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New Triple A for Seattle
- Thread starter leethalweapon
- Start date
KPNW at first listen sounds musically like a solid AAA. With no commercial AAA in Seattle since KMTT left and no HOT-AC since KPLZ changed format to AC, there were two clear format holes in the Seattle market. This format fills that gap. HOT-AC would have hurt KQMV and KRWM so AAA is a complimentary format. I suspect it will do better than the country format in Seattle for reasons discussed on this board. The biggest advantage to AAA is that advertisers tend to spend on the format. It's power ratio is close to News/Talk and Sports stations. Follow the money. Wonder if they will bring back local talent and who that might be?
For those who said there should be a regional country + those who said 101.5 should become the FM for AM 1000 ... would you get behind moving news simulcast to 101.5 and using the 97.7 frequency (which serves a regional footprint) for Country?
If I’m Lotus, news remains on 1000, and Star remains on 101.5. With that being said, I think they could tweak the format, perhaps try a similar model that is being used by stations in Canada that are using the “Now” moniker. These stations follow a AC/Hot AC format and rely on lots of personality and listener interaction. It seems like it’s worth a try because KPLZ is trying to tap into a prime demo.
I would argue that Lotus still needs 97.7 for news, as it acts as their massive FM translator.
I would argue that Lotus still needs 97.7 for news, as it acts as their massive FM translator.
Most of the Country format fan base is based in South King County, Thurston and Kitsap counties. I seem to remember Q-Country was about a 2 share station on a south end signal. 97.7 does a good job covering the south end. News Talk audience is more urban so 1000 might benefit from a full market signal like 101.5. Makes them competitive for 25-54 year olds on FM like KIRO-FM and KUOW-FM. Hard to hear AM in the city with all the interference. KPLZ just flipped to AC in December so I doubt they will make any moves until they give the new format a shot against KRWM and KSWD.
Back in the diary days, KMPS used to do very well to North-East=side of 405 communities like Monroe, Woodinville, Duval, Snohomish. Since there's been a lot more development/pop density from those days, I'd imagine the country audience is still pretty strong in those communities.
I like that idea. It seems like many stations in this country don't want to try it though. That's another gripe I have about the industry in general. Why are companies so insistent on having DJs track dozens of stations so they can't focus on generating content listeners will actually care about? To me, the more music, less talk approach doesn't work anymore when people have phones and streaming services they can pull up on demand, so stations shouldn't just do 10 in a row with a text to win contest and something about how Tiger Woods just checked himself into rehab again. Why is it so rare to hear a listener phone call these days? What happened to the CHR night show that had callers every break? Even with the text to win contests, you rarely hear the actual winner.
Those two things aren't mutually exclusive. If you're a creative person, and a performer who wants to be seen and heard by lots of people, then you WANT to have your act on more than one station. There are lots of top radio people who simply refuse to do the single station thing. If they're told they can't track other stations, they don't take the gig, because it restricts their creativity and potential audience. What makes you think they're being forced into tracking multiple stations? Consider Howard Stern or Ryan Seacrest. Neither of them were ever satisfied with one outlet. They demanded more. Did it hurt them creatively? I don't understand the idea that doing less makes your work better. I've never believed that.
People don't use phones that way anymore. I certainly don't. Sure it can make good radio if done well, but most of the time it doesn't. We'd go through lots of calls to come up with a few seconds that were usable. People don't always give good tape unless there's something that prompts is. I love interactive radio. But if you're interactive with a toad, it's not any good.
But truthfully, if this is what you want to hear on the radio, listen to Delilah. She does it every day,
There still are a lot of rural spots in Eastern SKC and outer Pierce, the Snoqualmie Valley, Eastern Snohomish County, and the like.
I think that the population in those areas -- as you have said -- is becoming increasingly suburban, though, with all the developments. Maple Valley used to be horse country in the 1980s and early 1990s. Now it's wall to wall planned, suburban communities. The GMA boundary is changing the makeup of areas that used to be rural or rural-oriented, places where you'd hear a country station booming from a store radio.
The one thing that may be keeping Country alive and well in suburbia is the nature of the recordings have changed. They have a lot of urban and pop influences. Maybe that isn't enough.
In a way, I'm not really surprised that The Bull flipped, because of the overall changes in the metro's ethnic and cultural makeup. All those tech-bros in Seattle proper being an example. At the same time, I thought The Bull would survive, given enough promotion and presentation. However, the post-pandemic economy seems to have changed the way radio companies look at allocating money to promote stations, hire staff, etc. Maybe keeping The Bull as The Bull just didn't pencil out anymore.
