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Alt 105.3 Flips to Adult Hits "105.3 Dave FM"

I think anyone with an IQ above room temperature is capable of not confusing the two issues.

Poor operational execution on a micro scale indeed has nothing to do with C-suite decisions regarding balance sheet capitalization.

That said, it can be argued that both issues are symptomatic of a not-so-well run company.
 
I disagree completely. Who purchases the automation equipment and software the stations use? You think corporate programming heads were uninvolved with this changeover?

Stations throughout the company have suffered from similar automation issues. That has nothing to do with local decision making.

Unlike you, I won't be giving the people in Philly a free pass here.
 
I disagree completely. Who purchases the automation equipment and software the stations use? You think corporate programming heads were uninvolved with this changeover?

Purchasing the equipment and programming it are two completely different functions. Accounting and engineering are not the same thing. At the end of the day, some low level technician forgot to pull an Alt file from the local hard drive. The idea that any business, regardless of its financial health, staffs a station at 5AM Sunday morning is crazy.

I'm not giving them a free pass. Someone made a mistake. He'll get yelled at on Monday. That has nothing to do with bankruptcy.

It's very hard to find good help, to find people who understand all of the intricacies in running a 24/7 operation, especially in the middle of a pandemic. I've been reading a lot of articles that people now simply aren't as committed to their jobs as they are to their personal lives. That has implications for many things beyond radio.
 
Chipotle? ;)

Food poisoning stinks; sorry you had to endure that.

We'll see how quickly the automation issues get fixed. Hopefully it'll be early this week.
 
This is kind of weird.....Last night around after midnight I herd alternative music "ALT 105.3" and listening to modern rock artist such as Blink 182, MGMT, etc right now woke up this morning and now it's Dave-FM listening to Billy Joe, Belinda Carlisle, etc? What happened last night? There were back on their old alternative format before switching back to the current format "Adult Hits" "Dave FM?
 
My first job out of radio (and college) was at a marketing agency in 2018. In this job, I had the chance to learn a lot about the tastes and interests of young people. My personal (and likely controversial) opinion is that radio is not necessarily responding to the interests of young people effectively. In my previous job, I got to have an insider's perspective of what kind of music younger people stream. To my surprise, much of the music younger people like are songs that you would never hear on the radio. As you would expect, the younger audience does gravitate toward hiphop, but not the kind of hiphop you get on the radio. For the sake of example, many of the artists that young people were interested in are artists that a hiphop radio station would never touch. Radio stations can't deviate too far from "tested" programming, but it does seem a bit problematic much of the playlist is music that the younger people aren't really interested in. Yes, people in younger demographics are interested in CHR, but as someone already brought up, this is a format that tends to lean toward a female audience.

Personally, I'm 26 and think that KOSF is one of the best radio stations I've heard. While this station fits my own taste, I feel like there could be more to it than that. Clearly, KOSF is programmed by people who were working in the business when the core of the classic hits music WAS top 40. They know what they are doing, and know how to program a classic hits radio station effectively. I would argue that there could be a disconnect between what younger people want and what they actually get on the radio. Most of the radio stations targeting this demographic are programming by those who are likely outside (or approaching the outside) of the core listening demographic for this type of music. Audacy alternative formats have been criticized for going in a new direction, but Audacy was not necessarily wrong to do this. While the new approach deviated from my taste, some of the new artists that made the cut were those that I only learned about from my previous job.
 
The idea that any business, regardless of its financial health, staffs a station at 5AM Sunday morning is crazy.
My only paid radio gig was overnights Saturday and Sunday mornings during those exact hours- it was a smooth jazz format and I had a printout of songs and commercials to play, no talking but I answered listeners' phone calls at least. I was soon replaced by the Smartcaster, one of the first hard-drive based systems and I decided the radio biz wasn't for me. When they started using that, they still had people at the station to make sure it didn't screw up, but they ended up selling and changing formats the next year anyways (it's now Spanish.)

To sum up what happened last night, around 10 PM they started repeating the same commercials over and over. I fell asleep to it at 11:30 but woke up later in the middle of the night and they were inexplicably back to the Alt 105 format, still automated of course. Now they're back to Dave FM this morning. Someone at least should have been more responsive to the loop of commercials and fixed it within 5 minutes- it would have been more funny if it were playing the same song repeatedly, especially a bad one. It's mind-boggling that with so much online music available now, they'd make FM so dead, automated and lifeless. In the 80s Live 105 had some great personalities (many from its failed predecessor, The Quake) that were almost as much fun to hear as the music. I can play any song I want from Apple Music, if I turn on the radio I should hear an actual human choosing and playing the music and enlightening me a bit about it. Yes, I know DJs cost money, but you have to spend money to make money. If you've got a really great DJ you can even have them do the commercials.
 
There were back on their old alternative format before switching back to the current format "Adult Hits" "Dave FM?

We've been discussing some kind of automation issue that caused what you heard.

Someone at least should have been more responsive to the loop of commercials and fixed it within 5 minutes-

This is an automated format. Not likely there is any staff in a studio for this format, especially 10PM Saturday night. It takes a while to recognize a problem and address it.

Yes, I know DJs cost money, but you have to spend money to make money.

The other side of that is you've got to make money to pay people. As I've been saying, music radio is not the cash cow it once was. If you're going to spend money on talent, the type of station to do it is one where the talent is the format, not music.
 
Not likely there is any staff in a studio for this format, especially 10PM Saturday night.
Pretty sad for a station that used to have killer live dance mixes during those hours. The talent AND music were the stars then.

And right now I'm hearing the first repeated song since the change- You Give Love a Bad Name by Bon Jovi. I'll expect the other staples to follow. Again this could actually be a good format if they gave it a huge variety played by actual humans, but that likely won't be the case here. This is just the same totally random radio I can get loading my CD changer and hitting shuffle, and I'm more likely to like what I hear then.
 
For the sake of example, many of the artists that young people were interested in are artists that a hiphop radio station would never touch.

It depends. We've had discussions about the song lyrics and topics. There are federal laws about the lyrics. Radio programmers have access to streaming charts, so we can see the songs that people are streaming. We know what songs will attract young listeners. The tradeoff is attracting young listeners and alienating everyone else. The goal is to get a consensus and that's harder and harder with current music and young audiences.
 
Entercom doesn't have any options for KVIL in dallas. The shark in miami will stay their other miami stations are doing well and one low cost station is probably needed. And the messed up big time with 98.7 in detroit
 
I think those are over played on many stations. Like the song Jessie's Girl.
When the average listener considers those songs overplayed, it will start showing in testing, and the songs will disappear. Music and chart geeks are the prime suspects when it comes to complaints of "overplayed" and "burnt out" songs. And hey, what's wrong with "Jessie's Girl"? It was a spark of energy in the awful CHR year of 1981 and remains so today.
 
In some places, such as Boston, the #1 station 18-34 is the sports talk station. So young people will listen to the radio if it gives them a chance to participate in a conversation that interests them.
Is there any market that comes close to the cross-generational obsession with professional team sports that Boston does? Sports radio does well, especially in billing, in most cities with big league teams, but it's not an overall No. 1 anywhere else, is it?
 
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