I couldn't imagine being a really good band these days trying to market your stuff. My friend Kenny is the drummer of Messer. Wonderful guys. Wonderful song writing. And I go hang with him and we talk about the parallels of rock music and the radio industry. It's actually sad at how much work those guys put into it and the MONEY they put into it. Competing, in any industry right now, is almost impossible in the endless sea of the intranets. I guess everyone needs to get face tats. What's next, chopping off limbs?
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KEGL
- Thread starter golden eagles97
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I have to agree with you a 2nd time in a day. This is a record.
Well on most of what you said.
Men are underserved in radio. We have basically classic rock and sports. There are fluctuations, sure, depending on where you live, but for the most part, that's about what it comes down to. I think a male targeted Country station sounds like a DAMN good idea. DAMN good idea. It may NOT make as much money as mainstream Country, and the reason is easily understood, but it WOULD make money if it's sold correctly.
I'd never thought about that until I saw that part of your post. Does anyone know if there's a such thing as a Modern Man Country format being done anywhere? I have friends and family members, men, who were SO SO early on people like Jelly Roll... and there's this weird cross over kind of thing happening now that appeals to people that like hip hop/urban and Country. My Son listens to some of it and I feel like it's from another planet.
Well, there's also conservative talk. It's ALL men.
That's where all the men go to complain about how underserved they are.
Not with currents. The older (70s/80s) classic country stations are almost all men. But they're on AM. The reason why is the radio companies use sports, classic rock, and talk to reach them. No need for another male format when the real money is with women.
The musicologist in me worries about that long term. It's what basically killed rock. The minute Aerosmith sang with Run-DMC, the split started to happen. Same with Beastie Boys. You saw it big time in the 90s. Yo MTV Raps was a very divisive. People either loved it or hated it. Morgan Wallen lives there a bit, but has been careful how he releases his music.
Do you remember how it was when you were young and radio was the only place to hear new music? You'd hear a new song -- an amazing new earworm - and you'd hope the DJ would announce the title and artist so you'd know what it was. Then, if you wanted to hear it again you would have to leave the radio on all day and maybe you called the request line to ask the live DJ to play it. Some of you would also sit there with the cassette tape recorder cued up waiting to hit record as soon as the first few notes started up.
That was music discovery and acquisition then. Does radio today hold the same importance to young people?
Well today, music is everywhere. When you hear something you like, if the title and artist aren't already displayed in front of your eyes, you can Shazaam it. Then, instead of waiting all day for it to be played on the radio, you can instantly stream it or find it on YouTube. Instead of spending weeks compiling a cassette tape of favorite songs with the intros and extros cut off, you can instantly build, edit, and re-edit playlists on your chosen streaming platform.
No young person has to sit through a bunch of songs they don't want to hear, DJs talking about things that aren't relevant to them, or 8-12 minute long commercial breaks.
Radio was very important to people who grew up with it as their main source of music discovery and audio entertainment. That began to diminish with the growth of the internet in the 90s and 2000s. The people who grew up with radio being very important to them in their youth are now 40+ years old, so stations with formats centered on 30-year old songs are catering to the memories and emotional attachment of that audience.
That's likely to be a problem 10-15 years from now when those 40-year-olds are 55+, and there's no one coming up behind them who grew up with radio that way.
The radio industry should have been working hard over the past 30 years to make itself relevant to young listeners as an investment in its future, but there's very little incentive for corporate executives to do that. Short term results and instant rewards are always the overwhelming priority, and catering to an audience younger than the middle-age adult "target demo" is cravenly dismissed as a waste. In my view, the only real exception to that is iHeart building out its digital platform. While its usage lags behind Spotify and Amazon, at least they'll have a chance to retain some of those younger users in the long term.
Once again, it depends on the format. Shazam just started its own music chart. A lot of it is driven by streaming. When I looked at the Shazam country chart, all but two of the songs mirror the country airplay chart. What that tells me is country radio has an impact. The record labels and artists know that. They release music to country radio first, and when that happens, we know they're hearing it first on country radio.
That's what happened to the Post Malone/Morgan Wallen song. The label & management were very careful keeping that song off social media until Friday. He performed it at Stagecoach, but they didn't televise it. There was built-up interest in the song, and it got played Friday every hour on every country radio station. This is what I mean by music strategy. It doesn't happen in rock, and that's why rock is where it is. Radio can't win this battle alone. It needs to be organized. And not just with one station in one market. Big radio companies are more successful at doing this than small ones, because the music is being released globally. To be a player, radio has to demonstrate it can be a part of that strategy. I don't know of any rock radio platform that has the reach of country radio. That's the difference.
Radio companies don't work together as an industry in that way because it's so decentralized and they're competing with each other. Some companies recognize the need for the kind of strategy I'm talking about, and some don't. Consider the number of radio companies vs. the number of streaming companies. Everyone knows Spotify and Apple Music. Streaming companies are working globally, and radio companies are working locally. Which one has more impact? Impact is what the audience sees, and it's hard to make an impact when you're competing with the phone. That's why getting FM on the phone was so important, but phone companies didn't co-operate.
