Can a station come along and rip away the men from JAMN and eat into its market leading ratings? And if so, would it do it by also being an urban format, or could another format appeal to adult males they way JAMN fills in the gap?
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Can Jamn be dethroned?
- Thread starter Brooklyndon
- Start date
R
rapking
Guest
JAMN is not all that great..so it can happen . A Avg CHR/R station can cut into JAMN Ratings . NO Star + No HOT/WILD Urban Format = JAMN High Ratings . Boston has alot of Rock stations, But none of them are any good . If WBCN And/or WFNX can change back what they used to be..maybe that will get young men, back into rock stations . WAAF 2 weak Boston metro signals, is not working so far ( Ratings ) .
T
TowerBuzz
Guest
No it's not a sign of poor programming (although BCN has taken any excitement out of the air) but it's a shift in demo overall. Young men like rap while unfortunately rock has been on the decline for a few years hence there are less rock and alt stations around the country. It's not about any station being better to get the young men back. Rap the entire genre has become much more mainstream and inclusive in it's audience where since the 90's, it has always been purchased mostly by affluent white suburbanites it is now the dominant musical genre in American culture. So young men gravitate to it and Jamn flourished. As for another "rap" station sigining on and dethroning Jamn that isnt a probability either. Jamn works because of the audience it targets. It is not trying to get the people who want to hear the underground, grimy, gulliest, REALEST EVER, street rhymes, it is a CHR and the playlist reflects the audience which is a CHR audience that wants to hear some rap and r & B (like Lloyd, BrooklynDon you were right it's an R & B track witha rapper on it, my bad! but it has some rap element to it!). It's really not a matter of a "less corny" rap station or a more "gangsta" rap station signing on, even if one did that was run by a real company, that knew something about business, and had a good signal, it probably would not make much of a dent on Jamn......because Jamn is not trying to be a gangsta station etc....... It's a top forty that plays rythmic music, period. There's nothing wrong with that.
TOWERBUZZ: The realest ever!, reppin' Lexington to tha fullest, please believe it!!...HOLLA IF YA HEAR ME!
8)
TOWERBUZZ: The realest ever!, reppin' Lexington to tha fullest, please believe it!!...HOLLA IF YA HEAR ME!
8)
C
ciao99
Guest
In any other market, the weakest FM signal would have flipped to take on Jammin. But this is Boston, which tolerates zero rated stations as long as they appeal to Caucasian suburban men.Brooklyndon said:
That being said, I hate Hip Hop, it's unoriginal. I'd rather see another void filled, like jazz, a Latin FM, Urban AC, Gospel.
When will Boston get an FM Urban AC station? It's hard to believe that a major market like Boston doesn't have one.
W
wkrpfm
Guest
great perspective TowerBuzz...you hit the nail on the head!..it kills me when older people say "rap crap"...Hip Hop/R&B has been sneaking into top 40 radio since the early/mid 90's...and some people are having a hard time admitting that top 40 music is now hip-hop/r&B/pop/rock...I think Jamn is a great example of where top 40 radio is leaning towards.
B
BoscoGoldBear
Guest
radiohost40 said:
If we don't even have a mainstream urban station, what the hell makes you think that we'll have an urban AC either? We've had Radio One "try" WBOT and WILD-FM out for 6 years, but of course that's gone! Rap King could've (and still may) told you that one! We haven't seen WBOS change formats in spite of their crap-stained ratings and the likelihood that they are also #5 among GM stations in the 25-54s, yet that translates into #2 among sales, especially since 'BOS has practically the same music as Mix, Kiss, 'AAF, 'BCN and 'FNX. Boston also doesn't have a Spanish or Smooth Jazz station either, plus there isn't a single station in town which plays dance music. You know none of Boston's classic rock stations ('ZLX, 'ROR, Mike, etc.) will touch disco (i.e. Brickhouse, Super Freak, Good Times) with a ten foot pole; the only ways to listen to dance music are a) satellite radio or b) pay $3-4 per gallon and drive out to New York City to listen to 'KTU.
