I respect the classics too, but I'm personally bummed that it seems like 80s-90s nostalgia has never left, it would be cool to see radio appeal to a nostalgia around my time since I'm sure enough listeners who grew up in the 2000s-10s had a decent audience AND older people who stuck around and liked the music being played in those decades for it to still exist fairly with the classic alternative that never left. I love the 80s-90s stuff, I constantly request cuts on 91X's resurrection sunday, I talked to Garett Michaels before, I know and get that perspective of the radio business, but I still believe in something more. I see radio in a "dire straits" (pun not intended), where it's chasing what macattack would call the "DATA DATA DATA" than alternative's vehicle of being a music discovery type format ever since the beginning before it was even called alternative (such as KROQ or 91X).
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KITS 105.3 Stunting... Return of Live 105?
- Thread starter AceBiscuits
- Start date
The stations, Emmis' Mega 98.3 and Radio 10, did not crash. They continued to be Buenos Aires #1 AM and FM stations (In a market of over 200 stations). But the economy crashed, with enormous inflation of over 100% a year and they could not even afford my 6 times a year trips to Argentina if I had worked for free!
I have no idea what that means.
Foo Fighters, Nirvana, Placebo, Muse, Arctic Monkeys. I see a lot of Brazil, Chile and MX's big cities in here.
i got ratio'd fr fr tbh
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The thing you are ignoring is that current alternative proponents have fragmented into multiple groups which, each, share some likes but have more songs that each group truly dislikes. So there is very little current music that appeals to all the generic alternative rock fans because the genre is really divided into three or four dissimilar groups of followers.
And that is why so many of the remaining alternative stations play mostly older material... it's the only place a significant numbers of "universal appeal" songs are found.
If you figure that each song gets multiple listens and cities like Mexico City, with 23,000,000 people, is barely getting any significant listening.
yet has more monthly listeners than any american city. hmm suspicious
What has "more monthly listeners"?
You can't compare a world-wide streaming service with individual markets in the US. If you want to make comparisons of streams, it has to be on either a national or international basis, and not to terrestrial radio stations that only cover a single metro area.
Whatever may be suspicious in this thread, that ain’t it.
Some basic facts come into play:
- Math is real
- For-profit companies exist to make, um, profits
- One person’s tastes are not universal
- Myriad options exist to find and/or curate precisely the music mix any individual desires
- Broadcasting is not the only music delivery method
Oh I know how much they bill. From the outset, it’s been more of a passion project than being a large biller. That being said, I commend their owners for at least attempting this and capturing the spirit of old school radio. (In addition, they also own a few other stations and have investments in non-radio assets, so they do have some $ flow.)
I notice they also don't subscribe to Nielsen.
This kind of radio is what fans of music want. They want someone else to subsidize their love of music, which is not at all what musicians want. Musicians create their music for fans, and the intent is for those fans to buy the music, subscribe to their channels, attend their shows, and support their life's work. But we see lots of stations like this. Quite often they'll be non-commercial stations, either LPFMs or college stations. But oldies fans in NY are happy to have WABC owned by a billionaire grocery store owner, or WRME in Chicago bankrolled by the owner of a TV station.
This is not what Live 105 was or what it will be.
David hates Alternative music, he has admitted it many times here. You're never going to get a positive opinion about the format from him.
While I understand the bias of a music fan, I don’t see anything of the sort from David. He’s trying to provide you with a reality check — radio is an advertiser supported business. The listener is the product. Advertisers are the customers. I know that some of you are looking for another answer, but it does not exist.
Radio stations create formats that owners believe will attract certain listeners that are desired by advertisers. It’s really that simple. Arguments to the contrary that there is a “corporate agenda” or an individual’s personal musical taste somehow drive programming decisions are nonsense. If there is any corporate agenda, it’s profitability — that’s it. If alternative is all that some fans would purport, it would be the only format on commercial radio!
Alternative stations that are both well programmed and profitable exist. They have been discussed extensively in other threads. KPNT is a good one. The constant hate from some members under the guise of objectivity gets old here.
If I said gregorian chants is not a pathway to profitability, that's not a criticism of the music. It's an objective reality. Perhaps a bit less tongue in cheek, one could cringe at country music but say, quite objectively, it's a demonstrably viable and profitable format as a general statement.
That said, profitable as in not operating at a loss is one thing; truly successful and among the stronger stations in a cluster/market is another. There is a deep divide among fans under the general alternative umbrella, and there's not a lot of common ground to work with. Sure, some markets find a way to be an exception, no question. But exceptions don't change the overall reality. And right now, that reality is there's more value in the classic alternative route in many, perhaps most, cases, on the commercial side of the equation.
As we have discussed, KPNT is primarily driven by a very strong morning show. In fact all of the highest rated alternative stations are driven by the morning show, whether it's Woody at KYSR or Rizzuto at KPNT. The morning show is the burger and the music is the fries & shake. Both are important, but the money made by the morning show funds the rest of the day. That's what this station needs. It needs a revenue source, and it won't come from the music.
In the case of KITS, they are starting from scratch. The good news is Mark Hamilton will be running it. Mark was there in the 90s, and he worked with Steve Masters and Alex Bennett. He knows what that station was. He left KITS to go to KNRK Portland. If you like what he's doing in Portland, you'll probably like what he's going to do at KITS. Mark understands what alternative is now, given the lack of support from record labels. If people expect a return to the 90s, they'll probably be disappointed. But I think Mark will do the best job that anyone could have done with this station at this time.
Umm, Marcus Mumford, lead singer for British folk band Mumford & Sons, is responsible for the title music for Ted Lasso.
If KITS turns into KNRK...we, Alternative fans in the Bay Area, should be very happy. Having a strong, personality driven morning show is key, and has always driven ratings in the Bay Area. In my view, a strong morning show can help an Alternative station survive, maybe even grow the genre. Syndicated national shows or streaming stations ('Dave') will never have anything more than low-mediocre ratings in the Bay Area. I point to Alice (97.3) which has somewhat replaced what Alex Bennett used to do at KITS, and it has propelled that station to consistent top ten ratings. Without that morning show, Alice's ratings would barely hit the top twenty. Sure hope Hamilton can make this a success.
To grow the genre, there will need to be investment. Someone has to invest in the music. Seattle had Microsoft's Paul Allen. It's because of Paul that you have KEXP. You need someone like that in the Bay area. KITS is a heritage Entercom station, previously owned by David Field's father, when it was a Hot Hits station. So I can see them wanting to revive this station somehow. I think a lot of people are rooting for success here. But they need to be patient and not give up on the station because of a few songs they don't like. The key will be the morning show.
I stand corrected. I haven't seen Ted Lasso.
I remember those. I was taking broadcast classes at Chabot College and visited there a couple times. One I used for an assignment and got to talk to the station manager too about radio stuff. It was a blast being in the broadcast booth.
I do remember Alex being in his 40s the time I went to the station as mentioned above. Suck we all get old!
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