NYC Radio Dream Dial

[Least]

While you asked this of BigA, I'll jump in too (and invite others to, as well... this is an interesting question for sure!).

I've had good fortune with formats that I was not deeply in love with or, at the offset, did not even care for. I find that being able to distance the professional aspect from the personal one has helped.

The first station I programmed was the first one I owned. I picked the format, Top 40, because there was no top 40 station in the market (despite there being over 40 stations in total) and because I loved Top 40. I tended to program to what I wanted to hear, not thinking all the time about what listeners wanted.

My second station, about 18 months later, was a format I was less familiar with and which I had only even known about for a few years. I consulted others and listened to listeners, particularly folks like cab drivers, our maids and gardeners and other "blue collar" people I came in contact with.

My third format was an FM (this was in the 60's) and, while I was just 20 years old at the time, I did Beautiful Music. Obviously, the format was for my in-laws, not my own generation. The station was listened to at all the local higher end stores and restaurants, so each time I was in one of those places, I talked to the owners and got feedback.

All three were #1 in their targets. But the one I could have done much better with was the format I liked best. As I look back, I know many things I should have done better on that station, but on the other two I think we did as well as we possibly could have... because I talked to listeners rather than using my own taste.

I think that's something that outsiders don't think of. The more emotional investment in any item, the more people tend to push against anything that contradicts their subjectivity. Therefore, your statement does agree with my observations in my area of expertise. People with greater emotional investment come up with quick assumptions; then declare their assumptions as facts, without having concrete evidence to support their "conclusions."

 

[Least]

This is how it has always been in radio. Sometimes an owner/management takes pride in their product and believes in creativity. He'll hire a top notch creative team and allow them to practice their art, and that's almost always when the best radio happens. Unfortunately, this type of owner has become a rare breed thanks to the level of consolidation and concentration in the radio business.

On the flip side we see the dispassionate type of owner who views the radio business through spreadsheets and might as well be selling insurance. This is normally what you get from "big radio" -- the Wall Street companies with institutional investors, managed by people with little interest in the product they're selling apart from finding ways to squeeze every cent out of it. These people have the data driven answer for everything but if you look at the track records of the biggest radio companies in the United States they have either gone bankrupt or they're close to it. The C-suite people always seem to come out of it with their personal wealth intact, though, no matter how much damage they did. Funny how that works.

I think what helped me over the last few years observe the truth between my personal taste and the direction is the following concept (be warned, it is anecdotal in nature). I started out in high school saying "I like History class, and do well in it. I can picture myself teaching High School History." I've never taught a single day of High School History, in near 20 years working I'm the field. Instead, I went into education right out of my bachelors, and took the first job offered (Inner-city school, Special Education).

I got into that field, went and got a Masters in Special Education, and thought I'd teach for the rest of my career. One day, a former boss who had a doctorate went on and on about things he needed me to do. I said to myself, "if he had a doctorate, and is asking me to do certain things, I can get a doctorate." That resulted with five years going through that process. This included a change in position to being a facilitator, focusing on my new strengths in technology and data, and changing my view from being font of the line, in the classroom, focused on student behaviors; to being analytical on each variable and how each variable results with varying student progress. This results with much resistance from my former colleagues; but I know that for students' equitable growth, I need to shine lights on the findings that the data tells me.

Going to radio owners, I wonder where they first had interests, and how their course through industry evolved their thinking and understanding. I still disagree with what is programmed, but I theorize that my disagreement is more with our culture as a whole, over the owners. If anything, look at Disco. Culture made it popular than took its popularity away. Radio owners didn't do that. They only reacted to the trend.

 

[TheBigA]

This is valid point to add to the discussion. Only out of curiosity, what formats have you found the most success in applying your creativity; or in other words, where are you most passionate?

I've worked in a lot of formats that were not in my taste. I learned very early that you can't let your own personal taste get in the way of doing your job. There are creative ways to present music you don't personally like. That's where creativity comes in. How you present it. I brought in techniques that were used in other formats, and found they worked everywhere. You just need to have an open mind. Once I was immersed in the new format, I was able to see parallels with other genres.

