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Entercom's alternative experiment not a success?

TheBigA said:
Don't underestimate the power of a "tiny non-commercial station."

This format is a natural for non-com radio, especially if KNDD's only pitch is the 2 minute promise.

Hey, I'll take you one step higher. How about NO commercials at all? Pretty appealing.

In NYC, college non-coms like WFUV have been hurting commercial rock radio for a while.
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Oh I most definitely do not but I was phrasing that more from Audacy's perspective.

The format is natural for non-com/college radio because it originated from there - half of Billboard's original Alt panel were college stations. Billboard still has a couple of them on their Alt panel right now (though they're largely ineffectual for chart status except for KIWR, who sometimes joins KPNT, WBUZ, and a few other Active-leaners in getting behind an Active song and brute-forcing it onto the chart).
 
macattack said:
I think Alternative is one of those formats that still needs to cater to the local tastes to an extent - it's not like pop radio where the music can be expected to fit at a national level. Some markets will want a pop lean, others will want guitars, and so on. The Audacy experiment was an attempt at nationalizing Alternative but the New York playlist just did not resonate. It's no surprise KNDD is reverting first - Seattle was never going to go for alt-pop and KNDD has been getting embarrassed by a tiny noncommercial station for months.
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It looked like the only place it actually resonated at first, looking at the ratings for the first two months, was portland and kansas city, but they couldn't keep the momentum going in those two places. If they wanted to keep the alt-pop format alive, they needed fresher music to resonate.
 
If I was doing an alt-pop format, I'd go all in and find staples like hello-dragonette, robyn-dancing on my own, and other stuff to craft the sound and give it tempo. If they wanted to do an alt-pop format, they really needed to go all-in, similar to what kenz does with it's pop format, giving it a very distinct sound.
 
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The vast majority of the stations under Kaplan's tutelage are experiencing horrendous ratings. How much lower do the numbers need to go before he loses his job?

The out-of-market programming that is being piped into Alt 98.7 in Detroit, for example, is a truly terrible fit for the market.

Aside from the music, other programming elements are sloppily executed. Songs are abruptly interrupted midstream to rejoin or breakaway from national programming. Audio processing during Kevin Kinney's night show is horrendous. There are other examples, too, of botched execution of the basics.
 
Someone mentioned earlier that some iHM owned Alt-formatted stations are playing more guitar-driven rock. Indeed, that is true! Noticeably more guitar driven rock has been integrated into playlists of stations in Charlotte, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh and perhaps others. The station in Charlotte (106.5 The End) just saw its best AQH share in quite a while. The changes at WOLT in Indy helped it pull ahead of the cross-town active rocker in the ratings.

Of course, KTBZ in Houston has long followed a balanced approach to its playlist.

Other iHM stations remain heavily indie/pop, such as KTCL Denver (where that approach works very well) and WWDC Washington (where such an approach makes sense given the fact the immediate metro lacks a Hot AC).
 
in Dallas, the reason why KVIL is struggling as a Alternative station is a combo of a few things.

1. Today's Alternative is more pop leaning and you can't beat "The pop station" in Dallas, which is KHKS 106.1 Kiss FM.

2. they can't beat the establish hard rocker in town, KEGL 97.1 The Eagle, which plays some of the Alternative Rock artist that gets air play on the Eagle outside of the 2-7 PM slot (as Ben & Skin and Russ Martin Show is on at that time and both shows are consider hot talk shows, where their history goes back to 105.3 when it was still hot talk, also, the RMS is pretty much not the Russ Martin Show as Russ went on a leave last year and sadly passed away back in February).

3. the talent ain't local enough, you can't compete with long time established DFW area shows like Hawkeye in the Morning on 96.3 KSCS, The Musers in the Mornings on KTCK The Ticket, Kidd Kraddick in the Morning (minus Kidd as he died in 2013), any other show on The Ticket during the day, Bo & Jim on 92.5 KZPS, and of course the RMS. the only person with a past to DFW radio is Stryker who hosted Lovelines for years after Adam Carolla left for his morning show on LA's 97.1 when it was hot talk in 2006. and Lazlow was only heard on this market pre-103.7 via XM Satellite Radio/SiriusXM when he was apart of the "Opie & Anthony" hot talk channel The Virus (now known as Faction Talk).

