Is 105.3 the ONLY Free FM format still around?

[PandK_71]

For all those in the biz.
Has all the FREE FM formats nationwide flipped?
If so, how much longer does 105.3 have?

Did the Chicago FREE FM station ditch Steve Dahl(?)

What makes the Dallas market the last one to follow the corporate rule?

 

[SirFreebie1975]

KLLI Live 105.3 hasnt been Free FM in awhile..and has not flipped

 

[pbf1]

*breaking news* (cough)

Did the Chicago FREE FM station ditch Steve Dahl(?)

The Chicago station isn't Free FM anymore. It's Fresh 105.9, modeled after their NYC AC.

 

[VERITAS DE VOCE]

KLLI Live 105.3 hasnt been Free FM in awhile..and has not flipped

Isn't that an oxymoron? The cost of bleeding ears and overbearing boredom made listening to KLLI nowhere near free to me.

 

[sox fan matt]

PandK
Lived in the dfw area for about 12 years and Moved back to Chicago and can tell you after the Free Fm disaster, when Fresh 105.9 came about Steve Dahl moved downstairs to 104.3 Jack Fm in the prudential building in downtown chicago. Whats funny is here we have 100.3, 93.9 and 105.9 all basically the same format with a little tweak ..its kind of sad...

 

[jeffdfw]

http://www.971freefm.com/

 

[floodzonex]

People have been talking about 105.3 going away for ages now. That station is an abortion other than Russ. It's funny that everyone in town knows this yet not a thing changes.

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

Wow!!!! I LOVE the old jingles, etc. that Russ is running on 105.3. WAYYY COOOL!!!

Now that's the Eagle I wish would come back!

;D

 

[jeffdfw]

I loved it when JD said listening to those old jingles is like watching a video of an old girlfriend. ;D

 

[MikeShannon914]

People have been talking about 105.3 going away for ages now. That station is an abortion other than Russ. It's funny that everyone in town knows this yet not a thing changes.

Yeah, and check today's 'Trends...KLIF in 30th place with a 1.1, Twister at 29th with a 1.3, KZPS at 26th - down .3, KRLD at 24th with a 1.6, KLLI at 23rd with a 1.8, KDBN at 21st with a 1.9, Movin' at 19th with a 2.0, and Jack at 17th with a 2.3. I'm not trying to highlight C-BS here, but they seem to put a lot of importance into having a roster of bottom feeders. Each of these are stations that have done MUCH better in years past (well, maybe not Twister or Movin') but have either lost their magic or their listeners have gone elsewhere, permanently. Yeah, I know these are 12+ numbers, but if this were the non-corporate world of radio from decades past, you can bet most of these would have gone bye-bye after 2 or 3 bad books. Most of these have struggled for years, but, as you said, "yet not a thing changes." Sad when we still have gaping holes out there for Smooth Jazz, Modern Classic Rock, 80s, slow AC, Contemporary Black Gospel Music, and nice slices of pie available for another oldies station and another Pop AC.

 

[little1]

Yeah, I know these are 12+ numbers, but if this were the non-corporate world of radio from decades past, you can bet most of these would have gone bye-bye after 2 or 3 bad books. Most of these have struggled for years, but, as you said, "yet not a thing changes." Sad when we still have gaping holes out there for Smooth Jazz, Modern Classic Rock, 80s, slow AC, Contemporary Black Gospel Music, and nice slices of pie available for another oldies station and another Pop AC.

We havent had a "Gaping hole" in this market in quite some time. it's been YEARS since the days where KVIL, WBAP, KISS(IIRC) and a few others were in the 5's and 6's while everybody else languished in the high 2's and low 3's. Look now at how close most stations are in the ratings...it's a crap shoot from trend to trend as to where you'll actually end up. You could be 5th, you could be 15th...Back then there wer gaping holes, because you could look at the market and say "you know if we could just flank KVIL and draw off X% of their audience, that would be a 3.0 and we'd be making money hand over fist"..Now with this many signals in the market, there's no gaping holes, just niches and small slices...
And if you really think there's a gaping hole for some of those formats, why do you think none of those have been tried or succeeded?

