I remember back around 2004-06, 94.9 often played Latino artists like Frankie J, Baby Bash, Daddy Yankee, and Shakira, and even played 90s freestyle music (such as Lil Suzy's "Take Me In Your Arms") as part of a marketing strategy to target Latino listeners to distinguish itself from the more strictly hip hop and R&B 106.1 (where I do not remember them ever playing Baby Bash singles, not even his collab with Akon).
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Can Wild 94-9 Be Saved?
- Thread starter HenryOchs
- Start date
Street Novelist
Banned
I miss that station. Now, it hardly plays any Latino artists. Remember NB Ridaz? 😄
Bill was priceless...and when he went on to KGBS years later he was still #1 with his "Feminine Forum" talk show!
Who would pay for it? The advertisers aiming at that demo don't use music radio.
Absolutely. Nearly none use radio at all. Most 55+ and nearly all 65+ campaigns have found that visuals are essential.
Try to imagine those Ozempic ads without a definitely chubby lady or stair lifts / walk in tubs / scooter ads without lots of visuals of people having a great fun life due to the use of a certain product.
Those advertisers try to buy national services like cable, OTA TV shows that lean old, websites visited by seniors, etc. They don't buy local TV and, of course, would never buy local radio.
Because this site is open to both radio and TV pros as well as fans, listeners, critics and the like we, have to remember that a reminder every so often that "we do what we hope advertisers will like and that some of you will enjoy in that order".
Or...
"Radio is in the manufacturing business. We make listeners and sell them to advertisers".
Words fail me.
A gentle reminder here that “Classic MOR” listeners are not 50+, or 65+, but 95+.
There’s a reason KMPC and KFRC got out of Standards in 1992 and 1993—the demos had become too hard to sell.
Those listeners (the few still alive) haven’t gotten any younger in the last 30+ years.
There’s a reason KMPC and KFRC got out of Standards in 1992 and 1993—the demos had become too hard to sell.
Those listeners (the few still alive) haven’t gotten any younger in the last 30+ years.
An important point that's hard for those of us who grew up with radio in the 1970s and 1980s to admit is that, while we've carried our format preferences with us, and our mental picture of those preferences has been able to adapt somewhat, advertisers and agencies look at audiences through a fixed window. In other words, we entered the magical 25-54 window at some point, and we exited at some point. Any new format development or any change in format is going to take that into account. Likely listeners to what we think of as 60s-style MOR is already way out of that window.
The new MOR is classic rock if you're male; traditional AC if you're female. In ten or fifteen years, it will be "alternative".
A personal story, albeit not Bay Area-oriented: The owner of the station where I had my first professional full-time radio job was the same age that I am now. I remember thinking of him as a tired old man who often wanted to do the right thing but couldn't summon the energy to do so. And, sure, he had smoked, was down to one kidney, and seemed to feel deeply the stress of keeping his radio station going, even though it was quite profitable. I've never smoked, my health is good, and while I had a stressful profession post-radio, I learned how to manage that stress. I don't feel tired. I also don't drive a Lincoln Continental - the owner did - and that, right there, shows you how being in one's 60s has changed. Does that matter to advertisers? Not really. But they're the ones writing the checks, so telling them "you need to shift your perceptions" isn't likely to get very far, AARP The Magazine notwithstanding.
Hank, why do you keep insisting on this each time it’s mentioned a station is struggling? You know full well this isn’t realistic in 2024 and going forward, right?
Street Novelist
Banned
There's nothing wrong with being a dreamer; at least according to John Lennon.
Having the same dream over and over is called... a nightmare!
And to think, KYLD started out as KSOL before becoming “Wild 107.7” in 1992. Yes, they were unique with their mix of R&B/Hip-Hop, Dance (“Sing It Back” by Moloko anyone?), and Rhythmic Pop (like The Spice Girls). Even the weekend mixes (as well as the holiday mixes) were awesome. Fast forward to 2024 and how much they have changed. As for Wild 94.9 going back to Rhythmic that ship has sailed away from the Bay Area nearly a decade ago.
