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Alt 92.3

TheBigA said:
Would you like to hear a 3-minute ad for dementia drugs or "A Place For Mom" in the middle of 60s oldies? It's not pretty.
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🤣 Or those football players talking to you about Medicare. "Hi, I'm Joe Namath". They could seriously slow down on that. Or how about Alex Trebek for Colonial Penn? Or Jamie Foxx for that Colonoscopy screening? UGH. 🤣
 
MarkW said:
Agreed, but I think crafting an FM station for the purpose of super-serving young adults (i.e. age 25 and younger) - as some on this thread are suggesting - is not a good strategy.
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Sure, but not for the reasons you give, but because advertisers want people over 25. If they get 18-24, that's great, but it's not the target.

My view is that alternative audience in general (regardless of age) is already satisfied with the audio sources it has, and their tastes are too diverse to satisfy in a top-down form of media. I agree with a lot of the Jacob's Blog that was linked in post #385. "There is no alternative." He's right. That music and culture existed in a time and space, which has since disappeared.
 
Which is why, as someone who genuinely loves alternative/indie/whatever we call it music, I'm always underwhelmed by things like the Live105 HD channel announcement.

The thing that made alternative as a format connect with a lot of people was the excitement and culture surrounding what was new music. Now, when it's repackaged, to me it's just another generation's classic rock/classic hits.

I happen to be someone with a psychology that still enjoys music discovery, and the few independent stations left and especially non-commercial stations like KEXP and The Current still fill that need, for exploration and new sounds. There's lots of new stuff I like. But a large number of people simply want to relive their youth. That's not alternative anymore, it's just nostalgia. And I'm recognizing that I like a wider variety of it than most people do. I don't need all my new songs to sound like the 90s. I love the Foo Fighters but I'm not threatened by Billie Elilish being on my "alternative" station either. Sounds evolve.
 
Andy Travis said:
The thing that made alternative as a format connect with a lot of people was the excitement and culture surrounding what was new music.
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It was a lot of fun while it lasted, but as I said in post 402, the music & culture has disappeared. The current culture is less tolerant of differing musical tastes, and has built its own social system on the web. There is no place for radio in that system anymore,
 
xyz said:
I feel that your version of Alternative is to maintain the status quo of the current format. If it ain't broke don't fix it. I'm guessing at least 50% of music would be recurrent and/or gold based. New music would feature artists currently established in the format. It works but everybody knows it could be more productive than it actually is.
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No, it can't. That is because there are few broad appeal songs, and the genre is now divided into subsets where a song is a favorite in one, tolerated in another and dislike in yet another.
xyz said:
WEQX is an incredible blessing to my ears! Either or both are my ideal description of Alternative.
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In an unrated market with no measure of whether it really has mass appeal. The reason why that approach is not used in rated markets is that it does not work.
 
Sure, but not for the reasons you give, but because advertisers want people over 25. If they get 18-24, that's great, but it's not the target.
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18-24 year olds are not at all loyal to FM radio (many are not active users of FM radio period), and if they do listen, they often flip the channel the moment commercials begin.

Even when they were big fans of the medium, you are correct that 18-24 year olds usually were not coveted by most advertisers given disposable income limitations. That said, I did hear plenty of bar & nightclub advertising on CHR, alternative and rock radio back in the day.
 
MarkW said:
18-24 year olds are not at all loyal to FM radio
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Tell me a group who is. Even boomers aren't loyal to "radio." They're loyal to a particular format or music, not the device they hear it on.

You give them what they want, and maybe they'll listen. But they'll complain about the playlists and the commercial load.

The interesting thing is there is no real loyalty to Sirius or Spotify either. The platform itself has become an appliance.
 
TheBigA said:
Tell me a group who is. Even boomers aren't loyal to "radio." They're loyal to a particular format or music, not the device they hear it on.

You give them what they want, and maybe they'll listen. But they'll complain about the playlists and the commercial load.

The interesting thing is there is no real loyalty to Sirius or Spotify either. The platform itself has become an appliance.
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Boomers and Gen-X love smart speakers. That is what has replaced the home radio. I am neither, but in under 5 minutes I got my Alexa hooked up to my Spotify, iHeartRadio, Audacy, and SiriusXM. That's everything I listen to right there, and she can easily shift between the four. Millennials and younger more so mobile devices/apps, but that trend could shift to smart speakers as well as more buy homes and become more settled down where they would set things up like smart speakers and devices.

