K-Rock All Over The Road

[davideduardo]

My point: CBS should've kept KOME intact on 98.5 and sold 105.3's facilities instead (they could've gotten considerably more money for 105.3's facilities than 98.5's, I would think), OR they should have moved KOME's intellectual property to 105.3.

KOME had not achieved 3 share levels for many, many years... under different competitive situations. To compare then with now is ingenuous.

There is essentially no South Bay market, and San Jose is an SF metro embeded market that attracts less total revenue than one top 5 SF station bills. It's a bad place to base your critique of CBS on.

Similarly, you talk of NY yet do not mention that they got it right, finally, with Fresh. And you don't accept that Philly can be turned... they don't have to beat MMR to do it, either.... just develop their own audience independently.

Running clusters turned out to be harder than imagined in 1996... who gets attention and who gets neglected is a critical issue. I learned by a big mistake at my market cluster in the 60's that you have to give independent thought to each station and you can not protect each station against the others you own, or you open holes for competitors. So having a few poor performers in the group is natural for any large group.

 

[MarkW]

Similarly, you talk of NY yet do not mention that they got it right, finally, with Fresh. And you don't accept that Philly can be turned... they don't have to beat MMR to do it, either.... just develop their own audience independently.

How many years did it take them to "get it right" with Fresh?

Even a one-eyed squirrel can find a nut once in a while.

Actually, I'm not criticizing or questioning CBS' programming abilities when it comes to All-News, News/Talk, Sports, AC, CHR/Rhythmic, Urban, Hot AC, Oldies or even Country! They do these formats fairly well, for the most part.

I'm not sure why you keep bringing up other formats -- I'm only talking about CBS's skills (or lack thereof) when it comes to ROCK.

My central point: CBS has demonstrated a large degree of incompetence when it comes to programming most of their Rock-based brands for the better part of the last decade. The track record proves it. Then, instead of flipping one of these failing brands to a format they can do fairly well (see above), they either try polishing the turd a thousand times over or do something truly bizarre (i.e. Blink 102.7).

I can probably count on two hands how many Rock stations of theirs have maintained at least a moderate amount of success consistently for the last five years.

Let's see:
KROQ
WNCX
WXRT
WZLX
KINK
WCMF
KZOK
KUFO

That's it! I honestly cannot think of any others.

In your last post, I have to admit you do state an excellent point in your last paragraph.

 

[p_herring]

One more comment -- I see music wise that WXRK has now become almost an exact replica of WYSP in Philly.

The good news: WXRK's music is becoming more focused.

The bad news? I think it has moved in the OPPOSITE direction compared to what most people here (myself included) wanted.

For all intents & purposes, WXRK is now a heritage rock station. The already thin 90's library has been cut back even further in favor of a much wider cross-section of 70's & 80's material. Looks like K-Rock is down to 1 current / recurrent an hour. Looks like about 70% of the music is pre-1990.

Hmmm...isn't this approach more-or-less what WNEW tried in the late 90's? WNEW scored about a 1.5 share for its efforts back then.

I don't think they even play one current an hour (I'll count a current as a song that is on the Active Rock/Alternative chart even if it's moving down). They should do a contest called "find the current" where the first person to call and name a song that is currently on the chart wins a package of "Dinosaur rock" CD's. Zeppelin, Floyd, Aerosmith, etc. Remember when radio stations gave out CD packages? I'm sure whoever thinks this K-Rock thing is a good idea probably still thinks people will love getting compact discs.

 

[DToTheJ]

But they do play a current - the new song from dino-rockers AC/DC! ;D

 

[frozenfiresb]

Well, there's plenty of headbangin' recurrents like "Dani California" and "Clocks" by Coldplay. \m/

:-\

Seriously though, why does NY need 3 stations that play "Sweet Home Alabama" as well as obscene amounts of Led Zeppelin?

 

[p_herring]

My point: CBS should've kept KOME intact on 98.5 and sold 105.3's facilities instead (they could've gotten considerably more money for 105.3's facilities than 98.5's, I would think), OR they should have moved KOME's intellectual property to 105.3.

KOME had not achieved 3 share levels for many, many years... under different competitive situations. To compare then with now is ingenuous.

There is essentially no South Bay market, and San Jose is an SF metro embeded market that attracts less total revenue than one top 5 SF station bills. It's a bad place to base your critique of CBS on.

Similarly, you talk of NY yet do not mention that they got it right, finally, with Fresh. And you don't accept that Philly can be turned... they don't have to beat MMR to do it, either.... just develop their own audience independently.

Running clusters turned out to be harder than imagined in 1996... who gets attention and who gets neglected is a critical issue. I learned by a big mistake at my market cluster in the 60's that you have to give independent thought to each station and you can not protect each station against the others you own, or you open holes for competitors. So having a few poor performers in the group is natural for any large group.

I'm curious, DavidEduardo, do you have some sort of affiliation with CBS or are you just a huge fanboy because I can't seem to find anyone who thinks they do a good job programming rock-oriented stations.