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Atlanta's Rock Landscape

jabba17

jabba17

In Roddy's blog (http://www.atlairwaves.blogspot.com/ ) , he refers to the ATL rock radio market as "limited and splintered" in his post about Dave FM. This made me think....

1) Is the Atlanta rock radio market really limited, or just underserved (or poorly served)? Or has the rock/AOR market drifted off to satellite and MP3s? Is Atlanta somehow unique in this case?

2) If you could take Atlanta's rock/AOR stations (which I would tentatively define as Dave, Project, River, and Rock 100.5) off the air and start over, what would you put on each signal and why?

I thought that these were interesting points that Roddy brought up and deserved to be explored.
 
For a variety of reasons, Atlanta's always been a challenging market. As a rock market hasn't it always been a little self conscious? I doubt any existing operator will be able to find the code that will unlock the secret to rock success. (I hope I'm wrong.)
 
For a variety of reasons, Atlanta's always been a challenging market. As a rock market hasn't it always been a little self conscious? I doubt any existing operator will be able to find the code that will unlock the secret to rock success. (I hope I'm wrong.)
 
Okay, I’ll bite. I read Roddy’s blog item and while I like and respect him and his opinions, I think he is wrong on a few things. Mara in the morning is a bad idea. Mara has the highest Q rating at 92.9 FM and the mid day slot is the highest rated day part. It makes sense to out your strongest hitter when she can have the biggest impact. If you use Roddy’s logic, then Chipper Jones would bat 8th coz the bottom of the Braves line-up needs help and Chipper is a for sure Hall of Famer. He is correct that music drives the bus at DAVE. Dave’s issue is branding and music. Neither of the previous PD’s understood that. Honestly when you hear the word “DAVE” what do you think of and is it radio related? Do they play Dave Matthews, David Bowie and David and David only?

The New 97.1 The River, E-fing-nuff with NEW. The station is over three years old, they are not new. They are not a classic rock station but a safe, classic hits station. They are the new background music in Dentists offices. It takes no skill to listen to that station. It probably takes just as much skill to program the 300 songs they play. Why they brought in the immensely talented Kaedy Kiley to not speak makes no sense, unless it was to stop 929 from putting Mara in mornings.

Project 96.1 is an okay station for what it’s doing. They have the right morning team and a decent, musical selection, if you are a 25-year-old laborer who is only three classes away from getting his GED. I think they have the smallest listener pool to draw from in the metro
The new kid on the rock block is Rock 100.5. They have the best morning show far and away with The Regular Guys. In addition they have a great afternoon host in Axel. After a year I would have expected the playlist to tighten up a little, for good or ill it hasn’t. Sometimes I will catch myself looking at the dial thinking, “I didn’t know they were playing that song.”

As a 44-year-old white male, I fit into the rock demo of all the rock stations. I find bits and pieces of each I like and listen to. I will add that I do load up an mp3 player for the car ride that gets most of my attention. DAVE-FM plays far too much wuss rock (The Fray, John Mayer, Tim Brantley, Andrew Bird, Coldplay, etc) for me. It’s like listening to the sensitive guy in college trying to woo a co-ed. In addition they take too few musical chances.

If I were to make changes it would be to open up the playlist at the River. Don’t be afraid of 1967 and 1968. They were the best years ever for rock. Hendrix, Cream, Airplane, Buffalo Springfield, Stones, Doors, Yardbirds, Dylan, The Dead, The Kinks, Zombies, Kinks, Cash, Small Faces, Van Morrison, Velvet Underground and The Beatles all released classics during those two years. Rock 100.5 should move away from Projects playlist and invade DAVE’s upper demos. Stay away from the tried and true classics and dig deeper.

I won’t go into fixing DAVE because I have done it for the past two years and it falls on deaf ears. I guess they are happy not finishing in the top 10 of their target demo.
 
The River or 100.5 should hire Little Steven as a consultant and play what he says no matter what. I hate small playlists and that's what we get here.
 
monkeymanmoi said:
The River or 100.5 should hire Little Steven as a consultant and play what he says no matter what. I hate small playlists and that's what we get here.
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I knew of LS from the limited presence on Z/Dave. But since the merger of Sirius/XM I have been giving the Underground Garage channel as much listen time as Deep Tracks. Little Steven is great !
 
