for your failures (or anything, really) never ends well.
Perhaps the "pop alternative" refreshing would e showing more immediate returns if 1. there was more of a transition, and 2. they hadn't fired Kevin and his two partners. There was an opportunity here to gracefully transition KROQ to a new era and that got completely botched. Perhaps Kevin was going to be sent packing anyway, and Mike Kaplan just decided "there is no way to gently change the station so might as well just do it all at once", but it wasn't a smart choice. Especially since Kevin's two partners could have easily taken over the morning show after firmly establishing themselves, and instead they got fired too.
Regardless of demos, dropping from a 2.5 (a far cry from KROQ at its prime mind you) to a 1.5 in two months indicates that, at least so far, the shift has flopped. Obviously we'll see if more people start tuning in, but if KROQ is pulling KFOG-esque numbers by the end of the year the station will be in big trouble.
The reason I said that is they won't accept responsibility. You can't send them a bill. The relationship is mutual, until it ends. But any discussion about demos or ratings is about the audience. So if the demos are aging and the ratings are falling, what are we talking about? The audience. Kaplan was not tactful, but he was truthful. Had the station acted sooner, the result would have been exactly the same, and the listeners still would have been angry. Listeners hate change, but they are the reason it happened.
Personally I don't see big numbers coming from adding more new music. Adding more of something that is defective in the first place isn't solving the problem, and the music situation NEEDS to be fixed. People don't see this, but the music business is under assault from the same thing as radio, and that is outside investors. Warner Music is about to be bought by Saudi Arabia, and that's not going to improve music. Universal is also for sale, and the buyers won't be looking to make better music. In the long run, the destruction of American music and culture is the real story. Too bad Variety didn't cover that one.
Not to mention the stranglehold the Chinese app Tiktok has over Generation Z, which Kaplan specifically said KROQ will be paying attention to moving forward. Problem is, Tiktok music has been basically crap.
But the question of Tiktok and how a video app indirectly owned by the CCP is dominating our youngest generation's lives is best left for another thread. But it is, at least, another sign of American cultural erosion.
But the question of Tiktok and how a video app indirectly owned by the CCP is dominating our youngest generation's lives is best left for another thread. But it is, at least, another sign of American cultural erosion.
TikTok is owned by Zhang Yiming and managed by former Disney executive Kevin Mayer. It's a private company. Of course, private companies in China have different rules than they have in the US but the fact that a foreign national operates a company in the US is not necessarily bad.
A lot of really good Rock music was released in the last 20 years. Some of it new music by heritage artists and some by newer artists. Rock Radio formats ignored probably 99 percent of it. Classic Rock playlists haven't changed in 25 years. Can't blame listeners for tuning out.
Blaming listeners (or former listeners) is a cop out. A lot excellent records never made it to Radio playlists. That's the fault of Corporate Programming, not musicians. If Radio cares so little for its own product, nobody else will either...
Why blame corporate radio and not corporate record labels? Who has more to gain from the success of the music? Who OWNS the music? Not the radio stations. Music is not radio's product. We have to be clear about that. Why don't the companies that OWN the music care about getting it played on the radio? Why don't they INVEST in getting it played on the radio? Why do those labels invest the time, effort, and money in some music, and not in others? Why is this not a problem for pop, country, and urban music? Shouldn't someone ask that question? Shouldn't someone be angry about that?
You are forgetting the fact that Big A has posted many times: the record companies have pretty much ceased to work with radio and to promote new releases.
Beyond that, in all forms of rock except classic rock, there is fragmentation where one group loves a song, another tolerates it and a third hates it.
And in all current or recent music rock formats, stations have seen that too much new music negatively impacts ratings.
I have seen this with rock in the US, Mexico, Argentina and Europe. There is no defect in the US system... there is a problem with the genre at the artist and label end of the issue.
The funny part is when I talk to the labels about this, they say exactly the same thing. They know the music they make is fragmenting the audience, but they don't know what to do about it.
My solution would be to do what country music has done: Focus on a core group of songs and artists. Build a group of current superstars around which you can build a radio format. Just one format, not four. Start small, then expand. Get rid of Active Rock, Mainstream Rock, Alternative Rock, and Metal. Just one. Build superstars, allow co-mingling of other artists with the superstars, tour the combined big and small acts as packages, build festivals around those groups, and see how the audience responds. It has worked amazingly for country music. What was once a small regional format is now one of the biggest and most profitable genres. Compare Stagecoach with Coachella. Country did it by working together as partners. But it HAS to be done by the music business. Someone has to take the lead. The heads of the labels are all accountants and lawyers. There's your problem.
And in most cases, the heads of the labels are not native English speakers or even from North America. As such, the issues with rock in the US are several levels distant from their personal world.
But blaming this on radio is disingenuous.
tbolt909 seems to think radio is to blame for everything. I hear that year after year for 4+ decades now. It is, in my opinion, a comment by someone who has failed to think things through. You can rest assured if the new music you speak of tested well and was universally liked by the target audience it would be played. There's lots of great music out there that never sees the light of day. I never got it when a major label would issue a superb, commercially viable album and never do as much as tell you about it or at least the rep that is trying to get you to order their product for that retail store or get you to add their songs to your station's playlist. It happened was too frequently.
Radio stations are businesses and spend a great deal of money to maximize listening because that turns in to dollars. Granted mistakes are made. Just look at what Coca Cola did with New Coke. I'm not saying every radio station made the right decision always but rather that the intent was always to do the best for the station. That will always be until we perfect humanity to be error free. It sure was not because nobody cared enough. Radio stations have employees that are paid to make the company money. You can bet they like getting a paycheck and having a job so they do whatever they can to keep that position.
I can guarantee you ownership down cares very deeply about their holdings and their performance.
Funny thing, there would never have been a change if things were working. It seems KROQ's glory days have vanished for now. Then again I loved KROQ in the album rock days, pre-alternative. Times change and all that great talent had to let that vaporize to a pleasant memory.
Radio stations are businesses and spend a great deal of money to maximize listening because that turns in to dollars. Granted mistakes are made. Just look at what Coca Cola did with New Coke. I'm not saying every radio station made the right decision always but rather that the intent was always to do the best for the station. That will always be until we perfect humanity to be error free. It sure was not because nobody cared enough. Radio stations have employees that are paid to make the company money. You can bet they like getting a paycheck and having a job so they do whatever they can to keep that position.
I can guarantee you ownership down cares very deeply about their holdings and their performance.
Funny thing, there would never have been a change if things were working. It seems KROQ's glory days have vanished for now. Then again I loved KROQ in the album rock days, pre-alternative. Times change and all that great talent had to let that vaporize to a pleasant memory.
At one time record retail took a lot of the blame. That's where the book "Hit Men" came from. I guess when the record stores all went bankrupt, it was hard to blame them for the total collapse of the music business. But if they'd made the transition from brick & mortar stores to the internet, the way Amazon and Apple did, then people would be angry at them too. It's not like they didn't try. They set up downloading kiosks in stores in the hopes that customers would come in and download songs in stores. What an absolute joke! The problem was there wasn't enough profit in the download to make it worthwhile. Plus everybody could download songs on their phone. They didn't have to drive to the mall. But when you're no longer in business, no one blames you any more. That may be what radio has to look forward to.
It's a bit of a circular argument. Record labels KNOW that a Classic Rock station won't add anything new. AAA formats are almost non existent in the commercial realm. That doesn't leave much opportunity for AAA type artists to get airplay...
- Status