Classic Rock: Evolve or Die!

[Avid Listener]

But you want people in radio to get paid to do just what you want them to, and the hell with what anyone else wants, because obviously they're all idiots. (Waltz me around again, Willie!)

Again, read what I've been writing. I am saying that in any given large market, there is room for ONE SINGLE FREAKIN' STATION that plays good music that isn't only a tiny little list of over-tested, over-exposed, burned out "hits". There should be room in each market for ONE SINGLE FREAKIN' STATION to play classic rock that includes a few deep cuts from albums that were popular, and new songs that have the same basic "classic rock" sound. There should be room in each market for ONE SINGLE FREAKIN' STATION that throws in 3 or 4 such songs every hour, just to keep things interesting and not so damn boring.

All of the other stations in each market can stick to boring people to death with lame background music that they keep on quietly to mask the silence that they can basically ignore like elevator Muzak.

 

[davideduardo]

I am saying that in any given large market, there is room for ONE SINGLE FREAKIN' STATION that plays good music that isn't only a tiny little list of over-tested, over-exposed, burned out "hits". There should be room in each market for ONE SINGLE FREAKIN' STATION to play classic rock that includes a few deep cuts from albums that were popular, and new songs that have the same basic "classic rock" sound. There should be room in each market for ONE SINGLE FREAKIN' STATION that throws in 3 or 4 such songs every hour, just to keep things interesting and not so damn boring.

And what a number of us have told you is that this has been tried. And it did not work.

I gave an example of a classic rock station owned by a very good, programming oriented group broadcaster in a market of 17 million that got over a 20 share with a 600 song list of tested, solid, consensus songs. A competitor tried to "out library" us with a deeper library. They changed format in a year and never got 1/10th of the ratings.

I also mentioned what happened in regards to current music and how ratings increased when we dropped them.

Like my story, there are many more. In fact, the end of "progressive rock" stations came at the hand of "AOR" stations that played shorter more structured playlists.

You may want deep cuts and "sounds like classic rock" material but most listeners don't want as much as a third of every hour (4 cuts) given over to less familiar, less "favorite" songs. There is little audience for this when there is a more focused station in the market and this has been proven over and over. Little audience, little revenue.

 

[davideduardo]

Just wondering...

If we were all face to face, nursing another beer at some watering hole and listening to Avid preach his tired old sermon, I wonder how many rounds it would take before someone kicked Avid's ass?

A. I don't need even one beer.
B. I think the knowledgeable programmers here have already done that, verbally.

 

[TheBigA]

Again, read what I've been writing. I am saying that in any given large market, there is room for ONE SINGLE FREAKIN' STATION that plays good music that isn't only a tiny little list of over-tested, over-exposed, burned out "hits".

Let me ask you a simple question: If it was YOUR MONEY involved, and you knew in advance that chances for success, based on previous history, was not good, would you put YOUR MONEY into such a thing? Especially if we're saying the amount is in the millions of dollars, would you do it? Answer me that question. Be honest.

 

[Cliff Claven USPS]

Here's an idea. If I'm not mistaken, Avid lives near Atlanta. NAB's Radio Show 2015 is in Atlanta.

Of the pros around here is anyone going and if you are going who's willing to take Avid in tow and give him a day or two at the show. Introduce him to a few of the "suits." Give him an opportunity to see that the pros he dismisses on this site are in fact talented, capable individuals who carry a great deal of pride in their work -- professionals who are worthy of respect, not condescension and insults.

Perhaps, I'm asking the wrong question to the wrong people. Perhaps I should ask Avid directly -- are you willing to go? Are you willing to sit and listen and try to gain a little understanding of radio as the industry it is, not some fantasy that you want it to be?

 

[John Gallagher]

For 2 years, from 2012 to 2014, I voicetracked, primarily for fun, at a small oldies station in Northeast OH. The library was deep (3000 songs?) many of the titles were songs I was not familiar with, and if i was, wouldn't play myself if I were programming it. Too many long forgotten titles. Granted, there is no competition to this small station, but the classic hits station down the road plays a much tighter, more familiar playlist. Guess what, the 3000 song radio station has trouble scoring advertisers. Doesn't help they are on AM, but the Classic Hits station on FM is continuously sold out. Familiar, fun songs = advertising $$$$.