 

[DOB]

I've worked in a lot of formats that were not in my taste. I learned very early that you can't let your own personal taste get in the way of doing your job. There are creative ways to present music you don't personally like. That's where creativity comes in. How you present it. I brought in techniques that were used in other formats, and found they worked everywhere. You just need to have an open mind. Once I was immersed in the new format, I was able to see parallels with other genres.

I go by the last 4 songs that I've played. If at least 1 of them were not songs that I have heard a billion times and sick to death of, then the log is not right.
That's just the way it is, always been, and always should be. We have heard them so many times and we have a strong passion as well. That's completely different than the audience we are going for.
I had a long time friend who does events as a mobile dj, used to do clubs, and has hanged with me in the studio during my shows for a few decades, along with a girl friend I've met recently who was right in the middle of our target audience. I was playing that sugar pouring song again and my friend said ugh I can't listen to this played out ish anymore it's torture. My girlfriend quickly responded oh no I love this song as she was bopping around to it.

 

[TheBigA]

I go by the last 4 songs that I've played. If at least 1 of them were not songs that I have heard a billion times and sick to death of, then the log is not right.

Anytime you feel you've heard certain songs too much, just change formats. Every time I did that, I discovered lots of songs I'd never heard. Then you start the process again. I was in adult contemporary and was sick of Neil Diamond. Then I switched to a different format, and discovered I wasn't sick of Neil anymore. In fact, I can now sit through Sweet Caroline for the billionth time and not throw up.

 

[vchimpanzee]

Actually, the Beatles are played on the local classic rock station. During the last 24 hours, WAXQ played five Beatles songs.

Q104.3 Music - Recently Played Songs

That seems like a lot for a classic rock station.

There was a newspaper column 30 years ago in Greensboro NC, which did not have a "new rock" station but a classic rock station. I forget exactly who said this or why, but the column quoted someone complaining about the music on the classic rock station and said something like "Hey, news flash. The Beatles broke up."

They get played at least that much on stations I listen to, none of which have formats that can be found in NYC.

 

[vchimpanzee]

Anytime you feel you've heard certain songs too much, just change formats. Every time I did that, I discovered lots of songs I'd never heard. Then you start the process again. I was in adult contemporary and was sick of Neil Diamond. Then I switched to a different format, and discovered I wasn't sick of Neil anymore. In fact, I can now sit through Sweet Caroline for the billionth time and not throw up.

I thought AC radio was sick of Neil Diamond.

Although soft AC WEZV does still play him.

 

[JoSam]

Back to the topic - Fantasy Dial...

92.3 - 'K-Rock' Active Rock leaning like K-Rock Utica/Syracuse
92.7 - 'WLIR' From the mid 90's
93.1 - 'Symphony Hall' Classical Music
94.7 - 'Audio Visions' New Age
95.5 - 'Power 95' Top 40
96.3 - 'The Block' Classic Hip Hop
97.1 - 'Stand Up NY' Comedy
97.9 - 'Free FM' Hot Talk/Sports PxP
98.7 - 'ESPN NY' 24/7 No Sports PxP (HD2 ESPN National feed)
99.1 - 'Fox Sports Radio'/Sports PxP
100.3 - '100 News' WINS
101.1 - '101 Sport' WFAN 24/7 No Sports PxP (HD2 CBS Sports Network)
101.9 - 'WRXP' Alt Rock like WRRV in Poughkeepsie
102.7 - 'Classic Alt' like WEQX In Vermont
103.5 - 'Music Lab' Prog Rock/Deep Tracks/Concerts
104.3 - 'WNEW' Classic Rock
105.1 - 'Mix 105' similar to the one from the 80's and 90's
105.9 - 'CBS FM' Classic Hits
106.7 - 'The Breeze' - Lighter than Lite
107.1 - 'The Peak' WXBK
107.5 - 'CD 107' Jazz

 

[vchimpanzee]

What's The Peak?

 

[DOB]

Everything as it is with these changes.

95.5 Adult CHR done like wplj circa1985-1987
98.7 Kiss fm classic soul Mid 70s thru 2000
99.5 Adult Alt a NYC KINK KBCO
102.7 Adult Hits all NYC hits 80s thru last few years
103.5 NYC dance rhythmic updated o.g KTU

Ok, 92.7, 99.1, 104.7, and L.I 98.3 Country simulcast, Froggy with DJs Tad Pole, Ann Fibian, Lilly Pad, and Jim Kerrmitt.

