• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

The Eagle

Gopher said:
I would love to see The Eagle return to the glory days of KZEW, Q102, or its former self, but given the state of rock over the last 25 years, is that possible, and would it sell?
Click to expand...

Rock, obviously, has problems selling even when executed well (though I agree with those who say The Eagle is not well executed).

Keep-in-mind that one of the big reasons KZEW and Q102 ultimately failed was that they stuck to what worked in the glory days too long and failed to evolve before someone else came in and stole their thunder. Almost none of the heritage AOR's from the 80's are still around, and that's mostly because they followed the same pattern. When rock fragmented, they stuck to their formula while new stations came in with classic rock, active rock, and modern/progressive rock. Turned out, people listening for the newer rock didn't want to sit through the classics when they had viable alternatives. Those listening for the classic rock didn't want to hear the new stuff. The handful of heritage AOR's still left either evolved before somebody else could outflank them from one direction or bought the competition and essentially assumed that format.
 
I find the music mix on The Eagle more enjoyable now than right before they flipped to The Freak. That being said, I think it could use some adjusting and customizing for DFW. I wish they would play more local/regional bands and rebuild an identity around being the DFW Rock Station.
 
TexasTom said:
Two heritage AORs that seem to have survived are WMMS in Cleveland and KISW in Seattle. But from what I can tell, both have survived through a heavy reliance on personality and talk.
Click to expand...

KISW was one of those heritage stations that came to mind. It was handed a solid when Shamrock sold KXRX 96.5, which was squeezing it from the active rock side, to Alliance, which immediately flipped it to country. It, then, adjusted its music in KXRX's direction and took the active rock mantle. And, yes, it has two talk-heavy shows in drive time that at least used to drive its numbers up. I'm less familiar with Cleveland, but I do know WMMS is also talk-heavy. I also seem to remember the Cleveland dial isn’t quite as packed as many similar-sized markets. I suspect it also benefitted from the demise of WENZ “The End” around 2000 when it was sold to Radio One.

Closer to my neck of the woods is KSHE 95. Around 2000, it bought its rock competitors, KIHT 96.3, KXOK-FM 97.1, and KPNT 105.7. Emmis nuked KXOK, put the harder rocking classics 97.1 had on KSHE, and moved a few of the KXOK jocks who were former KSHE jocks back to KSHE.

Most of the heritage AOR's went the way of Q102, KLOL, or KZAP in Sacramento, which was one of the first to go away in 1992. For most of them, the decline happened slowly, then suddenly. They initially remained strong when new competitors signed on, but, as more of their listeners found more focused competition, they gradually spent more and more time with them. Didn’t help that many of the heritage AOR's also had bloated payrolls.
 
TexasTom said:
Two heritage AORs that seem to have survived are WMMS in Cleveland and KISW in Seattle. But from what I can tell, both have survived through a heavy reliance on personality and talk.
Click to expand...
I'll add two more to that list - WMMR and WRIF. Very strong morning shows followed by music intensive programming.

Of course, a number of heritage AORs have successfully pivoted to classic rock. KSHE, KLOS and WDVE immediately come to mind.
 
Kent said:
Rock, obviously, has problems selling even when executed well (though I agree with those who say The Eagle is not well executed).

Keep-in-mind that one of the big reasons KZEW and Q102 ultimately failed was that they stuck to what worked in the glory days too long and failed to evolve before someone else came in and stole their thunder. Almost none of the heritage AOR's from the 80's are still around, and that's mostly because they followed the same pattern. When rock fragmented, they stuck to their formula while new stations came in with classic rock, active rock, and modern/progressive rock. Turned out, people listening for the newer rock didn't want to sit through the classics when they had viable alternatives. Those listening for the classic rock didn't want to hear the new stuff. The handful of heritage AOR's still left either evolved before somebody else could outflank them from one direction or bought the competition and essentially assumed that format.
Click to expand...

I think your point stands well. looking at Phoenix, AZ (my neck of the woods), during the early 1980s, there were only two FM hard rock stations, KDKB (which was the market's first AOR station back in 1971) and KUPD (which jumped into the format in 1979). KUPD with its emphasis on current hard rock outflanked KDKB, and KDKB tried responding by running (around 1984 and 1985) a current rock format with top 40 entries (Madonna songs were on the station's playlist for a while). When that didn't fly, KDKB returned to a mix of classic and new rock.

In 1986, however, KOPA-FM flipped from its top-40/CHR format to classic rock (with the new callsign KSLX) and KDKB was caught between a rock and a hard place, so to speak--KUPD took the hard rock listeners while KSLX took those who wanted classic rock. For many years, KDKB was able to hold its own (or keep going because nobody could think of anything better), but during (if memory serves) the latter half of the first decade of the 2000s, KDKB flipped from the current/classic rock mix it had held for so many years to its current alternative format.
 
KVIL did not do very well in their era under Richards but I figure that he has to have a better plan for KEGL than whatever the hell they’ve been doing since they were outflanked by John Allers when he changed up KVIL’s programming to be heavier. We’ll see what he has in store quite soon.
 
TheBigA said:
New PD at both Lonestar and The Eagle.

radioinsight.com

Vince Richards To Program KEGL/KZPS

Former Audacy VP/Rock Programming Vince Richards is joining iHeartMedia as Program Director of Classic Rock "Lone Star 92.5" KZPS and
radioinsight.com radioinsight.com

He was once with KVIL at one time before going to Sacramento.
Click to expand...
Other way around. Was in Sacramento for Audacy before moving to Dallas in 2020 to program first Jack and later Spot and Alt.
 


Back
Top Bottom