Now radio has to compete as a streaming platform. It has no choice because people aren't buying radios. The game has changed.
It's all OLLLLDLLLLDLDLLDLDLDLLDLD men. Have you listened to WBAP take phone calls? Casey Bartholomew will run through calls and every one sounds like an 80 year old man about to fall out of the rocker. Which is another gripe, because talk radio has done nothing to lower it's age group. At my last gig, I was the OM of a news/talk and a rock station. The news talk was always in the top 2 in the oldest tier.
I remember that when The Freak launched the voice guy made a point about the most important thing about The Eagle was “the connection they had with the listeners.” I’d love for The Eagle to embrace this attitude. I think that is key and part of what separates radio from streaming services. You can find the music that The Eagle plays on streaming services, but you can’t find a good local connection. Perhaps The Eagle brand could leverage podcasts with personalities talking about things such as bands, local DFW talk, or even the Mavs.
Coachella is still a rock festival, and there are two weekends of it with nearly 100,000 persons at each one. "Stagecoach" is the country festival, one weekend, just under 70,000 persons on one weekend.
What is different is that Coachella is no longer just a rock festival. It it is, in concept, everything from Taylor to Beyoncé. It is pop, some rock, some hip hop and urban music... even some reggaetón and Latin artists. But it has not been able to be a pure rock event for over half a decade now.
Aside from Sports talk is there really much else Talk Radio CAN do to get a younger audience? Each generation gets less conservative but historically progressive talkers never did all that well. Would Air America or anything less than right-wing do better now than it did 20 years ago? Do you take notes from the podcasters? Or did the conservative talk boom die with Rush?
That was what the freak was trying to do. It was supposed to duplicate the success of WTKS. But it didn't.
The younger generation tends to be more liberal but those same liberal kids become, more than likely, conservatives within about 10 to 20 years.
While it might be said the youth don't listen to radio, there comes a point in life where radio does become a habit whether that's over the air or online. What I find interesting is how many I have asked that listen to radio online prefer a station in their geographic area. The general comment is they want to be connected to where they live. I asked a few for greater detail and I was told it was so they would know if something major happened in the area. I always found that interesting.
While it might be said the youth don't listen to radio, there comes a point in life where radio does become a habit whether that's over the air or online. What I find interesting is how many I have asked that listen to radio online prefer a station in their geographic area. The general comment is they want to be connected to where they live. I asked a few for greater detail and I was told it was so they would know if something major happened in the area. I always found that interesting.
This isn’t as astonishing as you may think. The thing with Alternative is that it is a rock-leaning format, not a rock-exclusive format. Triple A is the same way. They lean rock but that’s not all they play. For Triple A, they play a significant amount of alt-country and neo-soul in addition to the rock music. Alternative has had hits from electronic and hip-hop artists in addition to rock, metal, and “indie pop” artists throughout its history.
Eminem on Alternative was not that weird during the time period he was relevant in, when there was a lot of rapping on Alternative due to nu-metal and alternative hip-hop artists charting. Eventually he became too mainstream for the format (“Mockingbird” flopped hard on Alt in 2004 and ended Eminem’s relevance there) but during Y2K he fit in as a left-of-center option for airplay.
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I’ve thought News/talk was on its way out before Rush died even, yet it soldiers on. I expected the format to take a bigger hit after his passing, but the format largely seems unaffected. A number of FM conservative talk stations, especially in the conservative southeast, are still booming. The audience has to be getting progressively older, though. It was primarily over 55+ over a decade ago. I’d think a point will come when the nursing home, IRA/retirement, wealth management, local gun shops, and gold hawkers won’t be able to sustain them, but who knows. I don’t even hear local car dealers advertising on my local Audacy talk station anymore yet they do with the rest of the cluster.
Agreed. The talent wasn't there. Nowhere close. WTKS has always been EXCELLENT.
The question will be: Can a show that's primarily on alternative stations appeal to an active rock audience?
The affiliate list includes a number of Active Rock stations.
Zoom out on the map to expand the list:
How To Listen | The Woody Show
How to listen to The Woody Show. Find your local station or discover where to listen online.
I don't know how current that map is. The Kansas City station is now HipHop and no longer airs the show.
But yes, there are some rock stations but its mainly alternative, originating at KYSR in LA,
The alt station in Dallas doesn't have a morning show. They just play music. Can Woody steal that audience?
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I've listened to the show. It isn't bad.
And it ain't good.
And that's the kiss of death. I WOULD say Ben and Skin fall under that umbrella, but they're just bad - and it doesn't fit.
If it doesn't have a sarcastic, mouthy edge, it isn't going to work on the frequency 97.1 - period.
Let the disagreeing commence. I stand by that.
And it ain't good.
And that's the kiss of death. I WOULD say Ben and Skin fall under that umbrella, but they're just bad - and it doesn't fit.
If it doesn't have a sarcastic, mouthy edge, it isn't going to work on the frequency 97.1 - period.
Let the disagreeing commence. I stand by that.
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