Being that The Zone is a Free FM station...

[Parttimer]

I have spent some time listening to The Zone, and it sounds to me like they're trying to imitate the DVE morning show and see if they can carry it through the whole broadcast day. Ain't gonna happen. I don't think this market is THAT personality driven.

Welcome to the textbook definition of male-oriented FM talk. To my knowledge it never really worked anywhere on a station that didn't have Stern as the morning show .

I think there are some elements that can work, namely Miller and Paulsen. But O&A, no. And that's the part corporate won't likely let them back away from.

 

[Pratte4Life]

At the end of the 90s a lot of people thought that O & A had become hipper and fresher than Howard Stern.

Anyway, loved the essay by Realist. Hit the nail on the head.

I've made the point B-94 was a CHR station, and CHR is just a more modern way to say Top 40 in my opinion.

And Top 40 is dead. Buried. Doornail.

Could Pittsburgh actually be creating a trend here? In many ways 104.7 proved for the first time in the country talk could work- and work well- on FM.

While I'm sure there were other FM talkers (I know of one in Bristol, Virginia for instance that predated 104.7), the success 104.7 had really was noticed by many in the industry.

I don't think music will leave the airwaves anytime soon, but I definitely can see the future of radio being based on local discussions.

Now, as far as The Zone-

One of the things I'm surprised about The Zone is that so much of their talent was what WBGG tried to tackle WEAE with in the early part of this decade- Paulsen and Steigerwald.

I happen to be a fan of both of them, but it seems whereas 104.7 did present us with something new, The Zone is big on recycling.

 

[Boss Radio]

One of the things I'm surprised about The Zone is that so much of their talent was what WBGG tried to tackle WEAE with in the early part of this decade- Paulsen and Steigerwald.


WBGG was a sports station where Paulsen was miscast. He didn't talk sports enough for the hardcores and the sports content was too high for the Paulsen fans. At one midday hour per day, Steigerwald is hardly a big part of The Zone.

 

[Pratte4Life]

And that's what the management types at The Zone keep telling themselves.

Let's see if it works.

 

[corporateradiosucks]

B94 won't succeed with a comeback unless top 40 music changes and the harder rap goes away. That, IMO, is what killed B94. You couldn't listen to it in the office any more.

 

[kenhawk1160]

At the end of the 90s a lot of people thought that O & A had become hipper and fresher than Howard Stern.

Anyway, loved the essay by Realist. Hit the nail on the head.

I've made the point B-94 was a CHR station, and CHR is just a more modern way to say Top 40 in my opinion.

And Top 40 is dead. Buried. Doornail.

Could Pittsburgh actually be creating a trend here? In many ways 104.7 proved for the first time in the country talk could work- and work well- on FM.

While I'm sure there were other FM talkers (I know of one in Bristol, Virginia for instance that predated 104.7), the success 104.7 had really was noticed by many in the industry.

I don't think music will leave the airwaves anytime soon, but I definitely can see the future of radio being based on local discussions.

Now, as far as The Zone-

One of the things I'm surprised about The Zone is that so much of their talent was what WBGG tried to tackle WEAE with in the early part of this decade- Paulsen and Steigerwald.

I happen to be a fan of both of them, but it seems whereas 104.7 did present us with something new, The Zone is big on recycling.

There were lots of FM talk stations already on the dial long before Pittsburgh adopted the format for 104.7. Pittsburgh is not a leader in lucrative radio format innovations...it's a follower. WJFK in DC had been personality talk since the early 90's, and had built a very successful audience in a matter of months. There were other News/Talk FMs popping up in smaller markets at around that same time. I'm sorry Pratte...I have to disagree with your statement regarding Pittsburgh creating a trend.

As I do regarding your statement insofar as CHR. Is it dead? No. But it is dormant for right now...resting if you will. They say fashion is usually measured in 20-year cycles, and music is no different. There's not a lot of great music available right now, but there's always "the next big thing". CHR has had its peaks and valleys, and it will rise again...but it will do so in its own time.

As for you, Realist...I question this earlier statement you made...

Whether or not The Zone will succeed at trying to do the same schtick for the rest of the day is not based on whether or not the market is "personality driven". It will succeed or fail based on whether or not Dennis Miller, John McIntyre, and Scott Paulsen are the right personalities for the job.

By that statement, you're saying that different personalities aren't going to be regurgitating the same banalities as their predecessor? Are you saying that any "Free FM" station is truly free? Where the on-air people are "free" to say and play what they want? I don't think so. I see this as having a structure as any other format on the dial.

