Jack-FM; In Retrospect

[fang39]

With a healthy dose of 20/20 hindsight, I wonder what might have been Jack's fate should it not have been given WCBS-FM's 101.1 spot on the radio dial?

What if instead, they had instituted the Jack format on K-Rock, while Stern was still there? After all, it would have been one snarky Howard (Stern) followed by another (Cogan). By June of '05, CBS Radio already knew Stern was leaving and they would be scrambling for a new format to fill the void. With the abject failure of Free FM and K-Rock (Part II) struggling to make impact, Jack on 92.3 certainly couldn't have done any worse and as it proved, was coming along quite nicely in the very demo Free/K-Rock desire.

They could have just as easily put Jack on 102.7, which, prior to Fresh, had been looking for an identity since abandoning it's Classic Rock format at the dawn of the New Millennium. With either of these scenerios, do you think for one moment there would have been the public outcry that has lasted on these boards for more than 2 years? I think not!

And just for the record, even though I'm a CBS devotee, I really didn't mind Jack--I just wish they would have put it on another frequency! I've listened on and off since the flip and quite enjoy the mix. I think live Jocks would have helped sell the product, though.

Thoughts?

 

[Walter Graff]

JACK became CBS minus the DJs. NY radio has always been a success when its personality driven. JACK did have a good mix, it just had no soul. Might do okay on the internet as it was originally adopted from or in Nebraska or even in Conn as 95.1? in Norwalk did as an automated station for years in the seventies and early eighties, but NY has personality and requires its radio to do the same. Music has always been part of the equation for success in NY, the other part has been the glue and that is the humans that talk between it.

 

[wgliradio]

JACK became CBS minus the DJs. NY radio has always been a success when its personality driven. JACK did have a good mix, it just had no soul.

If you liked a heavy handed does of 80's rock. It should have covered more genres to work correctly.

 

[Walter Graff]

JACK became CBS minus the DJs. NY radio has always been a success when its personality driven. JACK did have a good mix, it just had no soul.

If you liked a heavy handed does of 80's rock. It should have covered more genres to work correctly.

Watch the new 101. It will be more like JACK with Djs than the CBS you knew.

 

[radioresearcher]

JACK became CBS minus the DJs. NY radio has always been a success when its personality driven. JACK did have a good mix, it just had no soul.

If you liked a heavy handed does of 80's rock. It should have covered more genres to work correctly.

It was top 10 25-54 in its last book. There's a lot of New York stations who would love to be top 10 25-54 ... It had that stigma of replacing WCBS-FM ...

The format is No. 1 english 25-54 in L.A. almost every book since sign-on - and they have no jocks. I don't buy that NY and LA are that different from a personality standpoint.

 

[chuckydoll]

Jack in retrospect -- apples and oranges

Jack in L.A. replaced a classic rock station. Jack in New York replaced an oldies station with no warning to the public. That is why Jack never did well in New York or its suburban markets.

On the eve of the flip back to CBS-FM, Sean Ross at Edison Research writes about Jack and urges everyone to hold your fire.

 

[Walter Graff]

The format is No. 1 english 25-54 in L.A. almost every book since sign-on - and they have no jocks. I don't buy that NY and LA are that different from a personality standpoint.

Guess you never been to LA

 

[Walter Graff]

Re: Jack in retrospect -- apples and oranges

Jack in L.A. replaced a classic rock station. Jack in New York replaced an oldies station with no warning to the public. That is why Jack never did well in New York or its suburban markets.

A stations past doesn't determine it's future, it's programming once it flips does. No station catches on overnight and one that doesn't catch on, doesn't work. Automated stations never made it in NY and never will. If every market were the same it would be easy but they are not. And LA is VERY different than NY.

 

[Indielover]

Exactly...the fact it replaced CBS/FM didn't matter, the automation is the main reason this station never made it in New York....the other being the bad new music that was played such as nickelback, etc.

 

[radioresearcher]

The format is No. 1 english 25-54 in L.A. almost every book since sign-on - and they have no jocks. I don't buy that NY and LA are that different from a personality standpoint.

Guess you never been to LA

Uh, I live in L.A. My point is, good radio is good radio. Jack/NY was top 10 25-54 at the end. Hardly what I would consider a failure.

 

[radioresearcher]

Exactly...the fact it replaced CBS/FM didn't matter, the automation is the main reason this station never made it in New York....the other being the bad new music that was played such as nickelback, etc.

Again, I can think of a lot of stations that would die to be top 10 25-54 in the nation's largest radio market.

 

[disney fanatic]

If you look in the ratings book "Jack" did very well in Los Angeles while New York did not do well at all since the last 2 years when it flipped from oldies. It was near the top 10 in the end of the Arbitrends. I hope "Jack" would do better in LA, because the New York version did poorly.

 

[fang39]

Exactly...the fact it replaced CBS/FM didn't matter, the automation is the main reason this station never made it in New York....the other being the bad new music that was played such as nickelback, etc.

Didn't matter? You couln't be more wrong. Like I said at the top of this thread, if Jack was on any other frequency from the start, it may have stood a fighters chance. Though the format was flawed and the playlist needed constant tweaking (which it rarely received), the fact that the powers that be chose to replace a legendary station whose identity was so closely linked to its air staff as its music, is why Jack never had a chance in this market.