I'm not against syndication existing. What drives me nuts is stations in sizeable markets having no local content at all. Not that I liked many of iHeart's smaller market stations anyway, but now I find them unlistenable because they sound so canned. If I were running a big company, not all my stations would be running the same programming. Why does every iHeart country station have to run Bobby Bones, or every Townsquare CHR run Pop Crush nights? If I were running a company, those programs would be just as available to my stations as they are to every other station in the country, but I wouldn't mandate that anything be run. Also, what's the point of running the same log in multiple markets? With streaming being as extensive as it is, I would think it's even more important today to have unique music logs than ever before, because I can pull up two stations in the same time zone instantly and realize they're synchronized within minutes. I talked to a guy on the train coming back from Seattle last time I was up there who makes the trip frequently. He had just gotten a new stereo system, and programmed both his Seattle and Portland presets into it and noticed right away that 99.5 and 100.7 were playing the same songs in the same order. That's a dead giveaway right there that the programming decisions aren't made locally.
Re: Delilah. Sure, but why should I have to put up with sob stories all the time? What about the teenagers that decide to call a radio station at 8:30 at night and it sounds like they're having a huge party in the background? That's the kind of radio I can relate to more than some guy left me and I'm having financial issues and can you play some sappy love song. I'm not saying that the other program shouldn't exist, because Delilah is good at what she does and there's an audience for that, but that shouldn't be the only thing phones are used for these days.
On the topic of voice tracking, it can be good, but it can also be bad. I used to do a ton of voice tracking, and quite honestly, it got pretty boring if it was excessive. If you’re only going a few breaks at a time, sure, there is plenty of room for creativity. However, if you’re tracking many hours ahead (or on multiple stations), it becomes pretty dry after a while. Not to mention, there are always pentameters about how much creativity you can put in.
They are run because they are much better than anything local you could do. And if you do find a great local talent, they won't be with you long.
Additionally, the big stars like Bones and Seacreast and Charlamagne tha God have access to artists, hot news and interesting things that your morning guy in Dothan or Dubuque never will come close to having.
Radio is a local medium. All its own ad sales are local, so it does not matter. And better to have someone really good at scheduling do a number of stations.
Her target is roughly 25 to 50 year old women. Period. Huge sales demo. Nobody else is invited to the party, but they are welcome and a lot come, too.
No station targets teens. No revenue, and no purpose in attracting them.
It's tough to get most people to use the phone... and the digital codecs on many cellular systems don't sound good when run through the audio processing of many radio stations.
I guess gone are the days in which listeners want to hear about local events and things of local interest.
Did CHR stations in the '90s, at least at night, target teens? I remember those high-energy night shows, many of which were heavy on phones, targeting teens.
But don't talk formats - especially sports - rely on people calling stations on cellular phones?
One of my first stations I worked at in the early 90s did "Friday Night Party Patrol" one summer just to try it out. Basically it was a small market station, CHR format, easily #1 rated station in the market, live jocks 24/7 with probably 25 staff between the AM and FM airstaff and sales/admin. The party patrol idea was started by one of the part-time jocks who was trying to get more exposure for himself . That station already did "pool patrol" on weekends where they'd drive up to a large municipal or public pool with the logo'd station truck, hand out SWAG and if one of the on-air staff happened to be on the truck (as opposed to the interns or station lackies who usually did that gig) they might do a live break or two. His idea for the "party patrol" was similar... The on-air jock would take calls from people having parties at their houses on Friday nights to encourage folks to listen to the station, but also if the station truck was in the area, they might stop by your house, hand out SWAG and again, maybe do a live break from your party.
I remember that idea lasting about 3 weeks:
- The jock who came up with the idea quickly grew bored of it and also started pushing management for more $$ if they wanted him to continue the idea. They scoffed and ended it.
- Many callers were crap. Either they were big parties with so many people screaming in the background when calling the station that the on-air guy couldn't "interview" the caller, or the calls just didn't make for good radio. That station would run tape when folks would call in and then play back the better ones - even then it took work and most callers weren't great.
- It seems many folks' idea of a "party" varies. Some were very good and true parties. Others ended up being a small BBQ with 10 low-key people sitting around drinking beer who thought it'd be cool to be on radio. Those were a waste of the stations' time. There were also some concerns because "adults" from the station would show up to some parties and it was just underage and teens, many drinking illegally, and some being outwardly, let's say "flirtatious" with the station staff. Not always a good mix.
- Notice I mentioned several things above which are no longer true today at most any small market station: It was a stand-alone AM/FM. It was manned with live jocks 24/7. There were 25 folks on staff, probably about 10 of them full-time or management. In other words, that was a VERY different day and era in broadcasting, especially as far as small markets are concerned.
