Interview With WNEW's New Brand Manager

[Barry]

RadioInsight has a discussion with Rob Miller, who was asked by the station's former leader, Jim Ryan, to be his replacement. Miller had a long career with IHeart, which included PD of WKTU, and WMIA, Miami's bilingual A/C station.
Among the interesting things he mentioned were that WNEW 102.7 has "A lot fewer commercials" than its rivals. I wonder whether that is a tradeoff by management to add listeners, at the temporary expense of reduced revenues.
Miller also gave his opinion that "Since the pandemic, the number of true hit songs has really slowed."
He also asserted that WNEW is "tailored for" New York. Is the music mix really significantly different from similar stations in other cities?

Rob Miller Interview

 

[TheBigA]

Miller also gave his opinion that "Since the pandemic, the number of true hit songs has really slowed."

Depends on the format. What has really happened is that music is homogenizing, and you're having more crossovers in pop music.

When we look at streaming charts, we see that people aren't as interested in new music discovery as they once were.

 

[Theater of My Mind]

When we look at streaming charts, we see that people aren't as interested in new music discovery as they once were.

I would argue that people are probably more interested in music discovery than ever. There's just so much of it now compared to the pre-internet era that there's massive fragmentation with all that new music being spread out to fit people's individual preferences and less rising to the top of mass market charts.

Sure, the Big Three record labels keep cranking out homogenous stuff which fits radio, itself having become become as homogenous as it gets. But for every homogenous hit there are thousands of other songs and thousands of ways for people to hear them, tailored to their individual taste and not the mass market. This is a huge difference from how things were less than just 30 years ago, when radio was the primary way most people discovered new music from a very limited selection of songs being offered to them.

 

[TheBigA]

I would argue that people are probably more interested in music discovery than ever.

Based on what? I'm basing it on publicly available streaming charts. What's your source?

Sure there's lots of new music, but it's not what people want. If it was, it would show up in the streaming numbers.

The quantity of new music dilutes the audience numbers, so none of the songs get any real numbers.

Sure, the Big Three record labels keep cranking out homogenous stuff which fits radio, itself having become become as homogenous as it gets.

The big 3 crank out homogenous music because the streaming services aren't set up around formats or genres. It's all just music. The labels only make money from streaming royalties, not from radio airplay. BTW one of the biggest cross genre hits of 2024 was by Shaboozey, who is not on a major label.

 

[Delete My Account]

Sure there's lots of new music, but it's not what people want. If it was, it would show up in the streaming numbers.

The quantity of new music dilutes the audience numbers, so none of the songs get any real numbers.

Plus where would they hear it anyways? Even if in theory they'd like it, there's no consensus or motivation for most radio to play it, so it relies on being pushed to people through social media, an "influencer" (cringes - we used to call those DJs and critics and bloggers, but it seems to have been reduced to its dumbest form) etc.

So even if the song's great, or the artist, most people will never hear it because as you said, the quantity dilutes the audience. I have to actively remind myself to seek out new music or use non-commercial and independent stations to discover it. I'll tune in to WEQX and generally hear a number of things I like, but it's competing for ear-time with podcasts, other streams, my own playlists. I have to actively remind myself to check in to hear new music, and supposedly services like Apple Music and Spotify curate it too but again, there's a million niches - "chill indie, indie chill, downtempo, dinner chill" and it's a lot of freaking choice overload. And I'm in the radio and media world and passionate about it.

Most normal people don't have much time to "discover" things.

 

[MarkW]

Miller also gave his opinion that "Since the pandemic, the number of true hit songs has really slowed."

Things certainly feel that way. Very few recent hits will have staying power, in my opinion.

I like WNEW's sound quite a bit. Far superior to WPLJ, a station that should've been put out to pasture even sooner, if ya ask me.

 

[Barry]

Rob Miller also said in the interview, " Hot AC is not a fast-moving format with current music. But the great news is that we hold onto hit songs a lot longer. And that’s what listeners do. They don’t stop liking a song when a label moves to a new single from that artist. We don’t have to play a bunch of new songs; we can cherry-pick the BEST ones."
Does a hot A/C such as WNEW generally play the majority of currents that are also aired on CHR stations, and weed out the ones that are considered more appropriate for younger demos? Apparently they wait a while after a song is a CHR hit before playing it.

 

[TheBigA]

Does a hot A/C such as WNEW generally play the majority of currents that are also aired on CHR stations, and weed out the ones that are considered more appropriate for younger demos? Apparently they wait a while after a song is a CHR hit before playing it.

I don't know what the minimum percentage of currents is for a Hot AC to be a chart reporter. I guess it's around 20%. I think CHR is 28%.