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Cheap Channel's new "national" dayparts

P

piggy

You've probably heard about the new "national" formats that Cheap Channel is instituting across the country as they lay off more local jocks. Jerry Del Colliano has been ripping on it for weeks. I heard one of the shows on Aggie 96 up in College Station last weekend.

Think of this as a cross between voice tracking and an 80's era Satellite Music Network format. You have a national jock who does generic breaks (no station name, no local references) a few times an hour, while Prophet drops in the station's imaging in the normal sweeper positions, with plenty of cold segs. The thought is that with PPM, it's not as important to get the call letters in all the time, so you just have a jock talk about generic artist info or what happened on American Idol the other night. As they lay off local talent, they cut and paste in one of these national dayparts into the Prophet log instead of paying someone to voicetrack it.

On paper, it sounds feasible. On air, it sounds really disjointed. The two generic talk breaks I heard had the jock using phone bits from whatever station he works at with any local references edited out. The station swept cold from a song into a stopset twice - no local sweeper or generic jock break, just roll the song straight to the WalMart spot.

I never thought that I'd say I'd rather hear voicetracking, but if this is the future of radio, bring on the tracks. If CBS didn't have KHMX now, you *know* this would be how CC would handle nights on Mix.
 
What baffles me the most about this trend is the way it completely tosses out the old tried and true idea of "local identity."

Speaking just for myself, I don't enjoy listening to a radio station that doesn't have local jocks who know the local personalities and the local turf, local commercials, local newscasts, local PSA's etc. I'm talking about radio I can identify with and enjoy because I feel that "I know those people and they know me."

Whatever happened to that concept? Cut and paste radio does nothing for me. It's why I will never subscribe to satellite radio.
 
Local radio went the way of local TV. Today, the only thing local about TV is the news. The rest of the day is national networks and national syndication.

There are lots of radio stations that aren't doing this. We'll see who wins in the court of public opinion.
 
The funny thing is that KHMX actually has a position posted for a Full-Time Radio Personality. I do know that KODA's voicetracking is terrible. I've heard the VT'ers getting cut-off in mid sentence by spots. Going from music into a stop-set cold (at least use a liner, drop, or sweeper there... it's just a pet peeve of mine). I could have sworn I heard Marc Sherman VT'ing for about six hours the other day. That's insane for the top-rated station in the market. Radio Ownership groups just don't get it.
 
CC has three of Houston's Top 5. They can take a chance here. It opens the door for CBS, which has been getting killed in all its formats, including AC. They're mostly live & local at all their stations. So Houston will be a great place to see what the audience really wants.
 
I've heard one of the formats, too...I'm not impressed.

The problem radio stations found with "satellite" formats is: the jocks can be good, and many are. But, when you program on a national platform, you cannot take into account songs which may do very badly in certain local areas. A song can be #5 nationally, and be hated by audiences in some markets. Such a format might be ok if you're the only station in market #400...but in a competitive situation, it's a much dicier issue.

Added to that - the format I heard seemed to really have too much talk in a day and age where audiences really seem to be rallying toward a "less talk/more music" approach, now that PPM is here, though not yet all over the country.

But, hey...if you care more about your severely declining balance sheet (and possible prospects of bankruptcy) than the product you're putting on the air, then....
 
http://www.radioandrecords.com/RRWebsite20/members/ShowHeadline.aspx?FormatId=0&ContentID=49331

R&R drops 17 stations as reporters because they're "programmed by a central source."

The closest stations to Houston are two in Beaumont, but they're doing this in markets as big as Oklahoma City (#48) and Providence (#39).

Using BDS, R&R found that KIOC in Beaumont was identical outside of AM drive to stations in OKC and Albany, NY and KKMY in Beaumont was identical to Columbus, GA, El Paso, Fresno, Syracuse, and Springfield MO other than the occasional request feature, fill song, or Delilah at night.

Wow.
 
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