2024 Format Change Predictions

[MarioMania]

Commercials and some previously retired talent.

I think KEXP is playing the long game in SF. I can't wait!

When I visit Vallejo on March 19th, I have a listen

 

[JamieA]

What do you call a radio station where each DJ is selecting music on the fly (no automation) yet keeps the musical choices connected to each other and within a context that is identifiable with the station? Is that a format? That's what KEXP is doing. Trying to copy that in the standard commercial radio program-director/jocks-as-personalities/music-as filler-between-the-ads kind-of-way is what KPNW did trying to emulate KEXP. I don't think it works. I think that model has kind of run its course. Commercial music radio is not good, in general. I don't think commercial radio can ever copy KEXP's formula because at its core, it's not about selling ears to advertisers. It's about inspiring listeners to give them money. And so authenticity is king. It's sort of anti-commerce, and as such, their style of programming might have a built in immunity against commercialisation. However, KEXP is walking a fine line and this move into the Bay Area could be their jump-the-shark moment. We'll see.

 

[cc333]

However, KEXP is walking a fine line and this move into the Bay Area could be their jump-the-shark moment. We'll see.

Well, few places I've known (granted, I don't know many, but...) are as highly commercial as the Bay Area, so everything's all about making the most money possible.

Hence probably why nothing even remotely resembling a niche format works here, unless it's non-commercial and donation supported, and even then, the costs are so high just to get started, that it's not worth it (that last bit is probably true of most larger markets, I suspect).

c

 

[davideduardo]

How far back do you have to go to find a successful all-news startup that didn't evolve into the format the way WBZ did? I'd submit that in North America, it's 680 News in Toronto, and that's 30 years ago this past summer. That was a straight flip from AM top-40 (!) to all-news, and it came with a big marketing push and a LOT of corporate patience, not to mention the luck of having that format all to itself in the country's #1 market.

In the US, in 1983, I was the consultant for the flip of Top 40 WUNO "Radio Uno" in San Juan, Puerto Rico, to all news as "NotiUno". A few years later, music and block programmed WAPA went all news, as did 630 "Salsa 63" and, around 1981, WQII 1140.

 

[Mark Roberts]

Well, few places I've known (granted, I don't know many, but...) are as highly commercial as the Bay Area, so everything's all about making the most money possible.

It can be very transactional, sure. Honestly, most large cities are. That's where ambitious people go. But there's also the countercultural history with the resulting self-image of being countercultural - or at least the remnants of such a self-image - that's often used either to disguise the true intent of an activity or used to assuage guilt over the results of said activity.

It also seems to me that the generations coming up have more idealism than I've seen in a long time. Sometimes it's misdirected, with too much emphasis on performative behavior and not enough effort made to worm their way into the prevailing political and economic systems to change them from the inside. It also shouldn't be confused with Silicon Valley ersatz libertarianism which is really just lucky rich people trying to grab more than they've already got, while coming up with elaborate justifications for themselves and being irritatingly smug in the process. Regardless, the notion of striving toward capitalist goals appears to have less appeal than it for previous generations. (Reagan-era ideology finally seems to be dying.) I'll have to add a disclaimer here: since I lived in Oakland, I saw more of that attitude than I probably would have seen, say, in Danville or in Silicon Valley. But if a media outlet such as KEXP can appeal to people such I've described through demonstrating a cooperative spirit, they could have a good shot at building a subscriber base in the core of the Bay Area. If I were KEXP, I'd be working the streets of Oakland, Berkeley, Emeryville, Richmond, and San Francisco (in a legal way, of course!) to get the word out - here's who we are, here's why we're different, here's how you can help.

 

[cc333]

@Mark Roberts As usual, you're absolutely right! The shell of what used to be San Francisco's identity as a countercultural hub is often used to disguise the sickening greed and utter cluelessness of all the rich CEOs and other top executives. If you take it all at face value and just keep to yourself and live life (as many of us do), I guess it's OK enough (it's far better than being in, say, a place located in a war zone and/or subject to an oppressive tyranical government), but if you value inclusiveness and equality (among other ideals) in their truer, enlightenment-era sense, this is not the place to be, because all that is being used under false pretenses to further enable the greedy rich to get richer at the expense of those less fortunate.

This is nothing new of course, but modern technology seems to have raised it to a level of insidious and pernicious ubiquity never before seen.

I saw more of that attitude than I probably would have seen, say, in Danville or in Silicon Valley.

I can tell you plainly that very little of that attitude exists in the Lafayette/Moraga/Orinda area. People there are as snobby, pretentious, smug and capitalist as ever. Maybe worse, since they've benefitted greatly by the stock market's rapid and seemingly relentless rise and absurdly high real estate values.

[end soapbox mode]

c