SiriusXM used to sell a lot of tabletop radios and docks with speakers. Now, they offer their latest two radios with a home adapter which is hard to find itself. What do they push? Even more than in-car listening, they push the SXM app and Sonos, Alexa, and the like.
 
DavidEduardo said:
No, it can't. That is because there are few broad appeal songs, and the genre is now divided into subsets where a song is a favorite in one, tolerated in another and dislike in yet another.

In an unrated market with no measure of whether it really has mass appeal. The reason why that approach is not used in rated markets is that it does not work.
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WFNX, WHTG, WBRU, KDLD, WLIR, WRCN and the list goes on..... These and many similar Alts lasted for decades, as mostly Class A, rimshot or smaller Bs. They stayed in business and maintained faithful audiences until the end. Mass appeal is not what kept them around. Alternative according to the dictionary means: (noun) Something that you can choose instead of something else. (adjective) Different from something else and able to be used instead if it. Not traditional.

WHJY is a #1 rated Classic Rock station that has very successfully ran Two-fer Tuesdays for nearly forty years. They can play two Nirvana songs back to back and get nary one complaint. I enjoy hearing some two-fers on that station very much. Why? Because I expect to hear such music on that station. Play two (even one is too much!) Nirvana, Queen or Eagles type tunes and I'm gone until The House of Hair on Saturday night. Regardless of how good a song is, there are just so many times a song can be played before I am unable to enjoy hearing it anymore. WDZH in Detroit started a two-fer Tuesday today. According to a poster they ran two Nirvana tunes. Totally underwhelming! Had they run two Parquet Courts or Wet Leg tunes I would be totally ecstatic that they were thinking Alternative! Instead I find it depressing.

Pretty much the Alts are sporting somewhere in the 1s for ratings. Do not think for one second that the demise of one of the Alts in LA or San Diego would yield a 4 to the survivor! Nope! The lack of competition would leave the complacent winner standing on its tiptoes trying to reach a 2! Alternative is an esoteric format like Classical. Their listeners are incredibly serious! Management is making the dilettante decisions causing these low ratings. Quit driving away the P1s by trying to "broaden" the format with mass appeal gimmicks that do not resonate with its serious P1 audience and start pulling 3s again!

CHR reaches a point where their audience begins to outgrow it. Alternative is the answer to cultivating new listeners. 18-34 is the "Get Set". They make the babies, buy the cars and houses and products to make it all come together. They are the desirable demos. 50+ year old thought processes are not conductive to gaining successful younger listeners.

Nobody wishes for WNYL success more than me. They can do it very simple and easy! Lose the "recurrents" and hackneyed "Gold"! Rather than play a Pearl Jam or other over saturated tune, substitute it with a current selection, Do this a little bit at a time. There are many many good gold selections that could be played and appreciated by the Alternative audience. Listen to WLIR for excellent ideas for older tunes that can work. Please remember that 'recurrent' and 'gold' mean nothing more than "tune outs" in the ears of the prime Alternative listener!

Just my $0.02.

Oh yeah, if WEQX were sold tomorrow, their format would be flushed faster than a White House Classified document! I understand reality.
 
xyz said:
Nobody wishes for WNYL success more than me. They can do it very simple and easy! Lose the "recurrents" and hackneyed "Gold"! Rather than play a Pearl Jam or other over saturated tune, substitute it with a current selection,
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There is nobody more tired of the old stuff than the employees of the station. They would LOVE to play all currents if there were a few that were consensus songs that everyone loves. But the minute they play a current, the people who aren't fans of that particular band change the station. There is zero tolerance for other people's favorites. Get ten alt fans in a room and ask them what they like, and you'll get ten different answers. I've said this many times in this thread. This is only a problem in the alternative format. Country fans will sit through songs by artists they don't like. But not alternative fans. So the only way to keep people listening is to play those classic hits that everyone knows and likes. Until the alternative format can create hits the way they used to, radio stations will be stuck playing the only songs people know and like.
 
xyz said:
CHR reaches a point where their audience begins to outgrow it. Alternative is the answer to cultivating new listeners. 18-34 is the "Get Set". They make the babies, buy the cars and houses and products to make it all come together. They are the desirable demos. 50+ year old thought processes are not conductive to gaining successful younger listeners.
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But most CHRs, even in very "white" cities, play more rhythmic music than rock today. So "graduates" of CHR stations who are in their 40's* seem to move to AC or Hot AC, not to rock. Some, where available, move to stations like WKTU in NYC which is a more adult CHR that is very rhythmic.

