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KROQ, again

MarkW said:
Very interesting to see KROQ and KLOS go head to head with their dueling Foo Fighters marathons today following last night's tragic news of Taylor Hawkins' tragic passing.
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I didn’t catch KLOS’s but heard a few hours of KROQ’s today. Thought it was well put together and how a live/local station, especially one of KROQ’s stature should sound after an unfortunate event like Taylor’s passing. Good mix of the hits with enough lessor played tracks to satisfy the big fans of the Foo, myself being one. Much different than I would have expected just a few months ago under the last regime in charge of KROQ.
 
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TheBigA said:
Another part of it is that stations in those smaller markets are running 24/7 formats from syndicators, not local playlists. Which isn't much different from radio stations who at one time took their playlists from format consultants or the Billboard charts.
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Sadly, I must from personal experience almost completely agree with you.
 
ChannelFlipper said:
But I thought all of this corporatization has ruined local radio? And now you're saying there was never that much variability to begin with?
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It's hard to make generalizations about 16,000 radio stations. There are lots of stations that are still trying to operate as though it's 1965. Then there are some who do things completely different. Back in the 1930s and 40, most radio stations were just repeaters for NBC, CBS, or Mutual programming, and we talk about that era as the Golden Age of Radio. As I said earlier, if you want to talk about music radio, you can't ignore the consolidation and corporatization of the music industry and how it's affected the music radio stations play.
 
TheBigA said:
Another part of it is that stations in those smaller markets are running 24/7 formats from syndicators, not local playlists. Which isn't much different from radio stations who at one time took their playlists from format consultants or the Billboard charts.
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As a long-time consultant, I've never "fed" the playlist to a client station. What I have done, and what numerous friends who are or were consultants did was help the local staff determine what the best songs to play in their market were.

An example from a very well known consultant that I hired when I was more involved in group management: we had just bought a country station, but I found the 1200s song playlist and the weird currents to be questionable, so I changed consultants. We did not have time to do a music test, so we were allowed to share tests from several nearby similar markets. Then, in the next year, we formed an alliance to do a test in one of three markets every 6 months, and each of us paid a third of the cost and shared the results.

But at no point did the consultant just "tell us what to play". We talked the strategy through, and then made a few adjustments such as giving a little extra favor to artists who had played the market in the past year.

When I went into a station for the first time, I'd get staff input, visit record outlets (back in the day) and plan for local research, either formal or "budget" projects with station fans. I never heard of a station just swapping out songs because the consultant "said so". And in the last 40 years or so, I've never seen a copy of Billboard at a radio station.
 
ChannelFlipper said:
But I thought all of this corporatization has ruined local radio? And now you're saying there was never that much variability to begin with?
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No, I was agreeing with BigA that the smaller markets have been trending away from consultants helping them with local formats and toward plugging into national satellite-delivered (or similarly distributed) formats. Since the vast majority of those services are syndicated by corporate entities -- Cumulus owns Westwood One, undoubtedly the largest such supplier, for example -- I would say that, presuming your question was rhetorical, you were correct about that.
 
DavidEduardo said:
But at no point did the consultant just "tell us what to play". We talked the strategy through, and then made a few adjustments such as giving a little extra favor to artists who had played the market in the past year.
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That was you, but some consultants DID tell stations what to play. They'd give "safe" lists and "do not play" lists, and for this reason, record labels viewed those consultants as "influencers."
 
K.M. Richards said:
No, I was agreeing with BigA that the smaller markets have been trending away from consultants helping them with local formats and toward plugging into national satellite-delivered (or similarly distributed) formats. Since the vast majority of those services are syndicated by corporate entities -- Cumulus owns Westwood One, undoubtedly the largest such supplier, for example -- I would say that, presuming your question was rhetorical, you were correct about that.
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Indeed it was.
 
I use to love these in the early 00s. I even heard a deeper cut by the cure. There track high. Well done Kroq thanks for bringing these back.
 
Next move KROQ needs to make is to dump the uber boring Kevan Kenney from evenings. The station should sound fun & energetic at all times (other than maybe Sunday morning or Sunday evening); he fails to bring that sort of vibe to the table.
 
TheBigA said:
The common thread being they're all in the same building and the paycheck comes from the same company.

For some people, music taste can change as they age.
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And a true professional in this business can do practically any format.

Beginning in the mid-1970s, my on-air experiences began with doing what would today be called Adult Standards at my first station (including filling in occasionally for the host of the nightly Classical program), then went on to include -- in no real order -- AC, Country, CHR, Urban, Talk and AOR. In fact, several times in my career I was hired by stations who approached me themselves, because I became well-known in my home market for being able to sit down at the board and within a few breaks sound like I had been doing whatever the format was for years. That is a reputation that I take pride in.

So, unlike some here who seem to prefer putting talent in format "boxes", I don't see anything strange about Tami, being a talented professional, shifting from Alternative to Adult Hits to Urban AC.
 
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K.M. Richards said:
And a true professional in this business can do practically any format.

Beginning in the mid-1970s, my on-air experiences began with doing what would today be called Adult Standards at my first station (including filling in occasionally for the host of the nightly Classical program), then went on to include -- in no real order -- AC, Country, CHR, Urban, Talk and AOR. In fact, several times in my career I was hired by stations who approached me themselves, because I became well-known in my home market for being able to sit down at the board and within a few breaks sound like I had been doing whatever the format was for years. That is a reputation that I take pride in.

So, unlike some here who seem to prefer putting talent in format "boxes", I don't see anything strange about Tami, being a talented professional, shifting from Alternative to Adult Hits to Urban AC.
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Who put Tami in a box? Hot Patrick just noted the contrast between KROQ and the Wave. In fact he could have been referring to her very flexibility and professionalism to which you refer.
 
ChannelFlipper said:
Who put Tami in a box? Hot Patrick just noted the contrast between KROQ and the Wave. In fact he could have been referring to her very flexibility and professionalism to which you refer.
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Did I say I was referring to him when I made that comment?
 
I became well-known in my home market for being able to sit down at the board and within a few breaks sound like I had been doing whatever the format was for years

I can remember back in the late 80s a station in my area was sold and switched from Beautiful Music format to A/C. They kept the overnight guy and he struggled mightily. You could hear the frustration in his voice as he tried to announce names and songs of artists he was unfamiliar with. I think he lasted a week before he quit or was let go.
 
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