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107.9 Sacramento

Alan Smithee said:
So why do it if “few people are leaving usable messages”?

I remember in 1984 when KROY (96.9) dropped their rock format and switched to adult contemporary as KSAC. The first few weeks they had a phone line where you could leave messages saying what you wanted to hear, and they ran many promos saying “We listen to you! Help us build Sacramento’s newest station!” It was obvious they already had the format picked out though and weren’t going to even consider bringing back the Rock of the 80s format (that only lasted 5 months at KPOP, but changed my musical taste forever) which I left several messages for, or even going back to KROY. That station didn’t last too long though and eventually did change its call letters back to KROY with a new top 40 format and then becoming The Eagle in 1990.
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Alan:

96.9 wasn’t a dead frequency for five years leading up to it.

Here’s what I wrote two days ago about this phase of the stunt:

(screen goes all wavy, harp music plays)

This phase of the stunt was planned. So what happens if nobody's listening, or those who are don't use the "talkback" button on the app? So you have a library of these cuts ready to go (from other markets where you've stunted, custom-made for this stunt, whatever) and sprinkle in any good ones you get.
 
Not to put too fine a point on it, but when I was younger and naive, I met a PD who had launched a new Top 40 station from scratch a few years before.

I was listening on day one, hour one, and within minutes, there were phone calls from people—-“this is great!—-”love the music!”—-(station name) rocks!”

I asked how he got that kind of response that fast.

Those were recorded the week before by sales assistants, the receptionist, interns.

I know of at least one station that farmed that out to the ad agency that was doing their TV spots. Sure enough, the voices on the listener phone calls matched up with the actors playing people on the street in the ad.

Which was shot in a different city.
 
But they haven’t “sprinkled in” a single new message in the past 2 days. They had to have gotten SOMETHING by now.

There ought to be a law against airing fake listener calls like that. I remember I called in a positive comment to “The Point” 100.5 and that got on the air (that station had a lot of potential but kept dumbing itself down), also have gotten on at least once live saying bad things about stations!
 
Alan Smithee said:
But they haven’t “sprinkled in” a single new message in the past 2 days. They had to have gotten SOMETHING by now.

There ought to be a law against airing fake listener calls like that. I remember I called in a positive comment to “The Point” 100.5 and that got on the air (that station had a lot of potential but kept dumbing itself down), also have gotten on at least once live saying bad things about stations!
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First, maybe not. Remember that only radio geeks are even bothering with them right now.

Even in the “good old days” only one in six listeners were “active” listeners—-would call a request line or participate in a contest. And that was because you might hear your favorite song or win something.

There’s no payoff to doing this unless you think you’re going to hear your voice on the radio and nobody outside of radio geeks is going to listen to hours of this to hear themselves.

I know talk hosts and jocks on major stations in Los Angeles and San Francisco back in the day who’d have to deal with dead days on the phones. This is a frequency that’s had nothing on it for five years.

As for “ought to be illegal”—-radio is theatre of the mind. As long as they don’t expressly say these are listener comments, it doesn’t matter what anyone thinks they are.
 
One more thing, Alan—-the business has changed. There’s nobody live in a studio playing stuff back. It’s programmed into a computer—-quite possibly by someone in a different city, days in advance.

The smart thing is to schedule all the elements for the entire stunt in advance, right up to and including the launch. It would not surprise me if hour one or day one of the real format is already loaded and programmed to play.

Why stress with deadlines for an open event or risk something going undone?

If—-IF—-they get a response they think is too good not to use, they can decide which canned one they want to replace, how often, assign it a digital cart number and schedule it.
 
Here are my personal choices for formats on 107.9, ranked favorite to least favorite. Some are obviously not viable.

LOL


1. Classic Hits
2. Hot AC
3. CHR
4. Classical
5. MOR
6. Standards
7. Smooth Jazz
8. Continue with Current Stunting
9. Screams by Yoko Ono
10. Country
11. Conservative Talk
 
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michael hagerty said:
PS, Michael---April numbers just hit. There's a nine share (6+) in Country. KNCI with a 7.6, KNTY with a 1.4
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Saw that. One month though.... I figured it was justice for me picking on the format. I wonder how much of that is 55+. I know older people will still listen to Country. Is seems to be a multigenerational format.

I'd love to see all news, but again probably not viable in Market 28.
 
Michael Rivers Kramer said:
Saw that. One month though.... I figured it was justice for me picking on the format. I wonder how much of that is 55+. I know older people will still listen to Country. Is seems to be a multigenerational format.

I'd love to see all news, but again probably not viable in Market 28.
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You're right about the market size and beyond that, iHeart would NEVER spend the money. I'm frankly amazed they're still doing it at WBZ.
 
Michael Rivers Kramer said:
Saw that. One month though.... I figured it was justice for me picking on the format. I wonder how much of that is 55+. I know older people will still listen to Country. Is seems to be a multigenerational format.
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It's a lot younger than it used to be. Its strength is now in 25-54 and even 18-34. I'm 67 and most people I know who used to like country in the '70s and '80s don't listen to much of the "new" country, if any. They're not listening to classic country radio either, because the focus there is '90s and '00s.
 
CTListener said:
It's a lot younger than it used to be. Its strength is now in 25-54 and even 18-34. I'm 67 and most people I know who used to like country in the '70s and '80s don't listen to much of the "new" country, if any. They're not listening to classic country radio either, because the focus there is '90s and '00s.
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Interesting. My loss of interest in country music began in the 1980's and went downhill really fast in this century. I really liked the crossovers of the 60's 70's and early 80's. I found the Country music back then to be pleasantly romantic and found comfort in it. The newer stuff sounds unrelatable and I find what they call "Bro Country" downright annoying.
 
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