* CHRs today target 24-44 women, so outgrowing the format means the person is really "middle aged".
xyz said:
Nobody wishes for WNYL success more than me. They can do it very simple and easy! Lose the "recurrents" and hackneyed "Gold"! Rather than play a Pearl Jam or other over saturated tune, substitute it with a current selection, Do this a little bit at a time. There are many many good gold selections that could be played and appreciated by the Alternative audience. Listen to WLIR for excellent ideas for older tunes that can work. Please remember that 'recurrent' and 'gold' mean nothing more than "tune outs" in the ears of the prime Alternative listener!
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Expanding on BigA's post, the problem with that argument is that the "alternative listener" is not a unified group that can sustain a radio format. There are multiple subsets in alternative tastes, and anyone who has seen an alternative music test see that. To simplify, there is a group that loves a particular song, another group that barely tolerates it and another group that hates it (and within each of those groups, there are subsets). There are very few newer songs that are not highly polarizing; that is why there is a dependency on the strong older songs that unite the alternative audience. Few new songs are unifying.

This is why alternative listeners of any taste group are best served by streams.
 
TheBigA said:
Country fans will sit through songs by artists they don't like. But not alternative fans.
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And, if you have seen dial based 0-100 scale music tests, then you know that weaker country songs score 50 or 60 among those who don't like them as much. "Weak" alternative songs get immediate turning of the dial (or sliding of the online bar) to zero for those songs.

The difference is between "I don't really get that song" in country. But in alternative, it is "I hate that f----ing song and I hate that f---ing band and I hate that f---ing radio station that plays them!"
 
@TheBigA
They would LOVE to play all currents if there were a few that were consensus songs that everyone loves. But the minute they play a current, the people who aren't fans of that particular band change the station.
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...and this is no different on a CHR station. It's just that there is more choice for a CHR listener in any given market.

Get ten alt fans in a room and ask them what they like, and you'll get ten different answers. I've said this many times in this thread.
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I would argue that Alt fans are more tolerant of music diversity than any other group. Now, where live in Australia, our Alternative station Triple J, is very heavily current/recurrent focused, and in most top 3 18-24 and 25-39 demo's. Look at their top 10 most played this week...

Until the alternative format can create hits the way they used to, radio stations will be stuck playing the only songs people know and like.
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Radio lost the battle in creating hits when social media like TikTok came along. People/kids use the music to tell stories. CHR follows the trends that are set by social media.


I truly believe that the big 3 (iHeart, Cumulus & CBS/Audacy) ruined the concept of the Alternative format, by placing too much stock in the Gold library. I've said it before that the Alternative format was seriously let down by drifting along with it's original audience, Gen Xer's like myself. There is a whole generation that virtually missed the boat with the format, leaving it to a select and decreasing few to keep true (contemporary) Alternative alive.
 
leethalweapon said:
I truly believe that the big 3 (iHeart, Cumulus & CBS/Audacy) ruined the concept of the Alternative format, by placing too much stock in the Gold library.
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Music tests are like crack to radio consultants and executives. Only the old songs test well because obviously the focus group isn't familiar with the new music yet. So we get Bush, Nirvana, and RHCP's most overplayed hits forever.
 
Theater of My Mind said:
Music tests are like crack to radio consultants and executives. Only the old songs test well because obviously the focus group isn't familiar with the new music yet. So we get Bush, Nirvana, and RHCP's most overplayed hits forever.
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They didn't even play RHCP's new song! Q104.3 the classic rock station played it!
 
92.3 can be fixed if they can figure out what they are doing wrong. Alt 103.7 in Dallas is up almost a full share from where they were simply by dumping programming that was not working and tweaking the music a little
 
leethalweapon said:
I would argue that Alt fans are more tolerant of music diversity than any other group.
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Maybe in Australia. But in the US, they have no patience for songs they don't like.

leethalweapon said:
I truly believe that the big 3 (iHeart, Cumulus & CBS/Audacy) ruined the concept of the Alternative format, by placing too much stock in the Gold library.
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The ONLY reason these stations play so many 30 year old songs is it's the ONLY music that gets any audience. There is absolutely no passion for the current stuff. It's as disposable as Egg McMuffin. Whenever they increase currents, the audience goes away.
 
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