Good Lord, this city s*cks! I'm now hoping that the Red Sox are as horrid as the B's, C's and BC sports teams are so that people will realize what a major embarassment Boston (the launchpad of WW3 on 9/11/01) is! (Please note that I didn't wish for bad Pats' news; I'm an associate ticket holder who happens to my group's DD.) Jam'n, to me, is a station where every "song" begins like "yo yo MF" or "word to the mother, and word to the ****er too" - not exactly dance music! And don't bother looking for dance on Kiss either - John Ivey totally destroyed that station years ago!
Steve N. said:
If you mean Brick House by The Commodores, WROR is now playing that in regular rotation. WODS plays a small handful of the biggest 70's disco pop hits regularly. But, I agree that Classic Hits or Oldies stations playing a few 70's disco and R&B hits in their rotation certainly doesn't begin to fill the void for an adult urban R&B station.
Steve N. said:radiohost40 said:
And don't bother looking for dance on Kiss either - John Ivey totally destroyed that station years ago!
Steve N. , you are 100% spot on. I harken back to about oh, late 97, early 98 or so... I remember quite vividly that at about that time Kiss 108's playlist was COMPLETELY purged of all Dance/R & B/Hip hop... The biggest records at the time were being put out by the likes of Usher, Mary J. Blige, Jay Z. , what about "Too Close" by Next?? #1 for weeks, but NOPE, Kiss 108 wouldn't touch any of those records... (Maybe because at that time they wanted 100% separation from Jamn', who was now their sister station?) At that time they also dropped the dance mixes from Club Kiss on Saturday nites... They used to have a GREAT mix DJ for Club Kiss by the name of Costa G. (don't know what ever happened to him) But by late 97, Club Kiss became nothing more than a jock standing at the door of a club shouting over the intros of songs by Sarah M. , Tori Amos and Sugar Ray... whats the point of having a show called "Club Kiss" when you're playing the latest by Barenaked Ladies and Jewel? LOL ... Heck, even some big dance hits by MADONNA and AMBER were dropped... I would even go so far as to say that back in late 97, the playlists of Kiss 108 and WBOS were about 75% the same!!! The dance mixes are now back on Club Kiss but the DJ, IMO , is not as good as the old one they used to have...
Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the dance hits/hip hop began to creep back into Kiss 108's playlist around... 2000-01? But by then it was too late... I love it how they will now play "hits" by Biggie (Hypnotize, One More Chance) and JaRule (haha what a joke) and 50 (In The Club, Just A Lil Bit) Jay (Hard Knock Life, Encore, Money Aint A Thang) but back when those records were hot, they wouldn't touch them! (Even though Casey Kasem was playing them on AT-40!!!)
Steve N. said:radiohost40 said:
If we don't even have a mainstream urban station, what the hell makes you think that we'll have an urban AC either? We've had Radio One "try" WBOT and WILD-FM out for 6 years, but of course that's gone! Rap King could've (and still may) told you that one! We haven't seen WBOS change formats in spite of their crap-stained ratings and the likelihood that they are also #5 among GM stations in the 25-54s, yet that translates into #2 among sales, especially since 'BOS has practically the same music as Mix, Kiss, 'AAF, 'BCN and 'FNX. Boston also doesn't have a Spanish or Smooth Jazz station either, plus there isn't a single station in town which plays dance music. You know none of Boston's classic rock stations ('ZLX, 'ROR, Mike, etc.) will touch disco (i.e. Brickhouse, Super Freak, Good Times) with a ten foot pole; the only ways to listen to dance music are a) satellite radio or b) pay $3-4 per gallon and drive out to New York City to listen to 'KTU.