4. the market's top radio demos are CHR (dominated by Kiss FM), Country Music (96.3 KSCS and sister station 99.5 The Wolf has the Cumulus Country 1-2 punch), the minorities of DFW are mostly African-American or Latino so they are either listening to one of the many Spanish language station if they are Latino or KBFB 97.9 The Beat or KKDA K104. the other major players are Talk radio on the AM side (due to most of North Texas except the main core DFW area) leaning right, the religious music stations like KLTY, or Rockers 97.1 The Eagle and classic rock sister KZPS Lone Star 92.5. and not to mention the sport talk stations of The Ticket and KRLD FM 105.3 The Fan.

5. people will still identify 103.7 as KVIL aka "The Ron Chapman Station" as it was the long time home of the recently passed away radio icon of DFW radio. people will automatically associate the station with it's AC Heydays of the 70s-90s with Chapman hosting mornings. also, not to mention KDGE flipping to Star 102.1 in 2016 after being The Edge (since 2000 on 102.1, but the format, Edge branding, KDGE calls and legacy dates back to 1989 when it launched as 94.5 The Edge, on a rimshot in Gainesville, TX) was a sign of the times that in Dallas, Alterative/Alternative Rock was dead as a popular format due to it being cannibalized by KEGL when they went back to active rock in late 2007 after the format flipped to Sunny in 2004, and another format flip to Spanish, which both failed miserably. when 97.1 flipped in 2004, it's sister KDGE inherited the younger listener while KZPS got the older listeners that listened to the older hits played on the Eagle at the time (as they played stuff from the 70s and 80s at the time of the end of the original 97.1 The Eagle hard rock run). in 2016, after KDGE flipped, the irony of KDGE's former listeners who were former Eagle listeners of the 1992-2004 era hard rock Eagle being inherited by the very station that died in 2004 and was resurrected in 2007.

6. what works for some markets (New York, LA, Chicago, Etc), sometimes don't work for Dallas-Fort Worth. this is a case of when nationalization of a format can hurt as people don't want a national taste for music in this market, they want it to be more cater to this area, they want The Toadies (a North Texas Alt Rock favorite), not some poppy Indie rock act from New York City. point is, this is why they are struggling too.

Audacy needs to do a better job if they want KVIL as Alt 103.7 to survive.
 
tall_guy1 said:
Surprised to hear the new modest mouse on my local audacy alternative. Thought for sure they were too "old."
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May be a contractual obligation from a deal signed between Audacy and Epic Records to be the "world premiere" for "We Are Between" before the consolidation. These deals can be made months in advance. I remember "Shame Shame" by Foo Fighters getting similar premiere treatment and then Audacy (then known as Entercom) pretended the song didn't exist.

I wouldn't be surprised if the new Coldplay gets similar treatment for its first day - though I doubt they'll drop Coldplay after premiering it. If they ignore the new Coldplay then they are really dedicated to the veteran artist phaseout but I think Coldplay falls under the "too big to ignore" category.
 
macattack said:
May be a contractual obligation from a deal signed between Audacy and Epic Records to be the "world premiere" for "We Are Between" before the consolidation. These deals can be made months in advance. I remember "Shame Shame" by Foo Fighters getting similar premiere treatment and then Audacy (then known as Entercom) pretended the song didn't exist.

I wouldn't be surprised if the new Coldplay gets similar treatment for its first day - though I doubt they'll drop Coldplay after premiering it. If they ignore the new Coldplay then they are really dedicated to the veteran artist phaseout but I think Coldplay falls under the "too big to ignore" category.
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I wouldn't be surprised at all if Coldplay got ignored, since they're so committed to their billie eilish/pop punk sound they're going for.
 
tall_guy1 said:
I wouldn't be surprised at all if Coldplay got ignored, since they're so committed to their billie eilish/pop punk sound they're going for.
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I've done multiple checks - looks like Coldplay went right to medium once the premiere day ended. "Higher Power" is Coldplay's most accessible single in years and the band was one of the 2010's most consistent hitmakers (and one of the very few with anything resembling a rock sound). I would have been stunned if Audacy passed on it.
 
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