Here's a hint Mike. None of those make money. or have a big enough slice of the pie to make them more attractive then what is currently sucking on some of those frequencies you mentioned.

But okay, let's play. Let's take 80's. I assume you mean a 'Classic Edge" alt-rock type of 80's format...Where do you think that audience is going to come from? Using your numbers, if they take 1/3 of the Bone's audience (.6-7), and 1/3 of Jack's (a .8 let's say) and a little from KDMX and a couple of tenths from what, maybe KVIL or someplace else, you know what they've got? a 2.0. So they lose a bunch of advertising revenue in the change, have to spend a ton of money marketing it, and what do they end up with,

exactly what they've got now? And this would be a good idea because.....why?

And don't get me wrong. I'd LOVE a 80's station. I just don't see it being hugely successful in the current market conditions.


And one more hint Mike- if you REALLY want to see where the gaping holes are in this market, stop looking at 12+ ratings, and sweet talk somebody in sales to show you the Miller-Kaplan numbers.
Because this isn't about what formats you think MIGHT be 'needed' in the market. It's about what formats can make money. Shouldn't need to point this out, but with the exception of Mr Bass, don't we all work in COMMERCIAL radio?

Sure Jack is stuck in 17th place. But something close to 100% of their audience is 25-54, and they're revenue place is much much higher. I know everybody hates "Movin", but I bet they're making more money with a 2.0 then Smooth Jazz did with a 2.5

Sure KLIF is in 30th. But WBAP is (or was, they keep trading with the Ticket) the biggest biller in the market. KLIF probably does pretty well cleaning up WBAP's scraps...Advertisers that don't like WBAP, can't afford the rates, etc...

ratings is what everybody looks at. But revenue is where the decisions are really made...

 

[Robert Bass]

When we talk 80's, I don't believe we mean one-sided 80's. A proper 80's format would include a mix of pop and rock. Of course we know you don't like that idea for a format, Little1, as seen by your comments on how that little community station does the 70's.

R

 

[little1]

When we talk 80's, I don't believe we mean one-sided 80's. A proper 80's format would include a mix of pop and rock. Of course we know you don't like that idea for a format, Little1, as seen by your comments on how that little community station does the 70's.

R

What are you meaning by rock and pop? Because the only problem with that is that research I've seen says the audience for (what I perceive as) 'rock' of the 80's and the audience for 'pop' aren't the same.

In other words, the rock fans don't like pop and the pop fans don't like rock. Or to put it another way, if you're drawing guys with the Springsteens and Mellencamps, the chicks ain't gonna like it. And if you're playing Whitney Houston et al, the rock dudes aren't going to sit through that pop "crap".

I haven't had a chance to break down Jack's cume and TSL but I'd venture a guess that they get a lot of punch outs- because playing such a wide variety of music puts them at the mercy of alienating a certain segment of the audience, when they play a song that part of the audience doesn't like...

I know the idea of short playlists aren't popular here, but stations use them for a reason. They work. There's a magic number (and unfortunately it's not a 'hard' number so there's a certain amount of black magic in this) where you play X number of songs, you get Y ratings. Play X+50 and your ratings probably won't go up, because you're starting to play 'marginal' cuts for a format, and your TSl suffers which drags down your ratings. Play both rock and pop, and you're inviting for people to view you as a secondary choice, rather than a primary.

And you must have missed where I said I'd LOVE an 80's format. One alt-based, a 'classic edge' style 80's format. What I'd hate to see is just KEOM's current concept moved up 10 years.

I'd venture a guess that the people listening to tears for fears and the b-52's (not to mention Nena and Sigue Sigue Sputnik) aren't the same as the people listening to Whitney Houston and her ilk, they aren't the same people listening to the hair metal bands (and let's thank our own personal religious figureheads that the Bone gave up on THAT format) and so on and so forth.

