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2024 Format Change Predictions

CTListener said:
Can you recall any format flip, in any U.S. market, which made no sense to you based on cold statistical analysis, but went on to be successful in both attracting a desirable audience and winning over advertisers?
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I know you're asking David, but I'm gonna play too. The answer is no, unless you've got one I'm not thinking of. And the reason is simple---the station owners use cold statistical analysis to decide when to flip a format and to what.

Even Saul Levine makes choices based on holes in the market that, with his zero debt service, he can make money from when no one else can (for his FM----the AM's been a lost cause for decades).
 
michael hagerty said:
I know you're asking David, but I'm gonna play too. The answer is no, unless you've got one I'm not thinking of. And the reason is simple---the station owners use cold statistical analysis to decide when to flip a format and to what.

Even Saul Levine makes choices based on holes in the market that, with his zero debt service, he can make money from when no one else can (for his FM----the AM's been a lost cause for decades).
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Thanks. I didn't have one in mind, and that's the answer I expect from David, too.
 
michael hagerty said:
This reminds me of when (hell, he may still be doing it---it's been so long since I tried to read his stuff) Rich Lieberman used to start rumors on his blog that Jim Gabbert was thisclose to buying 610 and bringing back KFRC....and then to buying 810 and re-building KGO.
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Yeah, Lieberman is stuck in the past, and KGO is a big part of that. He also would claim that Mickey Luckoff was trying to line up investors for the same reason. In any event, Lieberman's gone to making videos rather than writing a blog. That's when I quit following what he does. I can read a lot faster than I can listen to a rant (as he himself calls his videos).

Lieberman isn't alone in the KGO nostalgia. Personally, I never understood it. When I came to the Bay Area in 1999, I tried listening to KGO and it seemed very insular. It was clear to me that it was already on a 65-to-death trajectory; Cumulus (and predecessors) figured that out too late. It is sad to see the station reduced to the state that it's in now, but it may have been just the first kid down the slide.
michael hagerty said:
The only time anyone looks good making one of these predictions is when they understand the market and have some inside information. Other than that, it's the once-a-year credibility killer.
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It's ESPN for radio nerds.
 
CTListener said:
Neal McCoy, a middling pop-country star in the '90s, was of Filipino descent, but there was nothing at all Asian about his music.
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Mr. McCoy might have made it big in Daly City, but I don't think it would've gone much farther than that.

Anyway, I originally was going to write "Chinese-American" but I was trying to be more inclusive.
 
CTListener said:
Can you recall any format flip, in any U.S. market, which made no sense to you based on cold statistical analysis, but went on to be successful in both attracting a desirable audience and winning over advertisers?
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I can recall a number of them.

My several personal experiences:

1964. I entered a 30 station market of about a million population with its first Top 40 station and first non-block programmed one, too. Was told it would not work by advertisers and made fun of by other station owners; one called it the "pocket station" as teens would listen on pocket transistor radios. 6 months later sold out at market's highest rates; it was #1 in share.

1975 Put on Puerto Rico's first pure AC station. Even the record companies would not give service as they thought the format was going to be unsuccessful on "the tropical Island" and would be boring. Local magazine made fun of it. First book #1 women, #2 overall.

1979 Put on world's first all salsa station. Same comments from the press: very boring with no variety and would be tiring to listen to. First book, 22.5 share. Second book 33.5 share in 30 station market. Billed three times more in first month than it ever had billed before. Still top 3 or 4 44 years later.

2000 Put on an all local artist rock format in Buenos Aires, a 20 million person metro. Never done before, and ridiculed in the press as too limited. Averaged a 20 share, often double the #2 station. Still top 5 23 years later.

In each case, though, the format was totally new to the market. Not a rehash of a previously failed format; I think that trying to resurrect the dead is not going to work in this case.
 
Mark Roberts said:
Yeah, Lieberman is stuck in the past, and KGO is a big part of that. He also would claim that Mickey Luckoff was trying to line up investors for the same reason. In any event, Lieberman's gone to making videos rather than writing a blog. That's when I quit following what he does. I can read a lot faster than I can listen to a rant (as he himself calls his videos).
Click to expand...

Dear God. So Rich is actually showing his readers that he is in fact an angry little guy in a dingy little apartment yelling at the walls.
 
DavidEduardo said:
I can recall a number of them.

My several personal experiences:

1964. I entered a 30 station market of about a million population with its first Top 40 station and first non-block programmed one, too. Was told it would not work by advertisers and made fun of by other station owners; one called it the "pocket station" as teens would listen on pocket transistor radios. 6 months later sold out at market's highest rates; it was #1 in share.

