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Could a Taylor Swift format work?
- Thread starter Don CT
- Start date
I wish somebody had the ratings. They made a national evening newscast. I am going to ask the Cincinnati board. Hopefully someone will remember. I seriously doubt a Taylor (or any single artist or group format will last 6 months on a OTA station in a competitive market.
I asked the question in the Cincinnati board and Kent (post #7 IIRC) states the AM lasted a couple of years so they had to have some revenue or somebody who needed a tax loss. I was surprised to learn a FM did the Elvis thing too. From personal experience, both Cincinnati and Louisville had strange things happen in the dairy days.
This took literally ten seconds on Google:
"For 54 weeks, “The Elvis Station” aired 632 Presley recordings.
“We stretched it out long enough. It made money the first few months, and that was about it. Then it just died,” program director Mike Monhollen told me back then.
Cincinnati’s all-Elvis station made headlines in People, Rolling Stone, USA Today, the New York Times, Variety and Newsweek. But it failed to make it into one crucial publication – the local radio ratings."
All-Elvis Radio Format Lasted 54 Weeks
On this day in TV Kiese History….Aug. 16, 1989: Owners of WCVG-AM (1320) killed Elvis – the nation’s first all Elvis Presley radio format – on the 12th…
www.wvxu.org
I hope the last Elvis song they played was "Return to Sender"....
So they did make some money with a sub par signal. I personally wonder how would you recruit decent sales folks. A good "street / local" person costs (but earns you) a lot and usually sooner or later owns your or another station. The one's I have met are always planning several years ahead and a novelty format isn't a long term thing.
Parse that out.
54 weeks, so two weeks more than a year.
It made money "the first few months".
What's "few"? Three? Four?
So you spend money recruiting the sales folks, they spend money trying to get business and then...
...it just runs out of gas because not enough people still alive and in a desirable sales demo still care enough about Elvis to listen to an all-Elvis station...and (as it notes in the article) not enough of even those to listen at the same time and long enough to show up in the ratings.
You do something like this for two reasons and you do it for a short term only:
1: To drive off whoever else was listening before.
2: To get local publicity that can actually drive curiosity listens. All that national print about the all-Elvis format did WCVG very little good.
It's almost certainly done with the involvement of Swift's people, so they'll go with Taylor's versions, because that's where the money is for her and them.
This 12 years after Elvis died. It would be an older demo then. Thirty years plus ago. I don't remember the demo ages back then but a teenager who graduated high school in 1960 would be 47+. But even then FM was chewing into AM's audience.
I can't explain why someone who take an FM signal and do the Elvis format.
Then again I never understood "stunting" for more than an hour before a format flip. IMHO Just make the change. Buy advertising if you want attention.
As I said I doubt they invested in sales talent. I was lucky, I never worked at a station that was in that bad of shape.
That's her one good song, in my opinion.
But stunting is fun.
Imagine if she did standards…..
Give her another 20-25 years. How old was Linda Ronstadt when she started doing standards? Rod Stewart?
Linda was nowhere near as popular nor rich as TS, just with concerts alone. Recently selling out five consecutive dates at Wembley Stadium is just one element of proof. She won't need to sing ridiculous 'standards' that only old folks care about. Her kids through great-grandkids, plus a few charities, will be comfortable for life.
If she has sons, they might be comfortable enough after their NFL careers to not need any financial help from Mom.
IMHO you get one chance to impress a listener. If they tune in and some elecletc mix of music in playing what are the chances he / she will try again?
Usually what little local on air staff has been fired.
If that's "real fun" I don't want any part of it.
Well, it's fun for those of us who like hearing stunts.
I'm starting to wonder if there's anyone left who hasn't.
Her catalog is big enough that she doesn't need too.
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