 

[JoSam]

107.1 - 'The Peak' WXPK (not WXBK) Westchester, NY... “World Class Rock for New York’s Backyard”

 

[davideduardo]

Going to radio owners, I wonder where they first had interests, and how their course through industry evolved their thinking and understanding. I still disagree with what is programmed, but I theorize that my disagreement is more with our culture as a whole, over the owners. If anything, look at Disco. Culture made it popular than took its popularity away. Radio owners didn't do that. They only reacted to the trend.

You make a very valid point... one which is not well understood by industry analysts as well as many inside broadcasting.

Radio is responsive and reflective. Stations try to latch on to popular tastes and program to those people who share a particular group that has common preferences.

Stations that try to be "adventurous" and innovative generally fail. As an example, you mentioned the "on and soon off" disco phenomenon. Disco was already several years into street level success in the club scene before WKTU became the first full-time full-signal all-disco station. Radio took a trend and built a station around it, not the other way around.

Stations don't start trends. They may enhance them, but radio just latches onto trends and serves their partisans.

 

[Marcos_C]

What's The Peak?

107.1 - 'The Peak' WXPK (not WXBK) Westchester, NY... “World Class Rock for New York’s Backyard”

It's an adult album alternative station.

 

[davideduardo]

I think that's something that outsiders don't think of. The more emotional investment in any item, the more people tend to push against anything that contradicts their subjectivity. Therefore, your statement does agree with my observations in my area of expertise. People with greater emotional investment come up with quick assumptions; then declare their assumptions as facts, without having concrete evidence to support their "conclusions."

Agreed. Perhaps my most successful station was one we (Emmis owned it) took over in Buenos Aires in 1999. It was rated last of the market's full signal FMs (the city also has over a hundred stations that are a lot less than a US Class A but considerably more than an LPFM). It did an AC format of pure English language music.

On my first visit to Buenos Aires as a consultant, the first thing I did was visit a record store. I found the largest amount of space was given to Argentine rock artists. Yet there was no pure Argentine rock station. Yes,there were mostly English language music rock stations, but no station just programming Argentine rock.

I knew little about Argentine rock, as the genre was mostly absorbed only in the southern part of South America and, other than a couple of artists, had little exposure elsewhere. And I didn't particularly like most of it.

We did an extensive format search, trying out prototypes of 28 different formats. The viable format winner was, of course, Argentine rock. In its debut book, a month after launching, the station was #1. Within a year, it had the highest AQH persons of any station in all the Americas.

 

[TheBigA]

Stations don't start trends. They may enhance them, but radio just latches onto trends and serves their partisans.

The one exception to this is smooth jazz. There never was a smooth jazz genre. In fact at its height, there was no Grammy category for smooth jazz. Kenny G had to compete with Count Basie or other jazz traditionalists to win a Grammy. You had some jazz artists making contemporary jazz, such as Chuck Mangione and Chick Corea. They got airplay on WRVR. But all that changed with KTWV. The success of the radio station inspired a lot of record labels to seek out more similar music. Some traditional jazz artists in fact made smooth jazz hits (such as Grover Washington) in order to get more radio airplay on stations such as CD 101 or WJZZ in his hometown of Philadelphia. There was great cooperation between radio & records during this time, with labels making music to feed this growing format. Sadly the whole thing came crashing down about 15 years ago. But it was great for some while it lasted.

 

[davideduardo]

The one exception to this is smooth jazz. There never was a smooth jazz genre. In fact at its height, there was no Grammy category for smooth jazz.

I worked for nearly two decades with the co-creator of Smooth Jazz, Owen Leach. It began as New Age at KTWV with a lot of Yanni and strange instruments from India. But quickly the crossover soft jazz and the Kenny G material rose to the top in tests.

When the work was being done to implement the format in Chicago, prototypes were played for potential listeners. At the same time, they wanted to avoid using "The Wave" name since it was sort of out of place for Chicago. One of the participants, a later-30's African American woman, said, "that sounds like smooth jazz" and at that moment the format's name was born.

And the name was adopted at radio stations that did not want to pay the KTWV organization for the rights to use "The Wave".

So "Smooth Jazz" is a radio construct, based on music that evolved out of New Age at KTWV.

