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Anyone listening to the yacht rock weekend on klos

ChannelFlipper said:
I think you meant the Department of Missing the Point.
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The point is that just because Yacht Rock appeals to over 55s doesn't mean that senior citizens are rich. Most live on fixed incomes. Perfect for Kias.

Kia car buyers in the United States are primarily male (56%) and between the ages of 18 and 54 (91%). The majority of Kia car buyers are White (60%) and have a Bachelor’s degree (33%). In terms of income, 40% of Kia car buyers make between $50,000 and $100,000 annually.
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That is the target demo of KLOS. That's why Kia bought spots on the station. But as I said, Kia isn't sponsoring the music. They're sponsoring the radio station. Two different things. KLOS is #3 18-34 and #5 25-54.
 
K.M. Richards said:
Formats evolve. Just as KUPD had evolved from its original direction to what you heard starting in 1983, Classic Rock has done its share of evolution over its timeline.

Another thing that I believe needs to be pointed out is that at the time AOR became a format descriptor, top-40 stations were often referred to as "rock" stations. AOR was not, as many appear to believe, a version of the progressive rock formats that preceded it. It was hit focused, but without the top-40 presentation. Hence Gino Vanelli being acceptable at a lot of AOR stations. You cannot make a fair comparison between AOR back in the day to Classic Rock today.
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Though I will say that the progressive rock stations that survived largely went to AOR. The ones still going have changed further (I don't know that I would call it evolved, but your mileage may vary).

I'll drag out yet another St. Louis example. KSHE was a progressive rock station and has been dining out on that reputation for decades. It essentially became AOR in the early 1980s. Hearing it two weeks ago while in the area for a high-school reunion, it came across to me as more of an active-rock station than anything else.

KSHE used to do an end-of-the-year thing where they would declare an "artist of the year". In 1977 or 1978, I forget which, the artist of the year was....

Fleetwood Mac.

At the time, it made a lot of sense. Fleetwood Mac got a lot of airplay -- whether on KSHE, KADI, or Top-40-ish KSLQ -- and sold a lot of albums.

If KSHE plays Fleetwood Mac these days, it's either on its "Klassics" HD-2 channel or Sunday mornings where it does Music of Your Life for my generation.


michael hagerty said:
Kia's best seller is the Telluride---an upscale SUV. The last one I drove was $54,000 and change:
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In the last couple of years, I've had quite a few rental cars that were Kias. (I hate SUVs, so I usually have to go through contortions to get the sedans I want.) In St. Louis, I had a K4. The Kia sedans sit a bit low for my taste, but are very reasonable cars to drive. I'd compare them to Hondas: very competent and comfortable vehicles.

The Kia SUVs have especially striking styling. They're not the punchline for a joke any more.
 
Mark Roberts said:
At the time, it made a lot of sense. Fleetwood Mac got a lot of airplay -- whether on KSHE, KADI, or Top-40-ish KSLQ -- and sold a lot of albums.
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Correct. Going back to the discographies, Fleetwood Man's last album to get automatic rock radio airplay was Tusk in 1979. By the 80s, the band received occasional airplay, but it wasn't like the 70s. Once again, we're talking about an evolving format that was different in 1978 from what it became in 1985.

A lot of it was because rock radio then was mainly a currents/recurrents based format. If they played Gold, it had to fit what the format had become.
 
There's also a point to be made that sometimes, pop culture has events or trends that can be currency in ways that don't fit neatly into boxes.

I'm a frequent listener to a station that brands itself as "Newsradio" and is in theory, the place you hear a lot of localized talk and personalty. I don't care to even calculate how much of their programming this week was about Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's engagement. And knowing the station's demographics, the odds that the majority are Swift fans or Chiefs fans are slim.

"Yacht rock" is one of those things. A cultural moment a clever programmer at KLOS chose to use as a promotion.

And people are now talking about KLOS. So you have a lower rated weekend, with a sponsor, the station does something with cultural cachet that stands out, and people online talk about it. Which given KLOS' ratings for the bulk of their format, is a calculated stunt that appears to be working just fine.
 