 

[kenhawk1160]

B94 won't succeed with a comeback unless top 40 music changes and the harder rap goes away. That, IMO, is what killed B94. You couldn't listen to it in the office any more.

Very true. MixJamz 100.7 was a good example of how CHR was done without the rap element. There were plenty of rap artists on the air, but rap music wasn't the core of the format. It was DANCE music, and the two aren't the same. MixJamz was an example of how to successfully appeal to both black and white listeners, and the base of its success was the fact that it wasn't totally existing in the CHR world, but in a Hot AC one, at that.

For this Phoenix to rise from the ashes, the state of current music, as you alluded to earlier, would have to change, and it would have to change dramatically. We're not quite there yet. There'd be too much repitition among the "good" songs that would belong in the format.

 

[Radio_Realist]

By that statement, you're saying that different personalities aren't going to be regurgitating the same banalities as their predecessor?

No, I'm saying that individual personalities are unique and distinctive. Some go over well with lots of people, some don't. To reduce all personalities to whether or not they state the same "banalities" as others is like saying that all rock bands are alike, since they all play the same power chords on their guitars.

B94 won't succeed with a comeback unless top 40 music changes

And Top 40 won't come back unless the recording industry goes through some really major changes. And with internet delivery of recorded music, MySpace, iPods and all the other technologies, betting on the recording companies to turn back time is not a very smart bet.

 

[babyfishmouth]

They just changed from K-Rock, which clearly didn't work. They're not going to move it to another music format.

 

[kenhawk1160]

And with internet delivery of recorded music, MySpace, iPods and all the other technologies, betting on the recording companies to turn back time is not a very smart bet.

Those technologies you just mentioned have nothing to do with it. We had portable listening devices for decades that were thought to be the death of radio as we know it. Yet radio is still here.

 

[Radio_Realist]

We had portable listening devices for decades that were thought to be the death of radio as we know it. Yet radio is still here.

The portable listening devices of the old days all required purchasing (or shoplifting or pirating) recordings. The radio stations were at their peak serving as free promotion for the recording companies who sold the recordings. The earlier portable listening devices, being electro-mechanical, also were limited by battery life. And, finally, the barriers to entry for musical artists who weren't signed by a recording company were very difficult to overcome.

Today, any garage band can record a CD with technical fidelity and quality that exceeds the best recordings sold on vinyl in the 1960's. The songs may be terrible, but the technical quality from inexpensive home-based recording technology is superlative.

Technology doesn't change related things in one fell swoop. There were primitive television broadcasts made in the 1920's. Regular TV broadcasting started (in the US) in 1939, though it stopped for WWII. Yet television's impact on radio broadcasting as it was then known wasn't felt until into the 1950's.

I never meant to imply that all of the new technologies will cause music format radio as we know it today to instantly disappear. It will simply cause music format radio to lose its pre-eminent position as the dominant model for terrestrial radio broadcasting. My exact words were "Talk format shows existed on radio for a long, long time. But, with the competition from new technologies for the music fan's attention, it's time for all talk formats to enjoy the same kind of growth that music formats enjoyed in the 1950's." If you were around in the 1950's, then you'd know that DJ based music format radio didn't suddenly appear. It grew gradually throughout the entire decade. I predict that talk formats will grow. There will be an increase in the number of stations airing various types of spoken word formats, and most (though not all) of them will be successful.

Why do so many people insist that everything is so absolute? What makes anyone thing that music format radio is either on 99% of all stations, or it's "dead"?

I also had another thought occur to me on the way home in the car. Who says that Top 40 (or CHR or whatever acronym you want to label it with) has to change before it can be successful on a local station? Where is it written that a station that chooses to play the contemporary hits that its target audience wants to hear must include rap and hip-hop if the audience doesn't want to hear songs from those genres? Is there some obscure FCC regulation that if you register with the format police as a CHR station you are bound to play all of the Top 40 songs from the Billboard list under penalty of law?

If there's an audience that wants to hear most new, contemporary songs from all genres except rap and hip-hop, why can't a station simply pick the songs that audiences wants to hear?

 

[kenhawk1160]

I also had another thought occur to me on the way home in the car. Who says that Top 40 (or CHR or whatever acronym you want to label it with) has to change before it can be successful on a local station? Where is it written that a station that chooses to play the contemporary hits that its target audience wants to hear must include rap and hip-hop if the audience doesn't want to hear songs from those genres? Is there some obscure FCC regulation that if you register with the format police as a CHR station you are bound to play all of the Top 40 songs from the Billboard list under penalty of law?

