B
Boondocker
Guest
Hopefully you've been paying attention to the drama that gripped New York City in the past few weeks. My question for Denver is: Could it happen here?
What happened, of course, is that without warning on June 3, the nation's pre-eminent oldies station, Infinity-owned WCBS-FM, dropped oldies after 33 years, fired the beloved Bruce "Cousin Brucie" Morrow and several other New York radio institutions, and went to the Jack format. Simultaneously, Infinity's Chicago oldies outlet did the same.
“The research has shown us that people are looking for a radio station in their market with less repetition and more variety,” said Les Hollander, Infinity's senior vice president. “Whether it’s radio, television, iPods or listening to music on your computer, people are beginning to use media a little bit differently. In programming a radio station, you have to take that into account.”
More bluntly, another Infinity exec who begged anonymity said, "How are you going to get a 25-year-old ad salesman to relate to the Dave Clark Five and the Platters?"
Call the reasoning cold, call it age-discriminatory, call it cheapskate. But they do have some facts on their side.
* Even though radio remains more profitable than newspapers, network TV sion and cable, its revenue growth from advertising may total less than 2 percent this year, down from about 6.5 percent in 2000.
* Listenership and time spent listening is down. Radio’s total audience dropped 4 percent over the past year to 194 million, down from 203 million, according to the NPD Group media research company in Port Washington, N.Y. And Arbitron says average TSL has dwindled to 19 hours per week from 30 hours in 1993.
* People are turning to the Web to download songs through such services as iTunes and listening to Internet radio.
* And then there's competition from Sirius and XM. In fact, Sirius just hired Cousin Brucie, and ran taunting full-page ads in New York and Chicago, crowing "If a radio station has suddenly abandoned the format you love,
come to Sirius.”
Which brings us to the other side.
* WCBS-FM ranked SIXTH overall in the biggest radio market in the country! And overalls include 12-plus, so can you imagine what it was doing with 35-54s?
* And speaking of 35-54s, which demographic has a bigger pool of disposable income than the boomers? Given that, what the heck makes the oldies format so demographically undesirable -- unless it's simply that the Gen-Xers out selling ads can't relate to it and thus don't WANT to sell it?
OK, now, that brings us back to Denver and Kool-105. INFINITY-OWNED Kool-105, that is. Our local Infinity cluster has new leadership up there on the 11th floor of the Denver Post Tower, doesn't it. New York-selected leadership.
A saving grace is that we already have a Jack in Denver. But still -- could a format change be in the offing for KXKL? Randy Jay and Da Boogieman and Steve Alexander and the rest -- on the air today and on the street tomorrow?
Might Infinity-Denver throw out its consistent top-10 oldies format, and those big-spending 35-to-54s with it? Should it? And if it happened, would it be good business, or simply one generation failing to relate to another?
And is there another solution?
What I think is that Infinity has abandoned a profitable and influential segment of the audience and has created an enormous groundswell of bad will in New York -- including a blistering attack from New York's senior U.S. senator, Charles Schumer, on his website -- and has done much to fuel the exodus from broadcast radio to satellite. Definitely a Sirius setback for the defenders of free radio.
But then, tomorrow (Thursday) is my 53rd birthday, so I'm as biased as anybody.
What do YOU think?
What happened, of course, is that without warning on June 3, the nation's pre-eminent oldies station, Infinity-owned WCBS-FM, dropped oldies after 33 years, fired the beloved Bruce "Cousin Brucie" Morrow and several other New York radio institutions, and went to the Jack format. Simultaneously, Infinity's Chicago oldies outlet did the same.
“The research has shown us that people are looking for a radio station in their market with less repetition and more variety,” said Les Hollander, Infinity's senior vice president. “Whether it’s radio, television, iPods or listening to music on your computer, people are beginning to use media a little bit differently. In programming a radio station, you have to take that into account.”
More bluntly, another Infinity exec who begged anonymity said, "How are you going to get a 25-year-old ad salesman to relate to the Dave Clark Five and the Platters?"
Call the reasoning cold, call it age-discriminatory, call it cheapskate. But they do have some facts on their side.
* Even though radio remains more profitable than newspapers, network TV sion and cable, its revenue growth from advertising may total less than 2 percent this year, down from about 6.5 percent in 2000.
* Listenership and time spent listening is down. Radio’s total audience dropped 4 percent over the past year to 194 million, down from 203 million, according to the NPD Group media research company in Port Washington, N.Y. And Arbitron says average TSL has dwindled to 19 hours per week from 30 hours in 1993.
* People are turning to the Web to download songs through such services as iTunes and listening to Internet radio.
* And then there's competition from Sirius and XM. In fact, Sirius just hired Cousin Brucie, and ran taunting full-page ads in New York and Chicago, crowing "If a radio station has suddenly abandoned the format you love,
come to Sirius.”
Which brings us to the other side.
* WCBS-FM ranked SIXTH overall in the biggest radio market in the country! And overalls include 12-plus, so can you imagine what it was doing with 35-54s?
* And speaking of 35-54s, which demographic has a bigger pool of disposable income than the boomers? Given that, what the heck makes the oldies format so demographically undesirable -- unless it's simply that the Gen-Xers out selling ads can't relate to it and thus don't WANT to sell it?
OK, now, that brings us back to Denver and Kool-105. INFINITY-OWNED Kool-105, that is. Our local Infinity cluster has new leadership up there on the 11th floor of the Denver Post Tower, doesn't it. New York-selected leadership.
A saving grace is that we already have a Jack in Denver. But still -- could a format change be in the offing for KXKL? Randy Jay and Da Boogieman and Steve Alexander and the rest -- on the air today and on the street tomorrow?
Might Infinity-Denver throw out its consistent top-10 oldies format, and those big-spending 35-to-54s with it? Should it? And if it happened, would it be good business, or simply one generation failing to relate to another?
And is there another solution?
What I think is that Infinity has abandoned a profitable and influential segment of the audience and has created an enormous groundswell of bad will in New York -- including a blistering attack from New York's senior U.S. senator, Charles Schumer, on his website -- and has done much to fuel the exodus from broadcast radio to satellite. Definitely a Sirius setback for the defenders of free radio.
But then, tomorrow (Thursday) is my 53rd birthday, so I'm as biased as anybody.
What do YOU think?