George Brusstar said:
SoulCrusher, I understand your passion for Active Rock and Alternative... Musically, I'm pretty much right there with you... You do realize though, I hope, that in order to attract advertisers these days, terrestrial radio needs to attract "lowest common denominator" listenership, right? I'm afraid your musical tastes (and mine as well) have become just too sophisticated for today's radio. That being said, why did Q104 "miss a big opportunity" when another station "failed with the format" (your own words, I believe, a few weeks back re: Country in Monmouth-Ocean, and please correct me if I've misquoted you)?
I suppose you're right, George. Our tastes are too refined and sophisticated for terrestrial radio, especially in a market like NYC.
Maybe Q104 would be better off staying put. The new rock fans would probably complain that the station is "too classic", while the classic rock heads won't like "this weird new rock they're playing". They're by no means struggling, so I suppose that taking a gamble with a successful formula is a risk not worth taking.
I have alluded to the failure of WXRK in the past, mostly because of what I feel was an identity crisis. The format was tinkered with too much over the years. By my estimation, they were a full-fledged Alternative station for maybe 2 or 3 years, tops. The ratings were solid, but CBS/Infinity was not content. Around late 1997 - early 1998, K-Rock started working in "Retro Rock" by the likes of AC/DC, Pink Floyd, Rush and Aerosmith. This was an incredibly foolish move in my opinion, especially because CBS/Infinity also ran the long time AOR WNEW at the time (we all know what happened to them), and there was also Classic Rocker WAXQ as well. I know a lot of people that turned away from K-Rock at this time, including my brother. Personally, I was just bored with the overall predictability and blandness of the station, so I only listened sporadically. Part of the problem was that CBS/Infinity hired Steve Kingston to be the PD at WXRK, a man with significant experience with the CHR format, but absolutely
none with Active Rock or Alternative.
A couple of years passed, and WXRK threw its weight behind the nu-metal movement that was gaining momentum. The genre was very popular, but it was also polarizing - I'm sure they lost as many listeners as they gained during this period. At this time, you could definitely call K-Rock the "frat boy" station - the programming and advertising appealed strongly to drunk, randy, obnoxious testosterone-addled jocks. Even as nu-metal was on its last legs, WXRK still played it constantly. My take: While WXRK may have failed to sell as much advertising to major beer companies and condom manufacturers, there would have been more of an audience if this station was built around Alternative tradition (a lot of which started right in NYC!), early punk rock, and modern acts that appealed to that audience - heck, I know that lots of people in The Village definitely would have listened. Either that, or a full-fledged Active Rocker as long as they distanced it from WNEW's programming enough - by Active Rocker, that means presenting a diverse mix of Rock from the last few decades along with a good selection of Currents, including nu-metal but certainly not making it the focal point of the station. Problem is, not only did K-Rock choose to make frat boys their core audience, but they were playing music that would alienate them - Rush, Pink Floyd, Beck, Evanescence, etc. Of course, there's no way that fans of those acts will stay tuned to a station that was basically pushing Limp Bizkit to be the biggest band in rock music.
During its last few years, WXRK was musically all over the place. Despite being very tightly programmed with tons of repetition, they were all over the place - it was very common to hear Led Zeppelin into Afroman into Black Sabbath into Beck into Kelly Osbourne (!) over the course of 30 minutes or so. At some point, they dumped the Classic Rock for a while, but it was still very jarring to hear acts like Franz Ferdinand going right into Slipknot. The sequencing on this station was terrible - while it is possible to program a station with both of these bands, you can't have one going right into the next!
The main point I'm trying to make is this: WXRK failed because their only criteria for playing a band was that said band was
really popular. In the end, WXRK couldn't decide whether it wanted to be an Alternative (which it was in '95-'97, and it sounded pretty good) or an Active Rocker, and that is what led to its demise. They were still clinging to Limp Bizkit and the like until their final days, despite that band's rapid decline in popularity. Then they became K-Rock "Great Rock Period", which was unnecessary given the presence of the very similar sounding Q-104, and was merely CBS/Infinity stalling until the right time came to launch Free-FM.
I still believe that a focused Active Rock or Alternative station could work if they programmed it the right way and didn't try too hard to appeal to one relatively small demo (the mistake that WXRK made). The station needs to balance familiar material with the new songs, and throw in some unexpected tracks for good measure - and of course, an excellent morning show is a
MUST with either of these genres. It's something for the lower rating/billing stations in the market to consider.