If there's an audience that wants to hear most new, contemporary songs from all genres except rap and hip-hop, why can't a station simply pick the songs that audiences wants to hear?

One word...REPETITION.

 

[johnknapik]

I also had another thought occur to me on the way home in the car. Who says that Top 40 (or CHR or whatever acronym you want to label it with) has to change before it can be successful on a local station? Where is it written that a station that chooses to play the contemporary hits that its target audience wants to hear must include rap and hip-hop if the audience doesn't want to hear songs from those genres? Is there some obscure FCC regulation that if you register with the format police as a CHR station you are bound to play all of the Top 40 songs from the Billboard list under penalty of law?

If there's an audience that wants to hear most new, contemporary songs from all genres except rap and hip-hop, why can't a station simply pick the songs that audiences wants to hear?

CHR is constantly changing because what is popular is always changing. If rap and hip-hop are in the Top 40 then "somebody" wants to hear it. It must be selling well and testing high with audiences. But if you have noticed recently, top 40 is shifting away from hip-hop. It wasn't that long ago that the Top 10 was entirely hip-hop. If you look at this week's Top 10 you will find:
2 Rap songs
1 R&B song
3 Rock songs
1 Country song
3 Pop songs

That's a pretty decent mix. Hip-hop will never die but it certainly isn't as popular as it was even a year ago. You can have a CHR without the Hip-Hop but you will be looking at possibly a different demographic of listener...a little older.

 

[Radio_Realist]

That's a pretty decent mix.

Actually, that's a train wreck. And, that's why the number of people who opt for satellite radio is increasing, while the number of people who opt for terrestrial music radio is decreasing.

I'm not saying that it will happen overnight, or even in six months. But at the rate trends are moving, eventually the declining audience for "variety" on terrestrial radio will be smaller than the growing audience for multiple dedicated genres on satellite radios.

 

[feeball]

You can have a CHR without the Hip-Hop but you will be looking at possibly a different demographic of listener...a little older.

There is an available market for this type of station without the station turning into a Hot AC station. The only question is, who wants to be the first to try and cater to that demographic? It appears that nobody wants to compete with any Kiss FM branded CHR stations but if somebody wanted to compete with them, they should aim for an older demographic but not leave the younger crowd out of the equation.

 

[Radio_Realist]

One word...REPETITION.

I'm sorry, but you totally lost me with that. What bearing does repitition have on the issue of selectively excluding songs from your playlist that your audience doesn't want to hear?

 

[kenhawk1160]

Actually, that's a train wreck. And, that's why the number of people who opt for satellite radio is increasing, while the number of people who opt for terrestrial music radio is decreasing.

Where are you getting those figures, Realist? Do you have any sources to back that up?

 

[Radio_Realist]

Where are you getting those figures, Realist?

I didn't quote any "figures". I simply repeated what I've read in too many magazine, newspaper, and internet articles to even begin to remember exactly which sources posted what. Subscriptions to XM and Sirius are reported as increasing by every source I've ever read on the subject. The sales of HD radios are increasing. There are more and more music stations switching to talk with increases in ratings, so the listeners to those talk stations have to come from somewhere.

If I had posted exact numerical percentages, then being asked to come up with sources would make some sense. But asking where I discovered the general overall trends that are reported in magazines, newspapers, the internet, and converstations with radio professionals is like asking me what authoritative source I used to discover it was raining. I looked up and saw water falling from the sky. How much more authoritative a source is needed?

 

[corporateradiosucks]

One word...REPETITION.

I'm sorry, but you totally lost me with that. What bearing does repitition have on the issue of selectively excluding songs from your playlist that your audience doesn't want to hear?

Because it turns the top 40 into the top 22.

Nothing seems to "flow" as it used to, or maybe I'm getting old. I don't know how to explain it, other than that the difference between Carrie Underwood and Yung Joc is a hell of a lot bigger than the difference between Kenny Rogers and Earth, Wind & Fire.

 

[Radio_Realist]

Because it turns the top 40 into the top 22.

I understand that part, I just don't see what it has to do with excluding songs that your particular audience doesn't like. But then, I also don't understand why stations are only allowed to use officially sanctioned formats that have their own forums on Radio-Info.Com. I don't understand why the people running a station can't just play whatever their audiences want to hear and not worry about which official industry format acronym applies to what they play.

I also don't understand what is so magical about the number 40. Are 41 songs too many, and 39 too few? What if your audience likes 55 new songs? Will the format police pull your license if you exceed the magic 40?