Andy Travis said:
And people are now talking about KLOS. So you have a lower rated weekend, with a sponsor, the station does something with cultural cachet that stands out, and people online talk about it. Which given KLOS' ratings for the bulk of their format, is a calculated stunt that appears to be working just fine.
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Exactly. Here's an article on the station from a couple months ago that discusses things like Yacht Rock as part of their programming strategy:

barrettmedia.com

How 95.5 KLOS Achieved Its Best Ratings in Over 30 Years

Little of what we discussed isn’t available to most stations in markets of any size. The success isn’t a Los Angeles thing; it’s a radio thing.
barrettmedia.com barrettmedia.com

The last element Ferro and I discussed was a willingness to color outside the lines if it added to the fun vibe of the radio station. On April Fool’s Day, the station went all Yacht Rock, including a midday host who called himself Captain Stu Bing, which will only mean something to those people old enough to remember The Love Boat. They are also working on the return of the 5 O’clock Funnies, a long-standing KLOS tradition that Ferro is excited to revive. And that overall focus on having fun is likely the part of the transition Ferro is most proud of, “It’s just much friendlier. It’s like, hey, come in. We’re having a great time.”
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TheBigA said:
Correct. If you look at the discographies. bands like Steely Dan and the Doobie Brothers with Michael McDonald were done by 1981. All of the mushy pop music was gone. Michael McDonald referenced that in the documentary. The band Toto was a transition, and they did it because of Steve Lukather, who brought a heavier guitar sound to AOR radio. Michael Jackson was also part of the transition. Thriller got rock airplay. Beat It got rock airplay because of Eddie Van Halen's guitar solo. But that was it. After that, you wouldn't hear MJ on rock radio.
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I remember when AOR stations suddenly started playing "Beat It". It was 1983, and around that time, MTV, which had originally fashioned itself as an edgy AOR stations with a visual element, was rightfully getting a lot of s##t for ignoring black artists who were starting to explode on radio, such as Michael Jackson and Prince. Finally, MTV removed the sticks from their butts and added both, to explosive success. Then, eyes turned to rock radio. Why weren't they playing two African-American artists who obviously had songs that could work on their tightly-programmed and consulted stations?

I remember the big breakthrough, as a young teenager living in the San Francisco Bay Area. At the time, KOME in San Jose was in a short-lived heavy metal phase. I was pretty shocked when I turned them on and heard "Beat It". And laughed my ass off when the jock came on afterward and said, "That was Eddie Van Halen... on guitar on Michael Jackson's 'Beat It'".

Soon, the other rock stations in the Bay Area added it, such as KMEL. KFOG was already way ahead of them. At the time, they were young and all over the place, to the point where the Grateful Dead and the Thompson Twins were on the playlist. They were playing the hell out of Prince's "Little Red Corvette" for awhile already.

Radio used to be so much fun to listen to.
 
This is a real surprise. We've talked in the past about how KLOS is more of a "Classic Rock That Really Rocks" type of station. It rarely plays anything too pop-oriented. More Ozzy and AC/DC, less Billy Joel and Elton John than classic rock stations in places like NYC, Chicago and Atlanta.

While Yacht Rock has gained popularity and I have a button on my Sirius radio for the format, it is a shock to hear KLOS devoting three days to it!
 
Now, before I pull a (name redacted) to prove a point and steer this thread way off course, I'd like to mention that many of the artists that are currently associated with Yacht Rock (and yes, I am a YR fan, and even created a few YR playlists on Spotify that I and quite a few others enjoy) got plenty of airplay on stations like KLOS in the 70s and early 80s. That might seem weird to younger listeners who's idea of classic rock is Guns n' Roses, but us Gen-X geezers remember what's up.

Yeah, I have heard Christopher Cross and Dan Fogelberg played on AOR stations. Not much, but they were played.

Oh, and here's the playlist. Yes, it is ridiculously deep with a ton of songs, but everyone else was doing short, tight lists of the same stuff, so I decided to go the expansive route. And, like rock radio of old, I even threw in a few songs that just sounded right.

 
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Not to put too fine a point on it (oh, who am I kidding), but three years ago we had a loooooong conversation about what AOR did and didn't play.