Good Lord, this city s*cks! I'm now hoping that the Red Sox are as horrid as the B's, C's and BC sports teams are so that people will realize what a major embarassment Boston (the launchpad of WW3 on 9/11/01) is! (Please note that I didn't wish for bad Pats' news; I'm an associate ticket holder who happens to my group's DD.) Jam'n, to me, is a station where every "song" begins like "yo yo MF" or "word to the mother, and word to the ****er too" - not exactly dance music! And don't bother looking for dance on Kiss either - John Ivey totally destroyed that station years ago!
I love it when guys are all upset about KISS 108!! You are NOT their target demo and they are not going to serve your needs. JAMN and KISS were programmed differently when Ivey was here becasue CHR and CHR/R had to be programmed that way to co-exist at that time. That has changed...the formats have changed...the stations have evolved and the stations continue to be successful, ratings and revenue wise.
You're right, Boston's Classic Rock station (singular - WZLX) will not touch Disco because Disco is NOT Classic Rock. Someone pointed out WROR is playing Brick House...they are a Classic HITS station...and MIKE is a Variety Hits station (by definition).
If a dance format was a viable money making format in Boston, soemone would be doing it...just like Urban or Urban AC. You proved that with your elegant analysis of WBOS.
To answer the original question, yes, ANY station can dethroned. To take down JAMN won't be cheap and who is going to have the money to spend to do it? Even a "crapped stained" (Steve's quote, not mine) rated station like WBOS makes lots of money. Who would risk making moeny to do that?? A new station would score lots of younger cume out of the box (12-17 year olds), but that's not a demo to sell and some sample cume 18 - 34. So you wait another book...paying for talent...paying for marketing...the next book comes back maybe a little more growth in cume 18 - 34...but not enough to erode JAMN's P1's...so you wait...and wait...and then your overhead (i.e., high profile talent, marketing) affects your bottome line...then what do you do? You flip your format.
You are correct. John Ivey was programming KISS108 in the mid to late 90's and turned KISS into a Hot AC and stripped anything rhythmic out of it it's playlist. The only Hip-Hop/Dance you heard on Kiss during his tenure was on Open House Party or the weekend American Top 40 shows. Mix-Master Costa G (One of the best radio mix show DJ's I've heard, IMHO) was let go in 1997. It was Caddilac Jack who brought back the rhythmic / CHR cuts and insisted that Kiss and JAMN could co-exist with overlapping playlists. KISS's imaging was spiced up (we can thank the great Jeff Berlin for this) and processing upgraded to complement the new music mix. BTW. John Ivey now programs KISS-FM out in L.A.
I know that this was a JAMN thread but wanted add my .02 on the issue.
M
Mickey37
Guest
Steve N. said:
We're talking about radio, for God's sakes. If you don't like the city, there are plenty of moving companies available to help you relocate elsewhere.
The 9/11 reference reveals a talk show caller mentality. Boston was no more responsible for what happened than NY, Wash. DC or a field in Pennsylvania were for being the places where the planes crashed.
T
TowerBuzz
Guest
tjm_pro said:
The mistake Ivey made was this:
He did take the "riddim" out of Kiss and it leaned hot ac but also played a good amount of alternative that was not hot ac crossover like " Blue Monday" by Orgy, that one still puzzles me, or "my own worst enemy" by Lit which was on all the time. Ivey's problem or mistake was that he wanted to distance Kiss from Jamn, or mark clear lines of difference between the two stations where one would not play anything that could be heard on the other, dumb since all of the hit music was Rythmic!~. So you had Kiss 108 a hit music station playing virtually no hits, and they were left the entire field of the boy bands and the Brittney's of the world that were super hot at the time, yet they stayed away from Nsync, and Backstreet because they wanted to cultivate an older female cume. So the hits that were left since Jamn wasnt touching boy bands, KIss didnt even really play. It was a bad, bad, time for a legendary station BUT they were still on top somehow.
Enter Cadillac who is a smart programmer who knows that a hit is a hit, whether it's Fall out boy, or Kanye West. SO Kiss and Jamn started sharing artists and songs again, which was fine because if you heard Beyonce on Jamn it woud be followed by something dancey or hip hop-ish, whereas if you hear it on kiss it probably wont be. So audience integrity is still maintained while actually playing music that people care about.