How has Kidd Kraddick Show been able to carry on?
Unfortunately, it was blown out of the Bay Area by a “Breeze…”
I could go for that! Although it wasn't MOR, something like KABL would be very neat to have again. I listened to it a lot back around 2000-2004.
While that may be generally true, some of us would beg to differ. I resemble something you'd probably consider a "Classic MOR" listener, but I grew up in the 90s and early 2000s, not the 30s and 40s as one might expect.
True, but perhaps it could work as a noncommercial, donation-supported format?
How does a station like WJEJ support itself? Their format is pretty close to MOR, and it apparently has enough of an audience that the owners feel the format is still viable as is. Is Hagerstown, MD some sort of retirement community where the average age is 90?
On that note, I had an interesting dream recently.
In my dream, I was listening to the radio, and decided to tune to 1260 AM, and it had flipped from whatever religious thing it is now (Relevant Radio?) to an oldies format, bringing back the KYA calls, using classic jingles and imaging from the early-mid 60s, and live DJs, except they were actually young newcomers, not old retirees (save for a couple to play up on the nostalgia factor). In essence, a complete, successful, mostly live and local recreation of KYA as it existed from 1960-1970, but with a hint of newer ideas (the DJs weren't super chatty, and didn't talk all over the music, the ads were modern, etc.).
I know it'll never happen in reality, but it was a very nice dream nevertheless (yes, I take this stuff very seriously; that era of music (50s and 60s) is my overwhelming favorite).
c
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Yes, but the core audience for this format, the people that you need to listen often enough, regularly enough and long enough for advertisers to care, was born in the 1910s, 1920s and 1930s (there's a theory that says rock and roll appealed to post-war Boomers, but to be 16 when Elvis hit, you had to have been born in 1940).
And this was proven even after KMPC and KFRC (the gold standards for the format in the 80s and early 90s) bailed out. They were playing to a 65+ audience then.
Others, tailored to hook younger fans of the music, came along in the late 90s and into the mid-2000s---"Red", "Martini", "Fabulous 570" (KLAC)---and they all found the same thing:
Yes, there are people like you and me who are (or were---I was still in the sales demo at the time) younger who appreciate the music. But not enough of us who will listen long enough.
In Phoenix, in 1999, KOY was still on 550 AM, doing a standards format and looking pretty good in the 6+ numbers. We later learned that the average---the average---listener was 85 years old. They're 110 today if they're still with us.
Maybe. You still need people alive and passionate enough about preserving it to support the station monetarily---and that's nowhere near as easy as it sounds.
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Maybe in Rossmoor as an LPFM (if it's even technically feasible in the Walnut Creek area) but even there I think the format would age out pretty quickly. There is money there, but motivation is another matter.
All you have to do is look at 1240 in Monterey when Saul Levine owned it. There's a whole lot of older people with money in the Monterey-Carmel area---and businesses that pursue them. Saul ran his "Unforgettables" format and actually put effort into localized elements. Did it for four years. Nothing.
The trouble is that people tend to underestimate the ages of people who want to listen to these formats. Standards is 95+. "Graffiti"-era oldies is 75+. Beatles-era oldies (the 1964-72 stuff that was the "sweet spot" for oldies stations for decades) is 70+.
Back in the late 70s or possibly early 80s KLOK went into a simulcast with KWIZ Santa Ana during morning drive. Apparently the thinking was that both of these stations serve a large suburban audience in their respective markets. But, alas, it didn't work and the experiment ended in a very short time.
Well you almost got your wish, many, many years ago KYAA 1200 Soquel (Monterey) recreated KYA 1260 and apparently was somewhat successful for a few years. They eventually donated the station to Relevant Radio which is what it is today. It has a pretty decent signal as it can be heard up and down the West coast at night
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