 

[landtuna]

For 2 years, from 2012 to 2014, I voicetracked, primarily for fun, at a small oldies station in Northeast OH. The library was deep (3000 songs?) many of the titles were songs I was not familiar with, and if i was, wouldn't play myself if I were programming it. Too many long forgotten titles. Granted, there is no competition to this small station, but the classic hits station down the road plays a much tighter, more familiar playlist. Guess what, the 3000 song radio station has trouble scoring advertisers. Doesn't help they are on AM, but the Classic Hits station on FM is continuously sold out. Familiar, fun songs = advertising $$$$.

To do an honest comparo you would have to do apples to apples. It has already been well established here that unless the target demo is oldsters who once listened to AM, and the AM has a strong market-covering signal (and is not a daytimer), and is very well engineered (so its signal approaches that of the FM) it is understandable that those factors probably influence the ratings more than the playlist (assuming that the AM is not totally out in left field with their playlist).

AM's are at a terrible disadvantage these days.

 

[John Gallagher]

5000 watts during the day for the AM, and on a good day, can pick it up in Western, NY. Static and some interference, but you can hear it.

 

[Avid Listener]

And what a number of us have told you is that this has been tried. And it did not work.

And I keep telling you that if it was tried (which I've never heard first hand) and if it was done well, then it should have worked. As I've told you a number of times, if it was done well, it wouldn't have failed, but if it failed, that's evidence it wasn't done well.

Let me ask you a simple question: If it was YOUR MONEY involved, and you knew in advance that chances for success, based on previous history, was not good, would you put YOUR MONEY into such a thing? Especially if we're saying the amount is in the millions of dollars, would you do it? Answer me that question. Be honest.

If I had the money to operate a four or five station cluster, I'd put that on one of them.

 

[John Gallagher]

If I had the money to operate a four or five station cluster, I'd put that on one of them.

If you had this cluster, what would you put on the other 3 or 4 stations?

 

[K.M. Richards]

Just wondering...

If we were all face to face, nursing another beer at some watering hole and listening to Avid preach his tired old sermon, I wonder how many rounds it would take before someone kicked Avid's ass?

Round(s) as in plural?

 

[K.M. Richards]

Again, read what I've been writing. I am saying that in any given large market, there is room for ONE SINGLE FREAKIN' STATION that plays good music that isn't only a tiny little list of over-tested, over-exposed, burned out "hits". There should be room in each market for ONE SINGLE FREAKIN' STATION to play classic rock that includes a few deep cuts from albums that were popular, and new songs that have the same basic "classic rock" sound. There should be room in each market for ONE SINGLE FREAKIN' STATION that throws in 3 or 4 such songs every hour, just to keep things interesting and not so damn boring.

All of the other stations in each market can stick to boring people to death with lame background music that they keep on quietly to mask the silence that they can basically ignore like elevator Muzak.

Dear Mr. Avid,

Congratulations! Your station has been chosen to program the "deep tracks" format.

We, your competitors in the market, thank you for volunteering to do this so that the 17 music fans who have been pestering us to play songs that researched poorly will leave us alone so we can sit in our luxurious offices and count all the extra money we will be getting that would have otherwise gone to your station.

You are reminded that, due to the rules which you yourself had input in writing, you are not allowed to change format to something more saleable, sell the station, or go silent and bankrupt, unless you can convince some fool to adopt the "ignore the research" approach for their station in the market.

Good luck. You will need it.

Signed,
The Rest of the Market's Station Owners

 

[semoochie]

Dear Mr. Avid,

Congratulations! Your station has been chosen to program the "deep tracks" format.

We, your competitors in the market, thank you for volunteering to do this so that the 17 music fans who have been pestering us to play songs that researched poorly will leave us alone so we can sit in our luxurious offices and count all the extra money we will be getting that would have otherwise gone to your station.

You are reminded that, due to the rules which you yourself had input in writing, you are not allowed to change format to something more saleable, sell the station, or go silent and bankrupt, unless you can convince some fool to adopt the "ignore the research" approach for their station in the market.

Good luck. You will need it.

Signed,
The Rest of the Market's Station Owners

That third paragraph almost sounds like what happened to commercial Classical and some of those stations barely made it out, by the skin of their teeth!

 

[davideduardo]

And I keep telling you that if it was tried (which I've never heard first hand) and if it was done well, then it should have worked. As I've told you a number of times, if it was done well, it wouldn't have failed, but if it failed, that's evidence it wasn't done well.

Over the decades there have been hundreds of rock stations that tried the deep cuts and "spice" songs (meaning "unfamiliar but sounding like the rest of the library").

Some were run by universities, where you got very passionate and knowledgeable staff who loved and knew the music. They did not have to make money, so ratings did not matter... a good thing as most did not get much listening.

