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KROQ

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Bongwater said:
The trouble with mainstream modern Country is Alternative fans in general everywhere else have had a long running and often particular annoyance with it.
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I agree. I'm not suggesting "mainstream modern country." Just bands who release music from country record labels. The mainstream bands already get radio airplay, and we know alternative fans don't like anything that gets mainstream acceptance. But there's a ton of music that's getting released from country labels that's not getting radio airplay that could just as easily qualify as alternative. Jason Isbell is one of the most obvious. He charts as "indie" and "americana," but he's alternative rock who just happens to live in Nashville. But there are a lot more.

KEXP is a great radio station that really should be the template for alternative radio everywhere, especially with it's in-house performance studio. But it's also a non-commercial radio station that really exists because of the generosity of big tech millionaires who live in Seattle. There are similar people who could do the same thing for radio in LA, but they usually support KCRW.
 
Crazy how macattack and I complained about the sound of the alt stations and we were met with angry radio"professionals". It's almost like listeners know best or something!
 
Bongwater said:
But that's Key West. It is it's own alcohol-fueled musical organism that's off the grid from everywhere else. That's why I can understand why Country party tunes would work on a station like WIIS. And bless 'em for it. But I look more to stations like WEQX and KEXP for an actual direction.

The trouble with mainstream modern Country is Alternative fans in general everywhere else have had a long running and often particular annoyance with it. And any disturbingly frequent number of songs about pickin' up Lurleen in my pickup an' goin' to the tractor pull on a Friday night on mainstream Alternative rock radio these days are going to viewed with suspicion.

Just sayin'. It isn't like it isn't a nice gesture. But it won't be long before somebody catches on.....
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Audacy didn't even catch on when the talent was in their cluster and had been proven. KRBZ Kansas City had its own formula that worked. They built a community around that station. And still, Audacy looked at it and said, you know what we need? To make this station more generic and relegate the programmer at the core of that success to on-air.

I get "it's a business." What I don't get is not looking at something that worked and seeing what you can take from that to the other stations, rather than make the working stations more generic/like the ones that aren't as strong. It would seem counter productive. And if you're "trying things" to find out what works in alternative - how about trying something that did work, with talent you already have?
 
semoochie said:
20 years ago, they said the same thing about The Beatles, Stones and Who!
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During that time, Guns N' Roses, Bon Jovi, and Nirvana were not considered classic rock! Interesting how time passes and the three aforementioned artists have loads of airplay on classic rock radio.
 
TheBigA said:
The ratings at KROQ were going down when they still had their original staff.
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Yep! In music dayparts they had been losing to Alt for years before their morning show exploded and the disaster became total.
 
tall_guy1 said:
Crazy how macattack and I complained about the sound of the alt stations and we were met with angry radio"professionals". It's almost like listeners know best or something!
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I think you've missed a point that has been made throughout this thread. As TheBigA has replied, the listeners know what they want, but the problem is that there are too many subsets of listeners, each with their own idea of what they want, but in conflict with some of the other subsets' wants. Unlike CHR or Classic Hits, it is much more difficult to craft an Alternative format which keeps all of the subsets happy.

It's very much in line with ChannelFlipper's answer to hotpatrick: Any radio format has to go with a consensus of what the target demo wants. That's why certain artists and songs become repetitive ... you play what will keep the majority of the listeners happy for as long as possible, playing what is (at the very least) tolerable to all of the listeners. That is proving to be more and more impossible for the Alternative format ... every song becomes a potential tune-out for a significant number of listeners and there are relatively few songs that test at least "neutral" and will be tolerable to most of the subsets.

Add into that KYSR as a competitor and KROQ has a steep, uphill climb ahead in trying to fix their sound.
 
K.M. Richards said:
Add into that KYSR as a competitor and KROQ has a steep, uphill climb ahead in trying to fix their sound.
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As I said earlier, they need someone with street cred. Someone people respect, who represents music.

If it was me, I'd hire Finneas, and get rid of everyone else. All of the current suits have burned their reputations.
 
K.M. Richards said:
I think you've missed a point that has been made throughout this thread. As TheBigA has replied, the listeners know what they want, but the problem is that there are too many subsets of listeners, each with their own idea of what they want, but in conflict with some of the other subsets' wants. Unlike CHR or Classic Hits, it is much more difficult to craft an Alternative format which keeps all of the subsets happy.

It's very much in line with ChannelFlipper's answer to hotpatrick: Any radio format has to go with a consensus of what the target demo wants. That's why certain artists and songs become repetitive ... you play what will keep the majority of the listeners happy for as long as possible, playing what is (at the very least) tolerable to all of the listeners. That is proving to be more and more impossible for the Alternative format ... every song becomes a potential tune-out for a significant number of listeners and there are relatively few songs that test at least "neutral" and will be tolerable to most of the subsets.

Add into that KYSR as a competitor and KROQ has a steep, uphill climb ahead in trying to fix their sound.
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Where have you been?
 
KilowattKat said:
Apparently Guns N Roses tested well with Alternative listeners. With the recent changes, maybe we'll see them back on the playlist
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Remember, music testing is done locally, not nationally.

While some groups may share test results, they will only share with "like markets". For example, some years ago when supervising a Tallahassee country station, through our consultant, we shared tests with Albany, GA and Dothan, AL. The markets behaved similarly and the competitive array was also comparable.

We would not have shared with Peoria, IL or Colorado Springs. Different market "mentality".

So what an alternative station can play in one market may be different in another due to things like what the classic rock station plays, the history of the alt station, the makeup and ethnicity of the market, etc. So there will be good songs in one market that are unplayable in another.
 
Looking at the playlist on the app these past few days, it looks like they are simply loosening up the playlist.

Rage Against The Machine were an Alternative staple, so that’s not really a shock.

They’re playing Eminem, Dr. Dre and and Snoop Dogg cuts (Super Bowl obviously)

Saw Dramarama - Anything Anything (A mostly, but not exclusively west coast Alternative staple from the 80s) Linkin Park, Stone Temple Pilots, Three Doors Down (I don’t consider them Alternative anymore but they were everywhere in 2000) Bush, No Doubt, Sublime, the usual gold library. It seems like they shifted to a much more gold-friendly playlist if it was not like that prior. This would include songs that were once routinely heard on that format that may sound edgier than what they had been playing.
 
JeremyAndrews said:
Looking at the playlist on the app these past few days, it looks like they are simply loosening up the playlist.
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Or they just did a music test....
 
JeremyAndrews said:
Looking at the playlist on the app these past few days, it looks like they are simply loosening up the playlist.

Rage Against The Machine were an Alternative staple, so that’s not really a shock.

They’re playing Eminem, Dr. Dre and and Snoop Dogg cuts (Super Bowl obviously)

Saw Dramarama - Anything Anything (A mostly, but not exclusively west coast Alternative staple from the 80s) Linkin Park, Stone Temple Pilots, Three Doors Down (I don’t consider them Alternative anymore but they were everywhere in 2000) Bush, No Doubt, Sublime, the usual gold library. It seems like they shifted to a much more gold-friendly playlist if it was not like that prior. This would include songs that were once routinely heard on that format that may sound edgier than what they had been playing.
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I've also noticed the gold based shift, less currents, and more titles from the 90's and 2000's. But edgier, and more rock, less pop. I just hope they are not going into a variety Jack style mode.
 
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