The Spot (98.7)

[dfwrunner2]

DFW radio plummets ever further towards the pit of hades...This is one of the worst marketing gimmicks ever. No imagination whatsoever went into this. And the music doesn't match the concept. Sounds like an attempt to appeal to soccer moms. Already in hades...97.1, 102.1, 103.7, 106.1...can it get any worse?

 

[Ryan Williams]

What specifically about The Spot makes it a “marketing gimmick”?

 

[TheBigA]

It's one of the most listened to radio stations in Dallas.

 

[dfwrunner2]

It's conceptually horrible. Just brain dead. It's listened to for the music. The exceedingly boring marketing doesn't match the music. Then again, it's playing the same 10 songs over and over just like all the others. I long for AOR at a minimum. It's this type of crap that is driving people away from broadcast radio.

 

[TheBigA]

It's this type of crap that is driving people away from broadcast radio.

Once again, it's one of the most listened to stations in Dallas. People like familiarity.

The only difference between this and AOR is that at the time, AOR played currents.

 

[bturner1]

It would seem you have not liked radio in general for a good while. Perhaps there's not a station on the dial for you and your personal playlist might be better. You are blasting top radio stations and the people hired to get listeners. They are. They are successful at what they do but you, and it would seem, you alone disagree. Thus my reasoning for my comments. You are certainly entitled to your opinion and certainly welcome to express it here. A tip, the greater the details you can offer and be factual. The Spot does NOT play the same 10 songs over and over. We both know that is not factual.

 

[nalyem]

Already in hades...97.1, 102.1, 103.7, 106.1...can it get any worse?

It absolutely could get worse here in DFW. We could, and eventually one day will, lose the non commercial stations here. Because nothing lasts forever in life and radio.

I say this a lot, but please ignore the commercial radio stations. Don’t worry about their fates. I’m assuming that you don’t work for any radio station, so it’s not like you’re out of a job if any station fails. It sounds like you’re into the many, many online or streaming options. Continue to do so. I listen to the non comms, particularly 91.7 KXT and 88.7 KTCU, and Spotify and am quite happy ignoring all the commercial stations.

 

[E-Cam]

I pretty much agree with everyone else about the state of radio because of what it became. These days, it's nothing but the same songs over and over from nearly every commercial radio station, which I agree. But if you want more than what you're getting from radio, the better option is streaming Spotify, Youtube Music, Pandora, etc. I've been using these for years.

As with The Spot, it's already successful and billing so well that's not going to change whatsoever.

 

[TheBigA]

I pretty much agree with everyone else about the state of radio because of what it became. These days, it's nothing but the same songs over and over from nearly every commercial radio station, which I agree.

But that's what radio is. It didn't "become" this. If you look back at radio stations in the 60s, 70s, 80s, or 90s, they each played a curated group of songs in a regular rotation. That curated group of songs is known as a format. That's what radio was, and what it is now.

What you want is a personal music service. That's a different thing. Radio can't replicate your personal music collection. Spotify, Pandora, etc can. They draw on the complete history of music. No radio format does that. No radio format CAN do that, because everyone's favorites are different. It's no different from those personal cassettes or CDs you used to make 30-40 years ago. You used your personal collection to augment radio formats. That's what you're doing now with streaming. Same thing.

 

[Kent]

But that's what radio is. It didn't "become" this. If you look back at radio stations in the 60s, 70s, 80s, or 90s, they each played a curated group of songs in a regular rotation. That curated group of songs is known as a format. That's what radio was, and what it is now.

I believe one could make a case that today's radio is less repetitious than the AM top-40 stations of the 60's and 70's. Wasn't the "Boss Radio" format notorious for only having around 50 songs in its playlist on any given day of the week?

I get that some people may hear too many song repeats to make listening to certain stations enjoyable. I'm generally not going to listen to an album on repeat because it quickly becomes too much of a good thing. Problem is, the typical response to stations with long playlists is usually something along the lines of, "God, this sucks. I don't hear my favorite songs enough."