You're all wrong! HAHA!

Actually, there are some good points from all, but you're missing the point, which is: commercial radio has to have tight playlists in order to work. It's McDonald's--you don't go in there wondering if they might have a T-Bone steak on the menu--you go in there with the full expecation that you'll get a quarter pounder with cheese, and they'll come through! Commercial radio is just like that; regardless of format, it's easy: for the brand to stand for something you have to play the right hits, in the right rotation, and repeat them. Simple as that. Expanding playlists is death. I did that once, when I was a PD in a Top 10 market, and I lost my job as a result. The station sounded cool as could be, but cume dropped in half and the AQH couldn't make up the difference.

Anyhow, the truth is, that tight is right as far as playlists are concerned. If in any given quarter hour you're NOT playing a core artist and/or a core track, you're dead in the water.

I've heard this on Rock 100.5: that's their problem. Not the Regular Guys. The music is screwed up. I'm not hearing enough powers, and back to back I'll hear mid-level mid-chart (for classic rock songs) stuff, so their quarter hour maintenance is messed up. In a PPM world, this is less of a problem, but then again, why would I want to hear Bargain by the Who back to back with Tempted by Squeeze? There are much BETTER Who songs to play (test-wise), and for those of you who reflexively disagree, too bad: the proof's in the pudding. People wanna hear the songs they love the most, and Bargain isn't one of them, when compared to Won't Get Fooled Again, Baba O'Riley, or Pinball Wizard, for example

Rock in Atlanta is tough, always has been, back in the 80's the deal was the only thing that tested was Southern rock (Allmans, Marshall Tucker, etc.)--the rest was mid-level, no passion. I'm sure that's changed over the last 25 years, but still....

So, the prescription:

DAVE: forget trying to be funny and go heavy on services in the morning. "More music in the morning" isn't a strategy, it's a place-filler. So, get famous for providing your adult listeners what they really need. Lots of traffic, weather, music and concert info--lots of concert info. LOTS. And, UNDER-PRODUCE the station; make it sound stripped and real. You audience is adult, so act like it. Give them what they need, and btw, back off on the Dave Matthews. There's other, cool stuff to play that's worked for years in Atlanta but hasn't worked elsewhere. You'll have to pay me for me to tell you what.

ROCK 100.5: clean up the music; have someone who knows what they're doing perform a Selector or MusicMaster audit (depending on what you're using) and then if unsatisfactory fire whoever's doing the music. Clean up your rotations. Is anyone in management listening? I doubt it. And, tell the Regular Guys to hit the ground running out of the gate: the current dumb first 45 self-indulgent minutes are crap, and would be better served by re-running the best of from yesterday post- 8am.

PROJECT 961: umm. hmmm. Choose an image that supports the brand, and then support it full-time. Your morning show blows.

RIVER: Don't change a thing, and continue to win. Change, and lose. Bob Neil is smart that way. Laser focus is the key, playing the hits, and you get the ratings.
 
Why they brought in the immensely talented Kaedy Kiley to not speak makes no sense, unless it was to stop 929 from putting Mara in mornings.
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Kaedy had been off the radio for a long time and probably wanted badly to get back on, whether she had freedom to talk or not; and whether she got paid a lot or not. The River got immediate name recognition in morning drive; a lot of the River's demo had probably listened to Kaedy. And the station most likely got her for not that much money, given the circumstances. It was a win-win for Kaedy and The River.

But Neil, what difference does it make since morning drive is analogous to "the bottom of the lineup" according to you? Such an unimportant daypart!
 
I find this all very interesting but I'm curious to know, for those of you who are saying or believe that a tighter playlist is key factor, is if that's a trend that is being seen now or is that something that can be market specific? When I moved here in 1994, neither 96 Rock or 99x seemed to have a tight playlist...of course, it may have been that my tolerance for repetition was higher back then...one thing I can say is that I heard the same Mother's Finest song quite often on 96 (and i'd NEVER heard them before I moved here) and 94 - 95 was seemingly the year of Greenday.
 