If you want to try and suceed with a station playing everything from Tracy Chapman to the Cure, have at it. But I bet the average listener out there isn't going to sit through a music sweep that features Erasure into Skid Row, into whatever...

 

[Robert Bass]

You're thinking inside the box here.

Personally, I wouldn't expect any format's audience to like every song. But if they like say around 85% of it, then you're doing fine. Punch outs are going to happen, no matter how hard you try to reduce (god forbid eliminate) them. You should know this...

Naybe you don't remember some of the playlists from the 80's, but I can tell you for sure that KISS-FM had a mix of pop and rock during their heyday. Y95 did as well. I've got a tape somewhere here of KEGL from 1987 or so, and it's too hard rock for my taste. I like a mix of styles, as long as they are hits.

And yes I saw where you said you love the 80's. That's cool. 8)

R

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

KEGL was a mix of Rock and Top 40 that sounded pretty damn neat. They threw in some The Cure and other alt. leaning stuff too. Selectively gut programming the right songs that go together AND mixing it up is the way to build cume and still retain TSL. What a lot of the current bunch of corporate guys forget is too tight of a playlist or, in reality, too tight of a format style leads to some pretty boring radio to listen to.

No matter how good the dog food is, eventually Fido gets tired of the same stuff over and over again. Tossing some chewy scraps in occationally sure can be helpful.

 

[little1]

Naybe you don't remember some of the playlists from the 80's, but I can tell you for sure that KISS-FM had a mix of pop and rock during their heyday. Y95 did as well. I've got a tape somewhere here of KEGL from 1987 or so, and it's too hard rock for my taste. I like a mix of styles, as long as they are hits.

I'm not speaking of how things were, but of how they are now. And I've seen research that backs up the idea that the fans of the pop songs of the 80's and the fans of the rock songs of the 80's are NOT the same groups. And they won't listen to what they don't like.

In fact, that's probably why a 80's variety format hasn't been tried yet- because the old edge listeners aren't fans of hair bands, those guys aren't fans of Whitney et al. They may have been played all together back in the day, odds are they will NOT be all played together on any station that decides to play 80's these days...

 

[MikeShannon914]

ratings is what everybody looks at. But revenue is where the decisions are really made...

I know you're right. After I read your post and re-read mine, I realized I was coming off as a frustrated listener who was only looking at one little barometer of radio success measurement. Understand that I was that "frustrated listener" long before I ever came back to radio...and it's easy to take one piece of a picture and blow it up into something it's not, or to jump the gun without all the facts. And me being in a peripheral role where I don't get access to the extrap's, I still feel like I'm in that "frustrated listener" role. Thanks for putting it into proper perspective. I know it's a business, and my ideas might be great for some group of listeners, but I know little about how to sell it or what might make money. With me spending much of the last 8 years digging up info on radio past, I get caught up in the old adage of 'why can't it be like it used to be.' I'm also caught up in the fact that I can't have 'one-stop shopping' on the dial, that I'm always tuning around constantly and coming up with next to nothing...and yes, tuning out those coveted ads that keep radio in business. That's one reason I like the satellite radio model...I'll gladly spend the $$$ to get some choices, and I know that XM/Sirius doesn't depend on the success of just 1, 2 or 5 channels to hedge the company's fortunes on...so the same pressure's not on them as it would be on a corporate owner. So ignore my rants there and consider me "re-schooled" (although I reserve the right in the future to again go off half-cocked and scream about things that will never change!)

 

[jd]

(although I reserve the right in the future to again go off half-cocked and scream about things that will never change!)

We're counting on you, Mike!

 

[MikeShannon914]

:-[ You make me blush! hee hee.

 

[Robert Bass]

Mike,

By all means, keep the rants coming! I think your views echo those of a significant number of other potential terra radio listeners. Blahh blahh to all that research trash polluting the industry nowadays!

R