KOLA does not have a usable signal in all but a tiny slice of the LA MSA, as it is in a separate metro, partially separated from LA by an unrated zone.
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It's 2015! Time to get rid of the '70s.
- Thread starter CurtisNEPA
- Start date
KOLA does not have a usable signal in all but a tiny slice of the LA MSA, as it is in a separate metro, partially separated from LA by an unrated zone.
Here's the protected contour: https://maps.google.com/maps?q=http...ARDINO&state=CA.kml&output=classic&dg=feature It seems like this would be enough signal in an area with fewer choices ie. if there was really something you wanted to listen to, you could. It looks like at least 50dbu over the entire market. with the vast majority of it within 54dbu.
M
Music Lover
Guest
I very strongly disagree. The idea of timeless music varies from person to person, but the overall objective is that timeless music is music that transcends the ages. Music that generation after generation can enjoy. There's always going to be people out there introducing their kids and grandkids to such music.
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For in-home and at-work, a 65 dbu signal is necessary. Analysis of Arbitron data showed that 80% of all such listening was in the 70 dbu contour and 95% inside the 65 dbu. That is why KOLA only gets a tiny 0.2 share in the LA market, while KRTH, with a much bigger signal, gets a 2.0 share in the Riverside / San Bernardino market.
For actual listening, take the innermost red contour of radio-locator.com and reduce it by about 20% to get the 65 dbu. For in-car, go just a bit outside the red contour.
Protected countours are used for station allocation purposes. There is very little listening that far out, even in cars.
No one will care?? Do you have proof of that statement? Of course you don't. The music of Ole Blue Eyes is as timeless today as is music by the Platters or the Bee Gees or Adele and Bruno Mars. People do certainly care today, otherwise the music of the 50's thru the 70's would not be airing. And they will care in 2065 for the same reasons as today. Only it will be more historical in nature. Technology will allow it.
You might not care, but that's expected by people like you in the business, suppressing it.
Exactly Music Lover, exactly. And by spreading the music to their grandkids, that's how knowledge spreads. The internet will allow it, since terrestrial radio will most likely have abandoned it by then.
If the crooners of the baby boomer age did not matter, why do I keep hearing Dean Martin's "Aint that a Kick in the Head " in several commercials???
I'm 56 and grew up on a wide selection of music....Sinatra, etc and the Beatles, CCR, etc that my older brothers listened to...and then I was a top40 DJ in the 70s....I met Jimmy Dean, Bob Hope and several other singers and still love their music too.....Timeless music is just that...timeless....regardless of the decade......(rap?? UHHHHH no comment)
I was watching the football game with a bunch of folks, and no one in the room knew who it was singing that song. Wide variety of ages. Nobody. Most people guessed Sinatra.
M
Music Lover
Guest
The thing I've noticed is that many of today's hits have such a short shelf life. For whatever reason, they just don't seem to be having the staying power of the classics.
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A
Avid Listener
Guest
The argument that recordings from the 1960's would not be played in the 2060's because people nowadays don't listen to 100 year old wax cylinder recordings holds no water. The reason why so few songs recorded on wax cylinders are played today is that the technical quality of them is laughably terrible to our ears. The quality difference between the old wax cylinder and wax disc recordings and modern recordings made on tape and transferred to vinyl is several orders of magnitude. The quality difference between a professional studio recording of the 1960's and a modern professional studio recording is a much, much smaller interval. Yes, modern recordings are a little better technically, but not enough so to make the 60's recordings unlistenable. No one who argues that people will listen to music format programming on AM radio stations has a leg to stand on claiming that 1960's era recordings aren't good sounding enough for people to listen to them.
So then you get to the other specious argument about older recordings, which is that people only listen to older recordings from their own youth to bring back nostalgic memories. That's such a crock of poppycock that there's no need to disprove or refute it. Anyone with a lick of sense knows it a bogus argument. Nostalgia might be one factor, but it's not the only factor. It's not even the main factor.