- That station is now automated/VT'd 24/7 except weekday mornings. It has changed formats 3 times since I was there. It's no longer part of an AM/FM combo, but a larger 6 station cluster. It's now rated at about #6 in that market and they're struggling mightily to make sales quotas just to keep the lights on.
Actually they don't. Quite a few iHeart country stations have local morning shows. Atlanta is one example. Another is Baltimore. But the point of having someone like Bobby is to have a national presence. Someone who has name recognition similar to Rush Limbaugh, Ryan Seacrest, or Steve Harvey. The music they play has a national presence. When a big celebrity does an interview, it gets national exposure. So there are a lot of reasons.
You said no one is taking phone calls, so I gave you an example. I can give you examples of what you want, but you don't live there, so you can't listen. There are 16000 radio stations. Lots of stations take phone calls. But because they're local stations, you don't know about it.
It depends on the format. Stations that play currents in major markets can't do that because of the chart rules. But what difference does it make when they're playing national music from international music conglomerates? There was once a time when there were small local record labels. But that's not how music works anymore. People don't care about "unique music logs." They want to hear their favorite songs. But if you want a unique music log, listen to KPNW. That's what this thread is about. They have no syndication, and they have unique music logs. Hooray!
In the case of Pop Crush Nights, radio listening tends to drop off at night, and getting a premium price for spots after 6:00 PM is difficult, even if you're one of the few stations still doing well at those hours. If airing it is cheaper and doesn't hurt you, you're making more money by running it. Don't know if Townsquare mandates it be run. I wouldn't be surprised either way. Seems like I heard Townsquare was offering it to other stations. Don't know if that's still the case or if it had very many takers.
How many stations air the same songs? It's most of them within their formats. Obviously, you're not going to want to duplicate your competitor exactly when you're in the same market, but, in separate markets, the order of the songs doesn't make any difference when they're the same songs in the first place.
Personally, I can't stand Delilah, but I'm not in her target listening audience. I understand more versions of her show are being offered now than were 15 years ago because PPM was absolutely brutal to her. Major market stations dropped her left-and-right, including several owned by iHeart, which is in charge of syndicating her. From what I understand, you can take the long form show, or you can take an abbreviated version with fewer talk breaks and shorter calls. Don't know if you can put the whole show together yourself, but I wouldn't be surprised if you could. I know she's been getting more carriage in local markets over the last few years, and I don't think the general advertising climate in radio has been the only explanation. In 2010, a PPM market could run without an announcer at night and get better numbers than it could with Delilah.
Listeners still want those things and know where to find them. Bobby Bones and other national morning shows are more about getting the stars the stations couldn't get themselves with local programming. Listeners who don't feel entertained by that don't listen, and the stations know it won't appeal to everyone. In many cases, the stations that air Bones in the morning air content that has a more local focus, even if the jock isn't local, during other dayparts. Again, listeners know that content will be available at some point during the day, and, if they can't find what they're looking for on that particular station, they go somewhere else for it.
Don't know if it's still the case, but, at least at one point, Clear Channel/iHeart didn't explicitly mandate carrying any voicetracking or syndication at all. Budget considerations, of course, still fell into play, and you might be forced to voicetrack and/or take syndication because you didn't have the budget for all the local staff you wanted. Corporate mandates, however, weren't, in and of themselves, part of the culture there. With private equity running the show, that might well have changed.
Townsquare works with a syndicator to offer some of the 7-midnight shows to stations outside the group. It's hard for a company that owns radio stations itself to deal with competitors, so it can help to have an intermediary involved. The syndicator handles national sales, and has the distribution infrastructure to get the show to stations. Townsquare's Taste Of Country Nights and Pop Crush work that way. Audacy tried to do national shows without a syndicator, and it was an operational nightmare. I think they now see they need an intermediary.
Audacy's WBEB in Philadelphia has tried it both ways. They had been running VT at night, and just replaced it with Delilah. In any case, you're right that there's not much audience after 7PM, and consequently not much demand for advertising.
The way things seem to be right now is it's a market decision. If they have the budget for local staff, that's what they do. If they don't, there's corporate support. With iHeart's WPOC in Baltimore, they have a legendary morning host who's in the Hall of Fame. They're not going to get rid of a legend just for Bobby Bones. They do what gets the most money for the cluster,
Yep, nights are usually considered gratis 'bonus-spot' hours. Agencies simply aren't interested in local nights.
A station might duplicate music in the market, but that's where having the most talented-talent comes into play. Using the same extraordinary talent across multiple markets for drive hours represents the most bang for the buck.
Exactly. And folks like Bobby Bones are there to appeal-to the most audience. That audience doesn't generally consist of senior citizen radio nerds who are somehow offended by voicetracks.
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