A notable exception was Brown University's WBRU. It was on a commercial channel and it specialized in broad playlists and introduced new artists and it got really good ratings through the 70's... but by the mid 80's, this very competent station that won, IIRC, as many music awards as any similar formatted station in the US, decided that the format with a large playlist and lots of new music was no longer viable. They did not want to be a classic rock station, playing just gold but knew that such was the only option if they wanted to continue with the genre of music they had heretofore been playing. So they changed to alternative rock where they could experiment with new artists and deeper lists.

In the purely commercial realm, there may have been no better rock station than Cleveland's "Buzzard" WMMS. It did not go the more rigid AOR route and continued to play a larger library as it dominated the ratings in the Mistake by the Lake. But the station was not able to sustain the format beyond the late 90's despite almost always being #1 or #2 from around 1972 well into the 90's. It could not sustain the classic rock model they had owned without becoming a more classic rock station and eliminating much of what it had done so well for two and a half decades.

These are two examples of AOR or "modified progressive" stations that were very successful that hit a wall somewhere around the 90's that made playing their rock with new music and exploratory cuts impossible while trying to sustain ratings. THese are also two examples of stations of proven competence that could not drag their format any further into the future.

And that's not even taking into consideration the stations that tried to do big-library, deep cut formats in the genre. THose that did begin very early in the 70's or in the late 60's generally did not succeed. THose that thought that they could beat a tight "Superstars" AOR with a bigger list pretty uniformly failed.

The point is that what you suggest has been done, but it ceased to work around 20 years ago. Even the best of those stations could not build a model that continued to work, so they changed.

If I had the money to operate a four or five station cluster, I'd put that on one of them.[/QUOTE]

With the operating margins of radio today, I doubt you would try even if you had the stations.

I can empathize with the idea of having one experimental format. I did the same in the late 60's with a nation's first FM... no hopes of making money anywhere in the future but the desire to "be there" should FM become viable. But I had a cluster with the #1 and #2 and #5 stations in a very crowded market and could afford it. Nothing you have posted tells me you would have any more success with your "must make a profit" than you wood with the "stiffs r' us" format.

 

[TheBigA]

If I had the money to operate a four or five station cluster, I'd put that on one of them.

That's not what I asked. It's not really a possibility where you live.

And I keep telling you that if it was tried (which I've never heard first hand) and if it was done well, then it should have worked. As I've told you a number of times, if it was done well, it wouldn't have failed, but if it failed, that's evidence it wasn't done well.

And as we've demonstrated to you in multiple posts, a bad idea done extremely well will fail time after time. This is a bad idea. Just because you like it doesn't make it a good idea. The fact that you cant come up with any examples to demonstrate where your idea has worked, or any research to back up any of your claims shows your lack of commitment. We've given you lists of call letters and cities where it's been tried, and you simply dismiss them.

What you want is for someone else to risk their personal money on a format only you want specifically in the town where you live so you can hear what you want for free. That's simply NOT going to happen.

 

[John Gallagher]

I just had a thought. If you were to present Donald Trump on the Apprentice with the idea of a radio format that has been tried and failed he'd say...You're Fired!

 

[Avid Listener]

If you had this cluster, what would you put on the other 3 or 4 stations?

The same old shit that all the stations play, narrow playlist, over-tested, burned out hits format. I'd pick whatever formats didn't already have a strong competitor in the market. And I'd hire some suits to run them by the numbers.

 

[CTListener]

The same old shit that all the stations play, narrow playlist, over-tested, burned out hits format. I'd pick whatever formats didn't already have a strong competitor in the market. And I'd hire some suits to run them by the numbers.

By George, I think you've got it! And you'll try to sell all the stations as a package to your advertisers, I assume? What's the cost of the package without "Deep Cuts 101.7"? Or won't that even be possible to buy? In which case, what will the suits in charge of Teen Dream 106.3, Yee-Haw 99.1 and Thug 96.5 think of sharing their profits with the guys on Deep Cuts 101.7's payroll who are playing what they like and getting a 1.1 rating for doing so?

 

[Avid Listener]

That's not what I asked. It's not really a possibility where you live.

You asked a hypothetical question. I gave you a hypothetical answer. If you don't like my hypothetical answer, tough shit.

 

[TheBigA]

You asked a hypothetical question. I gave you a hypothetical answer. If you don't like my hypothetical answer, tough shit.

You don't like what's on the radio? Same answer.