JACK

[Jimc]

ad for APD for JACK...what is there to do that the PD needs a helper? No airstaff, right?

Coordinate balloon jockeys for remotes?

 

[heydaybegone]

In the "old days" , we referred to it as "summer fill".

 

[Yeziknoradio]

Perhaps change is coming.

 

[SirRoxalot]

Sounds like you get the PD job, but not the money.

 

[Element9]

Jack doesn't read message boards. It's unlikely that Town Square is thinking of making changes or going live, even in one daypart. Could be an APD gig at Jack and responsibilities at the other Town Square stations? You have to give the station and the people who run it credit. Not my go-to station, but it is on one of my pre-sets. The station scored some pretty decent ratings over the last several books, beating WJYE and WHTT Persons 25-54, handily in some key dayparts.

 

[Bob1370]

Maybe they see the writing on the wall. Jack has fizzled almost everywhere it's been tried, and it's surprising that it hasn't crashed and burned yet in Buffalo. Other stations' mistakes are keeping it alive as a default option for a lot of listeners, and the first station aiming at 25-54s that fixes its current problems grabs most of Jack's current samplers (IIRC, their TSL is weak already and the audience is fragile). Maybe TownSquare's just thinking to the day the balloon fully deflates sometime in the next 6-12 months, and wants to have a small core staff at the ready to build on when the next phase has to begin for that nice class B signal.

 

[Element9]

Maybe Jack needs somebody to be APD and pick up the boss' dry cleaning or voice the badly EQ'd liners for his sister, Joy. Jack's doing pretty good. He doesn't mess up the employee lunch room, stays in shape, doesn't smoke, stays healthy, pays his bills on time and never, ever asks for a raise. Mr. Silver likes Jack. A lot. If only he'd let his sister Joy win a few rounds of Arbitron poker. You're right though Bob1370, what does it tell you when a hard drive loaded with 627 songs and snarky liners beats other stations. Jack is top 5 Women 25-54, a few seats behind Star and a few seats in front of WJYE and WHTT. Apparently, chicks think Jack's sensitive but strong. BTW, Jack doesn't listen to NPR. But he thinks Rush is pretty cool. The band, not the gasbag.

 

[SirRoxalot]

Could it be that Jack is the only '80s targeted station in the market, which is why it's scoring nicely 35-45?

 

[ThePickleReport]

Could it be that Jack is the only '80s targeted station in the market, which is why it's scoring nicely 35-45?

Yep, and they have quite a few titles all to themselves. I don't think Jack is going anywhere for awhile.

 

[TheBigA]

Obviously I haven't heard Buffalo's Jack, but I've heard it in several cities, and one of the basic concepts is to customize the music to songs people in that town are familiar with. The positioning of Jack among other similar formats is key to its success. That requires customization by a local APD. Another thing is outreach. Because there are no jocks, the only way to interact with listeners is go out in the field and give out t-shirts at shows or malls. That's a promotion function, but also programming in terms of driving listeners to the remotes. Third thing is co-ordinating the online content. There's a lot to co-ordinate even without an air staff. So you better understand social media. You'd be surprised how many people in Jack's demo use Facebook and Twitter.

 

[Yeziknoradio]

Jack Toronto really pushed 80's music at one point. A few years later, Boom 97.3 gives 80's major attention and they gained much better ratings with radio personalities to go with it.

I guess it depends on the market. Some markets have listeners that won't listen unless they (at least) hear a VT (they most likely think it's live).

Back to the topic of Buffalo radio, I do believe that if someone else were to have a similar format with a morning and afternoon drive, plus a Saturday night live announcer, it would do better than Buffalo's Jack is doing now.

 

[Bob1370]

"I do believe that if someone else were to have a similar format with a morning and afternoon drive, plus a Saturday night live announcer, it would do better than Buffalo's Jack is doing now."

Add a midday live show for the workplace and in-car listener. I'm not even sure you can get away with a canned evening show on weeknights...you may be able to shelve the personality only in the midnight to 5 AM time slot.

 

[TheBigA]

I do believe that if someone else were to have a similar format with a morning and afternoon drive, plus a Saturday night live announcer, it would do better than Buffalo's Jack is doing now.

They're getting a 4.4 share now without spending a dime. A lot of stations would love to be a Top 10 station without any staff expenses. What you have to do to justify the new expense is to factor the amount of revenue increase with the cost. I don't see anyone flipping to "adult hits," spending the money on additional staffing, to attract this kind of audience.

 

[Bob1370]

"They're getting a 4.4 share now without spending a dime."

How long do you think that will last? There's nothing to really hold listeners there beyond the music, which isn't that much different from others in the market. The first station that gets its act together and fixes its problems with the right mix of personalities and value-added information on top of the music (and that could be any of three or four chasing after the 25-54 music listener right now) can grab at least half of that audience for itself, soaring into the 6 to 7 share range and slicing Jack's piece of the pie in half. This has already happened to nearly every other Jack station in North America, which is why the format's so much smaller a force today than it was five years ago. It's bound to happen soon in Buffalo. Jack is the most vulnerable station in the market right now and has nothing to fight back with. Maybe the APD they're bringing in is an advance person for the retooling of the station for its next phase beyond Jack...if TownSquare isn't thinking that way, they'll have to be soon...

 

[majicrockstar]

Its funny I can remember when Jack first hit the airwaves in Buffalo many of you had already predicted its quick demise way back then!! Well Jack has been going strong for over 5 years and yet some of you still keep trying to predict its ending!!! That is the longest running format on 92.9 since there soft rock style format back in the 80s!!! If there is any station at Townsquare that needs help it is JOY WJYE!! That station is a trainwreck all the way from the music to the imaging, just plain awful!! And Jack also has a pretty loyal band of listeners and respectable ratings which is something that frequency hadnt seen in a long time.. Long Live Jack!!