Start with this post (the first with facts) and roll on from there:



What so many people seem to remember as "an A/C thing" was actually a bold move for that format, which until young, aggressive programmers like myself started pulling album artists into our playlists, was working with core artists like John Denver, Barry Manilow, Carpenters, Olivia Newton-John, Captain & Tenille, Helen Reddy and Glen Campbell.
 
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Gregg. said:
This is a real surprise. We've talked in the past about how KLOS is more of a "Classic Rock That Really Rocks" type of station. It rarely plays anything too pop-oriented. More Ozzy and AC/DC, less Billy Joel and Elton John than classic rock stations in places like NYC, Chicago and Atlanta.

While Yacht Rock has gained popularity and I have a button on my Sirius radio for the format, it is a shock to hear KLOS devoting three days to it!
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I'll add one more thing to this. I actually commend KLOS for adding some unique personality to the radio dial. They continued a great April Fools gag and made a whole weekend of it, rather than the cliche "A to Z", countdowns and "Block Party Weekend" thing (even WXPN is doing that - sheesh!). On a weekend where many people are away or doing whatever leisure activity, they decided to have a little fun. The Bon Jovi fans will get over it.
 
Fighting Irish said:
I'd like to mention that many of the artists that are currently associated with Yacht Rock got plenty of airplay on stations like KLOS in the 70s and early 80s.
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Yes we know. I said that in post #9:

TheBigA said:
Yacht rock IS rock. These are songs they played when they were currents. Back when the audience was more open to hearing the full diversity of the genre than they might be now. Back before everyone was a critic. Artists like Steely Dan were revered for their ability to weave jazz and rock together.
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Then Haggerty posted actual KLOS playlists from 1978 with those names. Read #17.
 
ChannelFlipper said:
As a big yacht rock fan (I listen to XM's channel a lot) I have to say this is a terrible idea.

Do you want your favorite restaurant "breaking format" with a completely different menu over the three day holiday? Of course not. You want your favorite dishes they serve. In the restaurant biz you need "regulars" who come in often to succeed. In radio, you have P1s. Both are hard to get and easy to lose.

As a radio fan, I really appreciate it and would like to see more out-of-the-box programming like it; as a station owner or stakeholder, it has to get a thumbs down.
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100 percent correct. I go to Pizza Hut and I have to order tacos and not pizza? I'd find another pizza place and never go to Pizza Hut again. If I tune into KLOS, I expect to hear ROCK THAT ROCKS overall. Not sappy AC music rom the 70s and 80s.
 
KilowattKat said:
Wow! So, in 1980 Christopher Cross was #78 on the AOR song list. However, that doesn't mean every AOR played it. KUPD was an AOR that I listened to back then, and I KNOW they NEVER played Christopher Cross. NEVER!
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Christopher Cross is a sappy AC artist. Should never have been played at AOR to begin with. I'm sure some "coke" traded hands to make that happen.
 
Andy Travis said:
And people are now talking about KLOS. So you have a lower rated weekend, with a sponsor, the station does something with cultural cachet that stands out, and people online talk about it. Which given KLOS' ratings for the bulk of their format, is a calculated stunt that appears to be working just fine.
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And remember that a large portion of the agency ratings-based buys use M-F 6AM - 7PM as their base. So whether the weekend is up or down really will not affect the impact on the normal buy. Add in that most buys look at 3, 4, 5 and even 6 book averages, what they do on one weekend won't affect ratings-based buys at all.
 
Fighting Irish said:
I'll add one more thing to this. I actually commend KLOS for adding some unique personality to the radio dial. They continued a great April Fools gag and made a whole weekend of it, rather than the cliche "A to Z", countdowns and "Block Party Weekend" thing (even WXPN is doing that - sheesh!). On a weekend where many people are away or doing whatever leisure activity, they decided to have a little fun. The Bon Jovi fans will get over it.
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Understanding the wants and needs of your P1 listener is essential to any successful radio station. And the P1 listener expects to hear AC DC and not Christopher Cross when they tune in. An April fools gag is one thing. But to turn your radio station into something totally different for three days is dangerous. Since LA is a PPM market, there will be real time results that the station can see from this weekend.
 


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