• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Kevin Weatherly Returns To KROQ

Status
Not open for further replies.
He is also named Format Captain for all Audacy Alternative stations. No mention of what will happen to the person in that role now:

www.allaccess.com

Radio Industry News, New Music, Music Promotion, Radio Station Song Charts

All Access offers the latest radio industry news and music news, music promotions for record companies new music, radio station song charts, and much more. AllAccess.com has been serving the radio and music industry since 1995, always bringing you the highest quality content with...
www.allaccess.com www.allaccess.com

I imagine we'll hear more as the day goes on.

In my view, the Spotify job was a joke. Very few people use Spotify for it's curated stations. No surprise they're going away.
 
TheBigA said:
He is also named Format Captain for all Audacy Alternative stations. No mention of what will happen to the person in that role now:
Click to expand...
Not necessarily anything. Audacy's restructured formats all have multiple VP's in each. It appears Mike Kaplan still runs the format with other VP's such as Weatherly, John Allers and Christine Malovetz under him.
 
Lame move by Audacy.

Weatherly allowed the station to grow stale and nearly irrelevant. Station's performance for most of his final ten years in the job was not very good.

This move suggests to me their brain trust (oxymoron, I know) has few good ideas for the format.

He is a retread who probably should retire.
 
lanceventa said:
Not necessarily anything. Audacy's restructured formats all have multiple VP's in each. It appears Mike Kaplan still runs the format with other VP's such as Weatherly, John Allers and Christine Malovetz under him.
Click to expand...

When they announced Allers & Malovetz, they were specific with which stations they oversaw. Not so with Weatherly, other than KROQ. And maybe that's it. But it seems curious to me. He has a seat at the table with someone who was his successor.

MarkW said:
Weatherly allowed the station to grow stale and nearly irrelevant. Station's performance for most of his final ten years in the job was not very good.
Click to expand...

I agree, but he was also stretched pretty thin during that time, also overseeing KRTH. Maybe now that he's focused on one station, he can get back to what he does best.
 
I think KROQ has been sounding better lately. I actually dig their AM show now, and the music seems to have a bite again. If anyone can do this job it’s Kevin Weatherly. Hope he doesn’t shift it too much from where it is now.
 
K.M. Richards said:
And, we presume, he won't have to babysit Jack either.
Click to expand...

All of the other stations are overseen by Chris Ebbott:

radioink.com

New VP In LA For Audacy - Radio Ink

Audacy has promoted Chris Ebbott to Vice President of Programming and Operations for its Los Angeles market. He will oversee programming and operations strategy for 93.1 Jack FM (KCBS-FM), KNX News 97.1 FM and 1070 AM, 94.7 The Wave (KTWV-FM) and CHANNEL Q.
radioink.com radioink.com

The one exception to his list is KROQ.
 
I'm actually surprised it's Weatherly coming back instead of a fresh programmer, especially since it's coming back to his old job. I'm not sure he's the guy who can restore KROQ's fortunes, especially since he oversaw the decline in the first place, but I figure he's at least capable of getting KROQ up to par against KYSR. It may fall to someone else to take the station further, though.
 
Kevin Weatherly was an amazing programmer in his time, and I hope he will be able to revive KROQ. My concern is that times are very different now, and does Weatherly have the ability to adapt to these changes. The biggest change is the demographical makeup of the LA/OC area that does not favor any kind of rock format - let alone alternative. Secondly, there has been a profound shift in how the target demographic listens to radio with a huge shift to online media. When Weatherly initially took over KROQ back in the day, KROQ was not a distressed station. KROQ had healthy ratings and top notch talent including a very successful morning show with Kevin and Bean. Weatherly has none of these benefits today; where I would go as far to use the analogy that he has been given the keys to the Titanic.

The question is, what tools does Weatherly have to adapt to these changes? Will Audacy give him the budget needed to hire top notch talent? Does Weatherly have the ability to spot the talent needed to bring KROQ back from life support? Does Weatherly even understand that he must throw away the old playback he used in the past and create a new one?

I'm sincerely rooting for Weatherly as I don't want to see KROQ fail. I'm in my late 40's and grew up listening to KROQ. I have so many fond memories of listening to the station back in the day when no other station came close to playing what they played nor could any match their unique quirky attitude which gave them such a cool image.

It will be interesting to see if Weatherly plans any major changes to the music mix, and to see if he has any aces up his sleeve. I think it's going to be quite a wild ride for the next year.
 
bsr92336 said:
I'm sincerely rooting for Weatherly as I don't want to see KROQ fail.
Click to expand...
Fact of the matter is, it's going to take many, many, many, months (if not years) to dig out of the hole that was dug by Audacy's multiple unforced errors. I too wish him (and KROQ) best of luck going forward.
 
Last edited:
The hole was being dug long before Audacy took over (Weatherly was doing much of the digging). True, Kaplan and Audacy made the hole even bigger and deeper.

When Weatherly was a rock & alternative format captain for CBS Radio - WBCN, WHFS, KITS and other stations weren't exactly performing well (excluding mornings on the stations that carried Stern).
 
MarkW said:
When Weatherly was a rock & alternative format captain for CBS Radio - WBCN, WHFS, KITS and other stations weren't exactly performing well (excluding mornings on the stations that carried Stern).
Click to expand...

And one by one, those stations went away. That was not the case here.

There are two factors in the alternative format. You have the music, which admittedly is not enough by itself to attract big ratings. But you also have the radio station itself. The talent, the presentation, the imaging, and all the rest of the radio stuff that's not the music. What happened at KROQ is both of those things went down the toilet. The music was in trouble ten years ago, but people kept listening because they liked the hosts. Then the new PD came in, made the music worse and alienated the staff. So there was nothing left for people to listen to.

What Weatherly can do is focus on the station part. The music is the music. He will decide to either go one way or the other there. But he has to rebuild the staff and the morale. He has to fix the culture within the station, because it's broken. He knows how to do that. The alternative stations around the country that get good ratings are heritage stations that still have heritage hosts. KROQ doesn't have the heritage hosts any more. They need to work on rebuilding the radio station. Weatherly is one of the few people who can do that.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.


Back
Top Bottom