Programming 101 boys and girls.
T
TowerBuzz
Guest
I disagree Joe, I think Kiss is sounding more vibrant than they havve in a long time. Jackson Blue is doing a real show at night which is a prime daypart for a station like this. Also as disturbing as the very idea of that sttation vt'ing a prime daypart is, Shelley Wade is a major market pro and to the audience she doesnt sound any less involved than anyone else on the air in fact she sounds really good all things considered. Remember you are not a woman between the ages of 18-34 so your reference is not the same. Besides they play current music and you have made your orientation known over and over. You're someone who is much more concerned with the music and personalities of the past.
yeah but I have a lot of gay friends who tune into KISS and JAMn (OK, I'll stereotype the stereo, my gay friends either listen to Classical Music or Kiss 108. I can somewhat TOLERATE the Classical...)
Long before you knew me, TowerBuzz, I was outed...by a program director who has one foot in the closet and the other foot out. In fact, long before you were in the "biz" there were many who liked to "out" people in the community just because they thought it was humorous. Just because THEY didn't discriminate they thought no one else did.
Jimmy Miller told the manager of a major artist about my alleged "orientation". We could've lost the client (and if you think some people don't work with blacks and gays in 2007, think again, discrimination is quite real), but the fellow said "Joe's gay? GREAT! More chicks for me." And as a nice as a guy as he was, he was not very good looking by a long shot, but when I had to deliver papers to his hotel room in NY he was there, shirtless, and with a girl that was an 11 on a scale of 1-10. So he was secure in his sexuality, it is too bad you have to keep bringing up mine. Being outed is not the nicest thing in the world - but after the "outing" I decided to make the best of it. You keep your one-note-charlie mantra "you have made your orientation known over and over." oh please, tell your ex-boss he did a fine job of spreading the word for me.
Long before you knew me, TowerBuzz, I was outed...by a program director who has one foot in the closet and the other foot out. In fact, long before you were in the "biz" there were many who liked to "out" people in the community just because they thought it was humorous. Just because THEY didn't discriminate they thought no one else did.
Jimmy Miller told the manager of a major artist about my alleged "orientation". We could've lost the client (and if you think some people don't work with blacks and gays in 2007, think again, discrimination is quite real), but the fellow said "Joe's gay? GREAT! More chicks for me." And as a nice as a guy as he was, he was not very good looking by a long shot, but when I had to deliver papers to his hotel room in NY he was there, shirtless, and with a girl that was an 11 on a scale of 1-10. So he was secure in his sexuality, it is too bad you have to keep bringing up mine. Being outed is not the nicest thing in the world - but after the "outing" I decided to make the best of it. You keep your one-note-charlie mantra "you have made your orientation known over and over." oh please, tell your ex-boss he did a fine job of spreading the word for me.
T
TowerBuzz
Guest
Varulven said:
JOE:
WHAT HAS ANY OF THAT GOT TO DO WITH JAMN?, CADILLAC JACK?, KISS 108?, whether Jamn can be dethroned or not?
AGAIN Joe IT IS NOT ABOUT YOU!!!!!!!! I said nothing about your sexual orientation it has no bearing here. I respectfully disagreed with you after you trashed kiss as being "stale" and Cadillac as being another corproate lackey as you seem to think everyone is. You are laboring under this delusion that yours is the voice of the people and truth is that your taste is way out of step with the norm. I only stated that you are not a FEMALE between the ages of 18-34, so Kiss 108 probably would not appeal to you as it is designed to appeal to females 18-34, and up!. By the way, I dont know you other than here so again this does nto make a lot of sense.
T
TowerBuzz
Guest
Infidel said:
Wow I love it when the open minded speak!
Then again Infadel is right about one thin; it has all been crap after De La soul and Public Enemy!!
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