Andy said:
I find this all very interesting but I'm curious to know, for those of you who are saying or believe that a tighter playlist is key factor, is if that's a trend that is being seen now or is that something that can be market specific? When I moved here in 1994, neither 96 Rock or 99x seemed to have a tight playlist...of course, it may have been that my tolerance for repetition was higher back then...one thing I can say is that I heard the same Mother's Finest song quite often on 96 (and i'd NEVER heard them before I moved here) and 94 - 95 was seemingly the year of Greenday.
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Jumping in...

It also seems like any legendary station--like KROQ, WCBS, 99X, or Power 99--did NOT have a very tight playlist. Or is the tight playlist the "safe" option--less likely to fail, but less likely to succeed spectacularly as well?

You could almost remove River, as currently programmed, from consideration as a rock/AOR station. They are programmed like an oldies station that plays old AOR music (as opposed to old CHR music, like True Oldies)--that is, a tight playlist, refreshed regularly from researched music, and not taking too many chances. Not saying that that's not a formula for success, but they have ceased to be a "rock" station IMO.

Rock 100.5's problem is that they can't decide what market they want to pursue. Do they want to be a competitor to Project in the active rock space, or do they want to be a heritage rock (70s/80s AOR) station, or do they want to be a deep-cut classic rock station (and possibly get caught in River's buzzsaw)? If their playlist is too loose, that's probably the reason. I'm not in the biz, but it would seem to me that they could get away with a deeper playlist if they narrowed their timespan. My preference would be 70s/80s AOR, officially to avoid duplication with other stations but it also happens to be my favorite of the three.
 
Tight playlists have been proven to win, time and time again. People scream about lack of variety, but stations with big playlists rarely make it. And it's been that way for years in major markets. With corporate ownership, it's possible playlists are even tighter now; not sure about that. Also, certain formats, specifically CHR, might have had somewhat smaller playlists than other formats.
 
Agreed on the benefits of tight playlists. This presents one of the issues with fickle listeners. A vocal minority might say that a station's playlist is too tight; but if the playlist is expanded, then the complaints suddenly become about titles being played that are too weak. Sad to say, but stations can't wave a magic wand and suddenly have an unending supply of *good* music to play. We have to carefully pick and choose so that our P1s stay with us.

Think of it like an archway being built. An archway supports itself because of the keystone--the one stone at the very top. Without the keystone, the whole structure falls. Thus it is with music: Without focus being placed on the best of the best, the whole thing will collapse.

That might not be a good analogy but it sounded cool anyway. ;D
 
Roddy, you ignorant slut. I never said mornings weren’t important to DAVE-FM. I think they should not move their best-known personality to a day part where they have traditionally not drawn listeners. They should play their strengths, not their weaknesses.

Jabba brings up a great point about opening play lists. I will add that when a station does that they will experience a loss of listeners at the outset. Then when their p2 & p3 listeners realize that the other stations are play in the same 300-500 songs, they will come back to the original station wanting to hear something else.

The bigger issue here is CUME vs. TSL. I have always be a proponent of TSL. Ideally you want the listeners to tune in for as long as possible so they can hear the commercials as many times as possible. I doubt many advertisers want a large group of listeners to hear their spot once in an hour and then never gain. I would want a smaller group of listeners hearing a spot 3-6 times in three hours.
 
Interesting discussion.

IMO, Roddy's right, but at the same time the tight is right playlist philosophy may need to change in a PPM world. I realize that runs counter to what I've stated earlier, but...

The thing is, absent the need to count incidental listening, PPM really counts intentional listening. That's markedly different than a recall world dictated by Arbitron's old diary method.

It seems to me that branding is the key. And, to me, if you're in your car and can literally access thousands of "radio stations" at high bit rates as you drive--local is the key, and that transcends just beating the hell out of the value of listening to the morning show. PPM is showing that middays is as important, if not more than mornings. So, it's an entire brand consumption experience. What does the WHOLE listening experience stand for? If you can consume the brand anyhow/anywhere, on your phone for example, but also consume thousands of other brands, why should you stand out? It seems to me that the brand needs to become lifestyle connected, and is built through localized social networking, and the social network it relies on helps program the station. The key is standing for something clear in people's minds, where they live, and mattering, and then delivering.