 

[nvrbbh]

Jack FM in Los Angeles is highly successful because it is on top of what is going on at any specific time in the market. Since the voice of all Jack FM stations, Howard Cogan www.howardcogan.com , moved to Los Angeles from Canada he has been able to provide Jack L.A. with instant voicetracks of topical recent local subjects such as a large fire in Griffith Park, another fire on Catalina Island and Paris Hilton's movements, for example. Same goes for recorded listener call-ins. Within an hour of the Griffith Park fire, Jack was already airing (Howard Cogan) voicetracks related to it. 93.1 Jack FM Los Angeles is not automated and has producers as well as board ops round the clock.

Jack Los Angeles did replace a Classic Rock format, Arrow 93, but at first Jack was not well produced (there were lots of technical problems for weeks) or accepted by Arrow listerers. It took a rework of the playlist and the imaging to take off. Jack Los Angeles was intended from the outset to have live jocks but as the station took off in the ratings, that plan was shelved.

 

[Indielover]

Didn't matter? You couln't be more wrong. Like I said at the top of this thread, if Jack was on any other frequency from the start, it may have stood a fighters chance. Though the format was flawed and the playlist needed constant tweaking (which it rarely received), the fact that the powers that be chose to replace a legendary station whose identity was so closely linked to its air staff as its music, is why Jack never had a chance in this market.

No, you couldn't be more wrong..people who like the music of Jack FM couldn't give a rats ass about CBS/FM...the problem was the automation...it doesn't work in NY.

 

[chuckydoll]

On Jack, nrvbbh is correct

Jack in L.A. and Jack in New York are heritage CBS (pre-Telecom '96), thus they have engineers on duty 24 hours a day.

The IBEW would have struck CBS company-wide if automation was ever installed at a heritage CBS station.

 

[BRH]

Since Citadel/ABC owns the distribution rights to "Jack FM" nationwide now, I wonder if they would consider putting Jack back on the air on 'PLJ? 'PLJ hasn't done much in the ratings in years and they have big budget personalities. They could put Jack FM on there for a lot less cost and probably stay about the same in the ratings.

 

[mikesingh]

Since Citadel/ABC owns the distribution rights to "Jack FM" nationwide now, I wonder if they would consider putting Jack back on the air on 'PLJ? 'PLJ hasn't done much in the ratings in years and they have big budget personalities. They could put Jack FM on there for a lot less cost and probably stay about the same in the ratings.

The drawback to that is, Citadel/ABC only owns the right to put the ABC JACK FM Satellite Feed on stations only in markets 41 and smaller. Here's the quote from Bob Perry/Sparknet's JACK site...

New York (September 7, 2005) – SparkNet Communications L.P. today announced an exclusive agreement with ABC Radio Network to develop and market the JackFM™ radio format for national distribution. The agreement forms a partnership to nationally syndicate Jack FM programming, radio’s fastest-growing brand.

Under the agreement, ABC Radio Networks will have exclusive rights to create, market, and sell commercial advertising to stations across the country in Markets 41 and smaller. The new programming format will be marketed and sold to stations through ABC Radio Networks beginning on October 1, 2005. SparkNet will continue to license JackFM directly to the Top 40 markets.

For the rest of that, hit up http://www.jack.fm/

 

[Walter Graff]

I made the reference to JACK being an automated station and my reference was to listeners, not to the operation. Regardless of the fact that there were people behind the scenes, to NY'ers (at least what everyone I spoke to) JACK was nothing more than a personality lacking automated station with what most said was an irritating voice. Successful stations in the NY market have historically been built on personalities.

 

[fang39]

Didn't matter? You couln't be more wrong. Like I said at the top of this thread, if Jack was on any other frequency from the start, it may have stood a fighters chance. Though the format was flawed and the playlist needed constant tweaking (which it rarely received), the fact that the powers that be chose to replace a legendary station whose identity was so closely linked to its air staff as its music, is why Jack never had a chance in this market.

No, you couldn't be more wrong..people who like the music of Jack FM couldn't give a rats ass about CBS/FM...the problem was the automation...it doesn't work in NY.

So, by your rationale, the reason the parent company is abandoning Jack and going back to a (pick one) Oldies/Classic Hits/Gold based format on a heritage station is because of the automation? Either you know nothing about this market or you've been living in a cave for the past 2+ years! The format flip and firing of the airstaff was front page news in NYC. There is no other radio market in the country where this would have been such a big deal. It doomed Jack from the start. And even though they've shown improvement in recent books, the die had already been cast.

First and foremost, this is a PR move. Since the flip to Jack in 2005, the parent corp has taken major hits with the departure of Howard Stern, the abject failure of David Lee Roth/Free-FM and the turmoil created by the Imus situation. Dan Mason seems to have taken the "Back To The Future" approach by re-introducing K-Rock and now CBS-FM to a listening market that had been disenfranchised by these failures. Whether it works or not remains to be seen.

But getting back to the original point, I still firmly believe that had the format been introduced on any of the other CBS owned frequencies, there wouldn't have been such an uproar and Jack may have even thrived.