Ya except the new technology tracks them too and creates an algorithm to make playlists more personalized. The Cynical paranoid types are aware of this too. Just be like “no” to wearing an actual monitor gadget and docking it every night seems more intrusive and cumbersome. Like what else is it monitoring and stuff. Hard pass.
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KPNW played “Bad Habits” by Ed Sheeran.
- Thread starter Cobra14
- Start date
I’m sure many here can agree with this. I’ve heard some really terrible in every way possible stations, music sucked, sound quality was bad, on air person sounded toasted etc and it had top ratings. I’ve heard stations that had great music, sounded fantastic, on air person was funny and entertaining and all round good station. Ratings sucked and they flipped it to something that sucked.
My personal theories for why this station is failing to take off:
1. People don't know about it. Promotion is challenging and expensive these days with so many media platforms. You can run TV ads, but fewer people are watching TV. And including cable, there are a million channels (fragmented audience). I think promoting a new station format is harder than ever. I don't think people "flip around the dial" like they used to. They have their presets and they rarely change (that is, if they're listening to the radio at all).
2. The cohort of AAA listeners don't spend as much time listening to traditional radio, instead favoring streaming, etc.
3. KEXP - while they are definitely not the same, I think there's an overlap of likely listeners. I'm a guy who enjoys AAA and when I used to live in Seattle, I often listened to KEXP in the car. I liked much of the music and definitely didn't miss the commercials.
1. People don't know about it. Promotion is challenging and expensive these days with so many media platforms. You can run TV ads, but fewer people are watching TV. And including cable, there are a million channels (fragmented audience). I think promoting a new station format is harder than ever. I don't think people "flip around the dial" like they used to. They have their presets and they rarely change (that is, if they're listening to the radio at all).
2. The cohort of AAA listeners don't spend as much time listening to traditional radio, instead favoring streaming, etc.
3. KEXP - while they are definitely not the same, I think there's an overlap of likely listeners. I'm a guy who enjoys AAA and when I used to live in Seattle, I often listened to KEXP in the car. I liked much of the music and definitely didn't miss the commercials.
Agree with the lack of promotion probably being problematic.
I don't think that the issue is lack of ability. There are billboards. Anyone who drives or takes the bus sees one. There are placards on bus transit. There are targeted internet ads. The ads that crop up on the side of many websites I go to are targeted. There are banner ads on local news sites. Local TV spots. The average AAA fan is probably a TV watcher. Probably exposed to traditional as well as internet advertising. There's got to be a way.
I don't think that the issue is lack of ability. There are billboards. Anyone who drives or takes the bus sees one. There are placards on bus transit. There are targeted internet ads. The ads that crop up on the side of many websites I go to are targeted. There are banner ads on local news sites. Local TV spots. The average AAA fan is probably a TV watcher. Probably exposed to traditional as well as internet advertising. There's got to be a way.
If your station plays music that appeals to large numbers of people in your market, word will get out without a huge marketing campaign. But that's not going to work for AAA. Buy billboards and yes, you'll get some people checking out the frequency, but if the music is unfamiliar, 99 percent of them are going to say "What is this s***?" and punch their P1 preset. In the end, the expense of a large-scale campaign is never going to be made up in revenue from advertising.
OK, but right now -- unless the 'real' ratings are stellar compared to the 6+ -- it's not a case of "ain't broke, don't fix it."
Promotion might work. I don't think in radio you gain listeners just by putting something on the air. If that principle worked, even fringe stations would have great numbers in nearby metros. And if that principle worked -- i.e. just build it and they'll come -- most websites would get millions of hits a day. But they don't.
The issue is visibility. And usually, visibility = advertising and promotion of some sort.
Once you're established, it's not so much an issue.
I wonder why they don’t just market 98.9 as “alternative” in the first place. Sure, KNDD is more alternative while KPNW is AAA, but can’t they call it an alternative to the existing alternative (lol)? I used to listen to 107.7 from time to time, but haven’t bothered since KPNW came around. To me, both are alternative in their own right. Slap a banner on the side of a bus that says “KPNW 98.9. Seattle’s Alternative” and see if it helps.
How is that different from KNDD? It confuses the brand.
That’s the point here. From my perspective, KPNW blends the brightest points of KNDD with some of the best album rock of the 20th century. Perhaps they (KPNW) could justify calling themselves “alternative” as a way to get the word out. As it stands right now, I don’t believe that enough people know what “Seattle’s home for music lovers” means.
KEXP has a long history, and in a way is a 'heritage' station in the region, so it has that in its favor. KNDD has a heritage going back to 1991 (or whichever year they went Alt), so it could be much the same.
KPNW is a newcomer..
Agreed they need a less vague slogan, but obviously it must have been heavily researched.
Yeah, "home for music lovers" doesn't really define things for the listener.
It has none of the cutting-edge vibe that one associates with any kind of "alternative" format. I look at that slogan and think classical or Beautiful Music.
And yet that isn't a problem for listeners of KEXP, where they say they're "Where The Music Matters." Right?
The problem isn't the branding. The problem is the lack of focus in the format itself.
I could see that being a big part of the issue, but can anyone even discover 98.9 if they don’t understand what they’re going to find when they get there? KEXP can say that “music matters” because most people are (at the very least) aware of what KEXP is. The branding for KPNW is pretty ambiguous from where I’m standing.
That's because there is no definition for a hodge-podge format that plays music from multiple eras and genres.
It is by definition a format without definition. Crosby, Stills and Nash are not alternative artists.
For good reason! The format itself is ambiguous! You're trying to put them in a box, and the box doesn't fit.
everyone wants to be a program director but nobody wants to take the pay cut.
What do most readers of this board think about WXRT? I spent the weekend playing them on my Alexa and enjoyed every minute of it. Based on the latest ratings, they are very appealing to Chicago listeners. Possibly Hubbard management needs to spend some time studying their playlists and using them as a blueprint for KPNW. Then again, Seattle is not Chicago.
If they use the "Alternative" slogan people would actually think it is that format. It would confuse KPNW and KNDD as well as KEXP. It would work if they actually changed their format to Alternative though.
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