 

[TheBigA]

I believe one could make a case that today's radio is less repetitious than the AM top-40 stations of the 60's and 70's.

The format name Top 40 relates to the size of the playlist. So yes, originally a Top 40 station played the 40 most popular songs over & over. It wasn't unusual to play the Top 5 songs at least 12 times a day. Maybe more. They'd add a few gold songs and maybe a future hit, but the Top 40 stations people grew up with had very small playlists. Today, a CHR station plays about 250 songs in a week, with the titles changing as songs are added and deleted. The fact that we have stations that don't add any currents is what gives people the impression that they're hearing the same songs over & over. If they occasionally played some currents, that would lessen that impression. But then they would be breaking format.

 

[Deleted member 76036]

I just think you guys don’t get it. The only reason The Spot and other stations are at the top of the ratings is because people who want to listen to the radio and don’t want to stream have no better choice. The Spot as a brand is boring. It could be better, but y’all are and the rest of the industry are just satisfied with being mediocre. I’ve mentioned this before about other stations in DFW and I still stand behind my thoughts.

Market #5 is starting to sound the same as market #105 (just picked a random number) and it seems like everyone is content with that. Welcome to radio in 2023!

Happy Tuesday!! 🙂

 

[Deleted member 108832]

Welcome to radio in 2023!

Happy Tuesday!! 🙂

Welcome to 2024, Chris. It appears you are a couple months behind. 😂

The Spot is what it is, and that's pretty much what it was before as K-Luv. A station heavy on the 80s, with a sprinkle of the decade prior and after mixed in. Audacy didn't change much more than the name. I will say this, the Houston version of The Spot is superior. The difference being, of course, that 95.7 in Houston was completely blown up to make way for The Spot, while 98.7 was merely a rebranding, utilizing much of the same song selections that were already in place.

Hey, it could be worse, as most everyone in Dallas can attest. It's not a complete mess like we see with the Mavs flagship.

 

[Deleted member 76036]

Welcome to 2024, Chris. It appears you are a couple months behind. 😂

The Spot is what it is, and that's pretty much what it was before as K-Luv. A station heavy on the 80s, with a sprinkle of the decade prior and after mixed in. Audacy didn't change much more than the name. I will say this, the Houston version of The Spot is superior. The difference being, of course, that 95.7 in Houston was completely blown up to make way for The Spot, while 98.7 was merely a rebranding, utilizing much of the same song selections that were already in place.

Hey, it could be worse, as most everyone in Dallas can attest. It's not a complete mess like we see with the Mavs flagship.

It’s just kind of weird. I rarely listen to The Spot, but when it was K-LUV, I listened all the time. And with 97.1…yeah…well, that’s another story! 🙃

 

[Kent]

I just think you guys don’t get it. The only reason The Spot and other stations are at the top of the ratings is because people who want to listen to the radio and don’t want to stream have no better choice.

Maybe. Most everyone in The Spot's target audience has the ability to stream if they want. I'm square in the middle of Gen X, and, while I knew some people who had never even used a computer when I started college, those were the minority. I can't imagine they don't have smartphones today. I'm sure some of them either don't think of audio entertainment as a priority and/or find using the phone in the car too cumbersome. I'm also sure some don't have open internet at work and can't efficiently stream from their phones in the office. I can't tell you how many of those exist relative to how many people listen to the Spot because they truly enjoy it. I can tell you I prefer radio to personalized playlists and more interactive media, like Pandora. It's just easy and convenient. Hit a button, and you have music. I don't, however, listen to very many of my local radio stations. I usually stream out of market stations and just change stations if they play a song I don't like.

The Spot as a brand is boring. It could be better.

I agree with you on this point. 98.7 K-Luv, in my opinion, was much better. I'm not sure the listeners in DFW agree with me, however. Since the change, I believe the Spot has gone up from where K-Luv was.