1975 Put on Puerto Rico's first pure AC station. Even the record companies would not give service as they thought the format was going to be unsuccessful on "the tropical Island" and would be boring. Local magazine made fun of it. First book #1 women, #2 overall.

1979 Put on world's first all salsa station. Same comments from the press: very boring with no variety and would be tiring to listen to. First book, 22.5 share. Second book 33.5 share in 30 station market. Billed three times more in first month than it ever had billed before. Still top 3 or 4 44 years later.

2000 Put on an all local artist rock format in Buenos Aires, a 20 million person metro. Never done before, and ridiculed in the press as too limited. Averaged a 20 share, often double the #2 station. Still top 5 23 years later.

In each case, though, the format was totally new to the market. Not a rehash of a previously failed format; I think that trying to resurrect the dead is not going to work in this case.
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I specified "U.S. market" anticipating this response, and also specified that I was looking for flips that surprised you, not flips/new stations that you personally implemented in South America or wherever your 1964 and 1979 projects defied the preconceptions of the press and/or the record companies. (And yes, I know Puerto Rico is a U.S. possession.)
 
TheBigA said:
I don't understand that. Does KOIT play Asian American artists that have helped make it #1? In fact is there any radio station in the Top 10 that has added Asian artists in order to appeal to the unique demos of this marker? If not, why should country?
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Part of the answer to that question lies in the fact that radio does not test against Asians nor does it consider them significantly in music testing because Nielsen does not break out "Asian" as it does "Black" and "Hispanic".

First, there are not enough markets with big enough Asian populations to make it important to stations and advertisers.

Second, "Asian" is not anything but a geographic construct. Then there are significant Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Korean, Indian, Philippine, Bangladesh and other origins with each nation having a distinct language.... and some having several or even many languages

Third, it is a lot harder getting along well in the US if you only speak Tagalog than if you only speak Spanish. So the rate at which Asian immigrants become at least functionally bilingual is much faster than for Hispanics, who now come with only the expectation that their children will learn English.
 
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TheBigA said:
Keep in mind that Boston has two country signals.
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As do Pittsburgh, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Portland (Maine) and Albany. But given conventional wisdom (i.e., David Eduardo) about the demos of the Bay Area, a San Francisco-based competitor to San Jose's KBAY would be a big surprise. Mr. Venta has dropped an unexpected nugget of intrigue here.
 
CTListener said:
As do Pittsburgh, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Portland (Maine) and Albany. But given conventional wisdom (i.e., David Eduardo) about the demos of the Bay Area, a San Francisco-based competitor to San Jose's KBAY would be a big surprise. Mr. Venta has dropped an unexpected nugget of intrigue here.
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And seldom is he wrong.

"Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to know what stations are going to do even before their staff does". This message will re-cue in 5 seconds.
 
DavidEduardo said:
And seldom is he wrong.

"Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to know what stations are going to do even before their staff does". This message will re-cue in 5 seconds.
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Not going to venture a guess from this chilly corner of the country. I'm still trying to figure out how my tiny market can support four country stations.
 
lanceventa said:
What if I said I wouldn't be surprised to see another attempt at Country in San Francisco itself happens.
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If this was serious, would 102.1 be a good candidate maybe? I don’t see them changing their downwards trajectory and there isn’t many other alternatives it seems.
 
Loverofradio said:
The Bay Area with 2 country signals? When did San Francisco turn into Alabama?
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The thing to keep in mind about the Bay Area is that San Francisco is a small part of it. 7.753 million people live in the Bay Area, and just a little over a tenth of them live in San Francisco.

Fifty years ago, people were asking what the hell KFRC was thinking when it hired Dr. Don Rose for mornings. That cornball act? In sophisticated San Francisco?

I had the pleasure and honor of meeting and talking to DDR 25 years ago. I congratulated him on all those years at number one in San Francisco. His reply:

"Michael, thank you. But I was never number one in San Francisco. I doubt I was ever in the top ten---maybe I was 13th. But I was number one in Fremont, and Hayward, and Oakland, and Richmond and Pacifica. I surrounded 'em!"

A country station won't likely ever be #1 in the ratings---but the right signal, the right programming, it could be profitable. And that's what matters.

The question is can someone do it better than KBAY?
 
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michael hagerty said:
The thing to keep in mind about The Bay Area is that San Francisco is a small part of it. 7.753 million people live in the Bay Area, and just a little over a tenth of them live in San Francisco.
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You bring up a very important point that is not apparent or obvious to the many visitors to this board that don't work in radio: stations serve markets, not cities. "Markets" in radio language are sets of counties, not cities. Some markets have a dozen or more counties like Houston or New York City. Some are just one county. But no market is a "city" by itself.
 
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