Kenny G had to compete with Count Basie or other jazz traditionalists to win a Grammy. You had some jazz artists making contemporary jazz, such as Chuck Mangione and Chick Corea. They got airplay on WRVR. But all that changed with KTWV. The success of the radio station inspired a lot of record labels to seek out more similar music. Some traditional jazz artists in fact made smooth jazz hits (such as Grover Washington) in order to get more radio airplay on stations such as CD 101 or WJZZ in his hometown of Philadelphia. There was great cooperation between radio & records during this time, with labels making music to feed this growing format. Sadly the whole thing came crashing down about 15 years ago. But it was great for some while it lasted.

Remember, the "smooth jazz" format evolved not out of jazz stations and their playlists but out of New Age... in LA Tower Records had "New Age" bins as early as 1981, years before KTWV came about. And that is partly why Cody and Leach's format was based on that music. But it quickly evolved into lots more of what would later be called "smooth jazz" thanks to the interview with a potential listener in Chicago.

 

[TheBigA]

Remember, the "smooth jazz" format evolved not out of jazz stations and their playlists but out of New Age...

Which, for people unfamiliar with the term, was kind of "atmospheric" music, promoted mostly by Manfred Eicher and his ECM record label. Artists such as Keith Jarrett, Pat Metheny, Gary Burton, and the like. This was stuff that really sounded very different from traditional jazz, and sounded somewhere between jazz and classical music. It was a European version of American jazz. It was slightly more musical than playing sound effects records, but less musical than Weather Report. In other words, the antithesis of commercial music. How it got played on the radio is beyond me. Very little of it got played in New York, either at WRVR or WBGO. Maybe at WKCR.

 

[davideduardo]

Which, for people unfamiliar with the term, was kind of "atmospheric" music, promoted mostly by Manfred Eicher and his ECM record label. Artists such as Keith Jarrett, Pat Metheny, Gary Burton, and the like. This was stuff that really sounded very different from traditional jazz, and sounded somewhere between jazz and classical music. It was a European version of American jazz. It was slightly more musical than playing sound effects records, but less musical than Weather Report. In other words, the antithesis of commercial music. How it got played on the radio is beyond me. Very little of it got played in New York, either at WRVR or WBGO. Maybe at WKCR.

And it was just part of the blend on KTWV at the start... when the research started getting "too much wind chime music" they moved towards Kenny and the very "lightest" of real jazz cuts.

And that "atmospheric" New Age music was a true sales genre in LA, thus it was the base in the first few months for KTWV. But as the taste for light jazz seemed bigger... and opened up the Black and some Hispanic audience segments... the format moved quickly in that direction.

 

[CTListener]

Back to the topic - Fantasy Dial...

92.3 - 'K-Rock' Active Rock leaning like K-Rock Utica/Syracuse
92.7 - 'WLIR' From the mid 90's
93.1 - 'Symphony Hall' Classical Music
94.7 - 'Audio Visions' New Age
95.5 - 'Power 95' Top 40
96.3 - 'The Block' Classic Hip Hop
97.1 - 'Stand Up NY' Comedy
97.9 - 'Free FM' Hot Talk/Sports PxP
98.7 - 'ESPN NY' 24/7 No Sports PxP (HD2 ESPN National feed)
99.1 - 'Fox Sports Radio'/Sports PxP
100.3 - '100 News' WINS
101.1 - '101 Sport' WFAN 24/7 No Sports PxP (HD2 CBS Sports Network)
101.9 - 'WRXP' Alt Rock like WRRV in Poughkeepsie
102.7 - 'Classic Alt' like WEQX In Vermont
103.5 - 'Music Lab' Prog Rock/Deep Tracks/Concerts
104.3 - 'WNEW' Classic Rock
105.1 - 'Mix 105' similar to the one from the 80's and 90's
105.9 - 'CBS FM' Classic Hits
106.7 - 'The Breeze' - Lighter than Lite
107.1 - 'The Peak' WXBK
107.5 - 'CD 107' Jazz

What do you have against NY's Hispanic population?

 

[AceBiscuits]

What do you have against NY's Hispanic population?

I guess, since we’re discussing “dream dials”, a dream dial would be what you want, not what makes sense or for mass appeal.