That could mean more news. But why not listeners do it? They can, now, technologically, and CNN and FOX are both relying on input from their viewers--why not local radio? WHY NOT? How hard would it be to assemble a morning newscast that involves users reporting? And, why not?

This concept encompasses everything. How do the ads sound? Do you run traditional commercials, or do you offer sponsorship to entire hours? If not the sponsorship idea--why not? Clean up your presentation and make it sound real--then offer the audience as VALUE to the client, and do it on an hourly basis--why not? Throw out the old ideas. Make radio new.

And the reason for this is that radio as we know it, even though it still reaches more people weekly than all other media, is dead. Radio is dead, but the backbone isn't--local content. The key is content. Connect your brand image to unique local content, and promote that, and then rely on your real fans, accessed and leveraged through social networks--then, who cares how it's delivered? And does the audience have value? YES! Google agrees; even in their remnant advertising world, they pay cash for access to that audience based on clicks online. Why not the same for "radio"?

There's an entirely new way to do radio, and I have an idea about how. Any takers?
 
PPM is showing that middays is as important, if not more than mornings.
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Yes, PPM is showing that middays have more audience than morning drive for a couple of reasons. And I agree that a successful station is about building a brand. But I don't necessarily agree that middays will be more important than morning drive.

The reasons middays do better with PPM are really the same reasons that cumes are so much larger with PPM. A lot of people leave the radio on continuously as background in the workplace. And PPM picks up all listening rather than just what was recalled. The second reason is that PPM picks up radios from nearby cubicles in the workplace, which is listening someone in a nearby cubicle would most likely not have written in a diary.

The reasons morning drive will remain more important than middays are:

1. Ad rates are determined by supply and demand. A lot of clients perceive that people listen to radio mostly in their cars despite the fact that a large portion of listening is in other places. These clients therefore feel they need morning drive more than midday. That drives up the ad rates in drivetime. I've heard clients say, "We want to buy drivetime only." (It's true that people are probably paying more attention when they're in their cars.) It's like TV; you can actually reach more people by buying a lot of dayparts outside of primetime. I've shown the Nielsen numbers to clients, and they still insist on prime because of perception. The result is prime is priced far higher than it should be based on its audience.

2. Morning show formats sometimes can accommodate more units per hour. This too adds to morning drive's capacity to be a big money maker.

3. Morning drive is an important determiner of what station people listen to for the rest of the day.
 
Andy said:
...When I moved here in 1994, neither 96 Rock or 99x seemed to have a tight playlist...
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I would agree. Although I didn't grow up in Atlanta, I remember the trio of then-"alt" rock stations in Boston (WBCN, WAAF and WFNX) seemed to have quite the extensive playlists (agreed with Andy... perhaps my listening habits were more forgiving of repetition then).

However, back in the 90's during the hey day of "Alt Rock," we were dealing with a somewhat different culture of rock listeners than we do today.

Back in the 90s there was a backlash at a radio and music industry that was seen as being overly corporate and greedy and not having their customers' best interests in mind, much like today. When the economy went in the tank in the late 80s and early 90s it exacerbated this; Rock has often been a better music for that angst and frustration that comes with uncertain times. This again is much like today (If history continues to repeat itself, we can expect a rebirth of "rock" music of some form soon... I just don't know quite what it will be).

What is different about today is that Rock-Radio in the early nineties did not need to compete with digital music: The iPod, MySpace, PureVolume.com, insert your music source here. Those same angsty and frustrated listeners had no choice but to listen to radio for their music exposure and because there was this captive audience Radio saw a new market to be explored. Today, those listeners can find the music they want to hear in so many other places in far more user-friendly manners than radio can provide.

Like so many other aspects of the "digital revolution," we can't un-invent this stuff. Today's versions of 99x, WFNX, The End, K-ROCK and whatever are going to need to find a way to adapt, accept and reconnect or they will continue to become obsolete. I only wish they could.

Tighter playlists might be the answer... I think the better term would be more focused playlists. Remember to give us the sweet with the bitter - play the hits, and slip that new MGMT track somewhere inbetween. Don't roll out of a stop set with a song no one cares about!
 
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