Any station today that plays Michael Buble or Harry Connick, Jr. would find that the people who like those two would also like Sinatra's music if it were played. There are really two things at play here. One issue is whether audiences in the 2060's would still like the music of the 1960's if they heard it played. The other issue is whether or not the suits controlling what gets played would give audiences the opportunity to hear music from the 1960's in the 2060's. That's a whole different question. I predict that by the 2060's OTA broadcast radio will be a memory, and people will all get to pick whatever they want to year without some arrogant suit controlling access to music.
There's plenty of music that "transcends the ages". But there's not much that transcends the ham-fisted censors of modern music who claim that "testing" determines what they play. That's why OTA radio as we've known it for the past half century is dying.
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You'd be surprised. Those of us who work in broadcasting have the opportunity to visit studios and actually hear the differences. It's actually very obvious, especially when you compare recordings made for mono, from the early 60s, and then for stereo, then as you add multi-track technology, and digital technology. We're talking about 50 years of technological improvements. And sure, there are some who love to work in the original Capitol Studios in Hollywood, Abbey Road in London, or the RCA studios in Nashville. But in both of those cases, the only thing that remains unchanged is the room.
The other things we can hear is mixing and arrangement changes over the years. Back in the 70s, instruments like synthesizers were new and used in different ways than we might use them now. Even something as specific as drum tracks have changed dramatically in the last 40 years. Actually, in the last ten years. The technology keeps changing, instrumentation keeps changing, and the way songs are mixed keeps changing.
Yeah, letting listeners choose the music for radio stations must be a terrible idea for you to contemplate.
How else do you suggest satisfying listener preferences? Let's hear your alternative to getting real listener feedback.
Instead of grousing and denigrating every aspect of the hard work of the folks in radio, how about showing us what you would do if you had the money to buy a major market radio station and working capital to sustain a new breed of format as long as it took to prove... or not... itself.
Because the rock and roll classics are the originals, they can't be duplicated, so they are timeless. I'll give some credit to a "few" currents that should have long lasting airplay, but it'll be nothing like the music we grew up on....whether the 50's, 60's, 70's or 80's.
Maybe that is the way it appears to you because you are out of the demo for current pop hits.
I think this is possible based on assumptions your fellow traveler Oldies76 made about the playlists, duration of hits and other aspects of CHR in a post yesterday are totally wrong, making me think that there is a group here that criticizes without either listening nor analyzing the playlists of todays hit music stations.
Just play the music DE, just play the music. Spending all that $$$ on testing and hours-long research, just to pick and choose a few songs, is a waste of time.....for the smaller markets anyways. Just PLAY the music!
Everyone thinks their era is the best, and their favorite music is timeless. The list of what qualifies for "timeless" changes as people's tastes. I can tell you as someone who visits music schools that the next generation of musicians are being inspired by today's music, just as today's musicians were inspired by the music of the 90s. It's an endless cycle, and while they may have respect for music from a few generations back, it isn't as inspirational as the music they can see, hear, and touch from the present.
Avid, you said it well! Thanks for your insights. Have to go to work and unfortunately miss the Broncos game.
The lifespan of most "contemporary" music is limited to the lifetimes of the people who listened to and enjoyed the music when it was first released.
Just look at big band or the broader and less specific "standards" genre... although a few people that did not grow up on Sinatra and friends like the music, for all practical purposes the majority of the partisans of this music are in their 70s and beyond.
Emmis' valient experiment with Red in St Louis a few years back shows that even trying to contemporize standards gets neither much listening nor much ad revenue.
Afterwards, the two of you can plan how someone with no radio programming experience can "outsmart" the folks who have learned by trial and error through decades of experience.
In fact, this sounds like a show that Donald Trump could host: The Programming Apprentice. It would be amusing to see the numbers drop, week to week.
I have seen too many stations fail by "just playing the music" or doing the equivalent of designing a music library based on ranks in chart tabulations. I have seen too many stations believe that variety is a function of "more songs" rather than a selection of the best songs. I have seen no examples of stations with "larger than the other station" libraries that have won a competitive battle.
Stations in small markets don't have the money, and often don't have the knowledge and experience to create a truly passionate radio station for their local audience. So they get settlers... people who "settle on" the closest thing to what they like and they only make happy the ulta-outliers like yourself and the professional whiners like Avid. They could be so much better, but it is as if they were oblivious to what the listener actually wants.
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