 

[TheBigA]

How long do you think that will last? There's nothing to really hold listeners there beyond the music, which isn't that much different from others in the market.

Some people are only interested in music. I guess not many of them work in radio. Radio people think the audience wants to hear THEM. The fact is some do, most don't. This is a station that is part of a cluster that features several high personality stations, and one that shuts up and plays the hits. And it fits well in that cluster. WYRK is owned by the same company and thrives on local jocks. I haven't seen the breakouts but there may be some sharing of audience between YRK and BUF.

As I mentioned earlier, there are three keys to making Jack work: 1) Vary the music. Don't just play the same CDs on shuffle. 2) Personal outreach and promotion. Be visible in the community. 3) Social networking. Interact with your P1s. It CAN work if you run it like a radio station and not automation. There are several Jack stations that are doing better than Buffalo. A lot that aren't. But this assumption that everyone wants personality on the radio is wrong. They don't.

 

[Element9]

I do believe that if someone else were to have a similar format with a morning and afternoon drive, plus a Saturday night live announcer, it would do better than Buffalo's Jack is doing now.

They're getting a 4.4 share now without spending a dime. A lot of stations would love to be a Top 10 station without any staff expenses. What you have to do to justify the new expense is to factor the amount of revenue increase with the cost. I don't see anyone flipping to "adult hits," spending the money on additional staffing, to attract this kind of audience.

And don't be surprised if other operators haven't taken note. A 4+ share Persons 12+ and even bigger shares Persons 25-54 and Women 25-54. What if, after the sale, Cumulus flew into Buffalo, examined Jack's position and asked "How much are we paying the staff at **** to get aced by Jack? Check please!"

Much as some posters think a live jock would help Jack, it's difficult to make that case. The station is working and a lot of credit goes to the PD. According to AllAccess, his name is Joe Russo. Magicrockstar also makes a good point. Joy is in need of some intense re-shaping. Jack, WBLK and WYRK are squeezing Joy, but this may not be a serious issue because Town Square has a pretty good hold on the Wall of Women 25-54 with WYRK (1st), WBLK (4th), WJYE (5th) and WBUF (5th) delivering 39.1 shares to the 24.6 shares delivered by Entercom's Star (3rd), Kiss (2nd) and WBEN-AM (8th).

For as much as Delilah gets ripped here, she has the highest shares on Joy, althought the AQH Persons at night aren't anywhere near what they are in middays, morning or afternoon drive. Yet given Delilah's strong performance at night, you might think more radios would be tuned to 96.1 the next morning and Joy would deliver top 5 shares in AM drive. Admittedly, this argument can be misleading. If Delilah draws, only as an example, only 1200 AQH Persons and a majority of those persons re-cycle into morning drive, the morning show has to be good enough on its own merit to bring in another (again, only as an example) 3,000 AQH persons and break into the top 5. Makes you wonder. Or not.

 

[TheBigA]

For as much as Delilah gets ripped here, she has the highest shares on Joy

And the thing about Delilah is she does exactly what talent SHOULD do. She doesn't talk about herself. She doesn't talk about the music. She doesn't talk about celebrities. She doesn't talk about TV, movies, or politics. She talks about THE LISTENERS. She lets THEM talk. It's Facebook for Radio. This is so simple I don't understand why more on-air folks don't copy her. It doesn't matter that the callers aren't from Buffalo. Everyone goes through a lot of the same crap. It doesn't matter where you are. This kind of "relationship radio" is popular on lots of stations after 7PM. The country stations doing "Lovin' or Leavin." The CHR stations play match game. Urban stations do Quiet Storm. And AC has Delilah. Syndicated or not, if you're not talking with the listeners, and their lives, then you shouldn't talk at all. Which brings us back to Jack.

 

[SirRoxalot]

Look, it's not as if Jack is a stone cold winner in Buffalo. You've got an FM with one of the biggest signals in Buffalo that's gotten decent numbers, particularly in mid-days, simply by being consistent, and playing the part of a background music station.

WHTT went off the rails for a couple of years in pursuit of 25-49 women. WJYE enjoyed 35-54 & 35-64 women all to themselves during that period, while Jack siphoned off some 18-34s from the rest of the market. Regent - now Town Square - sat pretty until Citadel finally realized that WHTT wasn't going to win without a serious investment in promotions and talent. It was cheaper and easier to reclaim 35-64s by reverted back to some semblance of the station formerly known as "Oldies 104".

With WHTT's comeback, some genius at Town Square decided that WJYE should reclaim the "Joy" moniker (good idea) by shooting for 25-44 women. They took a page right out of Citadel's playbook, with about the same results. The "new Joy" handed their upper demos back to WHTT, and found limited success challenging Entercom's Star and Kiss. In fact, Kiss is becoming a 25-49 oriented station thanks to a morning show that's way too long in the tooth for 12-34s. So, Joy's finding itself getting crunched on both ends of their demo. Add arguably annoying elements, and they've taken a beating.

Let's face it, the '80s are important to folks under 50. Jack's serving them up. Until somebody enters that territory in a meaningful way, they're likely to continue.

 

[Bob1370]

"Let's face it, the '80s are important to folks under 50. Jack's serving them up. Until somebody enters that territory in a meaningful way, they're likely to continue."

And the moment someone weaves the 80s into a personality oldies format like WCBS-FM does down in NYC, Jack is toast.