Market #5 is starting to sound the same as market #105 (just picked a random number) and it seems like everyone is content with that. Welcome to radio in 2023!

I would actually assert the reverse is true. Small markets have been importing major market talent for over two decades now. It makes a more homogenized sound and leaves questions as to where the industry will get its next generation of talent. It already has chased off much of today's talent when it had it yesterday, and the talent of tomorrow is even slimmer pickings. Problem is, when a lot of us either started on overnights and/or in smaller markets, we were terrible. Can't blame people in those markets for not wanting to listen to us. We also worked with a lot of unreliable people. When the ownership there was able to get better talent that always showed for cheaper, it jumped at the opportunity. Who could blame it, really?

 

[Deleted member 76036]

I would actually assert the reverse is true. Small markets have been importing major market talent for over two decades now.

iHeart, Cumulus, Townsquare and other large companies that have stations in small markets have been importing major market talent and I agree with that. However, there are still a ton of small market stations that are owned by small companies. Although those stations will often use syndication, some still employ local talent. I worked for a 2 station company before my move to Texas and they’re still fortunate enough to have more local talent than iHeart in adjacent markets with a very similar population. Many of the small market stations I worked for did a lot of stuff internally and didn’t have consultants and I know a lot still operate this way and are successful.

I do agree that the talent pool seems to be decreasing and decreasing. Here in DFW, I know that iHeart voice tracks a lot of dayparts with talent from outside the market. While I think this doesn’t matter much to the average listener, I wish we could use talent from within the metroplex. Audacy seems to take the jockless route on many of their stations in DFW and Cumulus recently introduced Westwood One 24/7 formats on 93.3 HD2 and HD3. Radio definitely isn’t what it used to be! Forget 10 or 20 years ago, I think there’s been a drastic change in the past 5 years. Since COVID, iHeart stations in DFW even say, “Parts of the following program may be prerecorded”.

 

[TheBigA]

Radio definitely isn’t what it used to be! Forget 10 or 20 years ago, I think there’s been a drastic change in the past 5 years. Since COVID, iHeart stations in DFW even say, “Parts of the following program may be prerecorded”.

It's all directly related to the loss of advertising. You can't hire local staff if revenues are dropping. Revenues are directly related to the number of spots, and people don't like commercials. So it's all related. And it's not just radio. TV is having the same problem.

 

[Deleted member 76036]

It's all directly related to the loss of advertising. You can't hire local staff if revenues are dropping. Revenues are directly related to the number of spots, and people don't like commercials. So it's all related. And it's not just radio. TV is having the same problem.

I almost think HD Radio could’ve helped with some of these revenue issues, but we screwed up that chance. I’m sure that technologies could’ve been built into HD Radio that we didn’t consider or pushed to the side.

I’ll admit, I’m not a saint and I listen to songs that contain profanity from time to time. I think I would’ve been in favor to loosening the rules on HD subchannels. With the way radios are now, I think it would be been easy to build parental controls into HD radio and/or having to opt in to subchannels that would be flagged as having content not suitable for younger ears.

Who knows if that would attract interest by potential listeners or even those in charge of the radio stations, but it’s just one of many thoughts I have on how HD Radio could’ve played out.

 

[TheBigA]

I almost think HD Radio could’ve helped with some of these revenue issues,

The bad news is even if people bought the radios and listened to the programming, it wouldn't grow the advertising pool. It would just dilute it more. That's the situation. The advertising pie isn't getting bigger. It just gets divided more ways. So that's why all of the options to OTA media want your credit card number. They want to collect money directly from users. I've sat in meetings where music industry reps talk about a surcharge on all ISP bills to cover the cost of music streaming. They know they can't count on ad support for their income.

 

[LibertyNT]

Problem is, the typical response to stations with long playlists is usually something along the lines of, "God, this sucks. I don't hear my favorite songs enough."

Pretty much, it's why I like (as far as non-coms go), KNTU, KMQX, and KEOM but don't like KXT.