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107.9 Sacramento

lanceventa said:
Yes and no.

Most iHeart's small market stations, some medium/large market stations (and the generic streams that Jeremy listed) all use identical music logs. Those used to be called "Premium Choice" but a now considered internally as being "Format Center" stations. On those stations you'll hear voicetrackers doing generic breaks that are the same across the country as well.
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But my point is that this is not a network in the traditional sense. It's a Selector setup that can be used "as is" or customized.
lanceventa said:
For example look at 102.7 The Wolf in Fresno (Find the most recently played songs on 102.7 The Wolf), 92.9 The Big Dog Modesto (Find the most recently played songs on 92.9 The Big Dog) and Kix 99.3 Spokane since all are in same time zone (Find the most recently played songs on KIX 99.3). The songs may not line up at the exact same time, but the same logs are running.
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But the structure at each station can be different to allow for different commercial loads, etc. It's not like what we had with satellite radio in the 90's where we had to pad unfilled stopsets.
lanceventa said:
The next level are what they consider to be "custom" stations. Those stations have playlists customized for each market, but in many cases now the actual music logs are all done by members of the national programming team, but the local PD's determine clocks and song adds. Those stations also have voicetrackers doing breaks customized for those markets in non-local dayparts.
Click to expand...
A number of companies have "music specialists" or some-such term who do logs for multiple stations each day, often not in-market. They use the station's customized database of songs, local commercial loads, live, voicetracked or syndicated/"networked" personalities and things like traffic reports and fill in the needed music and edit logs for flow.

Again, very flexible and executed at the local level according to how many minutes of non-music are in each hour.
 
TheBigA said:
In the three cases you gave, the stations are losing to the format competition. In some cases by a lot. The Spokane station is an AM with a translator. So these stations basically exist to clear the syndication. What they lose by using common music logs is the ability to qualify as a chart reporter. But it probably doesn't matter. So that's the decision you make as a programmer. Do you want to win, place or show. In these cases, the decision was to show. The key part is the stations don't cost a lot to operate.
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But in smaller cases, the skill set of local radio staff is often below that of a corporate programming group and thus a better product for the listener is created. In many cases, using a talent pool of air staff and programmers is much better than a local effort.

And in most of those markets, being a reporter is not meaningful. It does not get you anything that your corporate affiliation won't provide on its own, and it avoids having to deal with record promoters.
TheBigA said:
So what does this mean for Sacramento? iHeart has proven itself as a company that likes to disrupt the marketplace. They don't have to win with a format. They don't even need to place. They can accomplish some part of the company's goals with a show.
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It amazes me that nearly 30 years after consolidation began in the US, many groups don't understand how the best use of a station group is to create sales synergy and to guarantee getting on buys from agencies and being able to offer combo platters as well as al la carte options to local direct account. Much of this is driven by more than just ratings.

I learned the right way to build a cluster in 1963 with a group that had five AM/FM combos with five formats and lots of overlap. It's only groups like Townsquare and Saga who have it close to right in the US even now.
 
DavidEduardo said:
In many cases, using a talent pool of air staff and programmers is much better than a local effort.
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Exactly, but critics are wedded to this idea that live & local (no matter who) is always better. The point is that if iHeart wants to run this station cheaply, they have assets in place to do it. If they want to battle head to head with a market leader (such as KNCI) they have the resources to do it. They can hurt you either way. That's what makes them unpredictable. Especially in this case.

DavidEduardo said:
It amazes me that nearly 30 years after consolidation began in the US, many groups don't understand how the best use of a station group is to create sales synergy and to guarantee getting on buys from agencies and being able to offer combo platters as well as al la carte options to local direct account. Much of this is driven by more than just ratings.
Click to expand...

Once again, iHeart is pretty much the only company that understands this. Audacy tried it a couple years ago, and fell flat on its face. Same with Cumulus.
 
You have to wonder if the party hits of the last 25 years that they will be playing for the next few days is an attempt to attract a more targeted demographic to the frequency for the new format.
 
Alan Smithee said:
If it is, they should change 106.5 to something else since that’s where 107.9’s previous format has been since it went off the air.
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That's Audacy's decision to make if and when they lose to another CHR. I don't see an owner saying "Now that iHeart has launched CHR on 107.9, we should blow up our heritage brand"
 
DavidEduardo said:
But my point is that this is not a network in the traditional sense. It's a Selector setup that can be used "as is" or customized.

But the structure at each station can be different to allow for different commercial loads, etc. It's not like what we had with satellite radio in the 90's where we had to pad unfilled stopsets.

A number of companies have "music specialists" or some-such term who do logs for multiple stations each day, often not in-market. They use the station's customized database of songs, local commercial loads, live, voicetracked or syndicated/"networked" personalities and things like traffic reports and fill in the needed music and edit logs for flow.

Again, very flexible and executed at the local level according to how many minutes of non-music are in each hour.
Click to expand...

When they launched "Premium Choice", the iHeartradio app was pretty new. I had it installed and would listen. Numerous stations, regardless of market size would have been running the Mainstream CHR variation of it. Particularly during the overnight hours. Some stations that might have leaned very rhythmic suddenly became more straight ahead Top-40 during those hours. The playlists were exactly the same, imaging was different, if the station decided to use a jock, it was the national one. They would always have bunch of golds at the end of the hour. They would air depending on spot load.

Couple years later, the major market station had local overnight talent and would simply shuffle some of the songs around, or edit some out if there were time constraints. I'm going to guess they simply expanded on these abilities for some stations and markets, not to mention added more options for specific formats that might have leaned one way or the other musically.

I know one station that ran, probably still does run the national generic version in all shifts except for mornings (I think it's afternoons now) They were able to get Billy The Kidd (Out of Dallas) to record and insert special severe weather updates alongside his generic ones during a severe weather event happening in that station's coverage area.

The flexibility has improved as you said.
 
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