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For those who thought "Alternative" was a dying format, guess again!

That's interesting. I also notice that cume is up across the market this month. I still think we will see a flip at 98.9 before the year is out, they have not been able to pull anything above 200K for months, and maybe a 2.4 at the highest since they went back to country. Also, I wonder if Hot might be in trouble? They've been holding in the low 2 share range for months now, but a cume of over 300K.
 
Format changes are expensive, if done right. And summer is country music season, generally. Cannot imagine 98.9 is going anywhere, antime soon. Or Hot for that matter, unless the demo breakouts are truly awful. We are not privy to the numbers that matter.
 
I just pulled KNDD's playlist for the past week from Mediabase. Relatively light playlist ... only 307 titles played, only 213 of which got more than five spins during the week. (25 only got one play.) Almost entirely 1990 and newer, except for "(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right To Party" by Beastie Boys (two spins) and "Blue Monday" by New Order (five).

Seems to me that their success is based in the same programming strategy used by CHR and Classic Hits, which is a tight playlist with the newer titles in a power rotation; a mere 18 songs, all from between 2022 and the present, received 20 or more spins.
 
K.M. Richards said:
Seems to me that their success is based in the same programming strategy used by CHR and Classic Hits, which is a tight playlist with the newer titles in a power rotation; a mere 18 songs, all from between 2022 and the present, received 20 or more spins.
Click to expand...

KNDD is a smaller playlist than co-owned KITS and KVIL. Those two have almost 400 songs. iHeart's KYSR is the closest to KNDD.

Small playlists usually mean younger demos. That's the case here.

KNDD's success hasn't hurt other rock-oriented stations, such as KISW or KEXP. They each have a pretty clear lane.
 
tall_guy1 said:
It's probably just select towns it appeals to, though. A lot of alt stations have gone away. Pop might go it's way in the future.
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Agreed. Practically any format will go away if the audience no longer embraces that, and as BigA is fond of saying, every market is different and will be programmed for whatever the audience does embrace. If that means air talent only in specific dayparts, or a Jack-like presentation without air talent, or a wider playlist in some markets but not others, one has to expect stations to do what they need to do in order to get the listeners ... in order to sell the ad time ... to make enough to pay the bills.
 
I’m glad to see The End doing better. Credit to Audacy (when credit is due), they’ve really fixed most of the problems that persisted on 107.7. It has a very local feel (which is huge), and the playlist is dialed in.

I had some real issues with The End a few years ago, especially when they were experimenting with (what some of the critical called) “TikTok music.” I’m not sure this critique is necessarily valid, but the playlist most certainly gravitated from what one might expect to hear to something quite different. They definitely got the message that it wasn’t going over that well and corrected those issues. Now I hear a mixture of classic alternative acts (like the Foo Fighters) mixed in with newer songs that fit my appetite for something different. That’s what I’m looking for (and I’d imagine the same is true for the rest of their audience).

Overall, I’m glad things are looking up for 107.7. It’s nice to have an (alternative) alternative to KEXP. I’ve never been crazy about the vibe of KEXP. It’s just too out there and too freeform for my taste. I know other members of Radio Discussions have expressed similar opinions. A lot of people want something that’s different (but also not wildly different). That’s where 107.7 threads the needle perfectly. Even 98.9 couldn’t seem to strike that balance the way that they’d hoped.
 
KMan said:
The version of me that joined this board 22 years ago could never have imagined trying to understand what "TikTok music" is.
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I mean hey, I’m part of the TikTok generation, but I still think it was a ridiculous decision. The music that charted on TikTok didn’t fit the format, and most people listening to The End already didn’t really want this kind of content in the first place. I chalk that up to the programmers thinking they know what the audience wants, but not actually having a real pulse of what they actually want.
 
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