KFR Cleepy !

[LKellerIII]

"Okay, let's say KRTH is doing it. How are they doing it? Well, we've always recognized that what works in LA doesn't work in SF and vice versa, likewise NY. In NY reverb under the DJ was the big thing. In LA, the tight-throated "Hollywood hype" sound worked. But in SF, with a few exceptions, a more laid back (dare I say "more genuine"?) approach worked better. Well, maybe KRTH works because people in LA are used to copter chases and Hollywood hype. Would that translate to SF? Probably not very well."

Though I'll concede there are a few minor style differences between LA and SF, the long-held theory that there is some huge difference between the cultural styles of the two California cities is a load of hype, and a long held fiction. It dates back farther than the war of words between Herb Caen in the Chronicle and Jim Murray in the LA Times, back in the the 50s and 60s. And as I remember, neither Caen or Murray took it very seriously. LA loves their freeways, while SF hates them...blah, blah...

David, since you like to like to harken back to the original KFRC, I'll use that as an example. In the 60s, the differences between Drake stations KFRC and KHJ were slight, and mostly a minor matter of style. Robert W. Morgan would have been a great fit on KFRC.. the Real Don Steele - maybe not so much. But who would have guessed that the over the top corny Dr. Don would have worked in supposedly cosmopolitan and sophisticated San Francisco? A lot of the original KFRC jocks moved south to KHJ, and I doubt they had to adjust their style very much.

Along the same lines, I think K-Earth would work fine here, and probably be more popular than KFRC. Everybody here is familiar with the Drake formatics - 99.7 KFRC used them for about 10 years. Their current morning jock - Gary Bryan also worked at KFRC in the 90s, and was popular here despite the fact that he had a nutcase right-wing co-host at the time. KRTH's current afternoon jock Shotgun Tom Kelly is great, but perhaps his fast-talking high energy style (somewhat like Steele) wouldn't work here. Otherwise, I'm sure everybody else on the station would be a good fit. Invoking LA copter chases is just silly - K-Earth has nothing to do with that. As far as "Hollywood Hype" goes - have you listened to Jay Coffey? Those Brittany Spears Hollywood gossip tidbits are his stock in trade. I don't remember hearing any of that crap on KRTH.

 

[sfradio]

kfrc today still sounds better their incarnation as the hits of the 70's and 80's and the format before that on 99.7

 

[tripton99]

I don't think for a moment that an oldies station with personalities, ala K-EARTH, could make it here. It would be soooooo prohibitively expensive to launch, to staff and to promote, and CBS hasn't shown any willingness to spend that kind of money. The only way to make it work is to play as many great tunes in a row as possible while promoting the crap out of the call letters and maybe even trying to duplicate the production values an "image" of the old KFRC using someone like Bobby Ocean.

I for one thought that the hyped reincarnation of KFRC would be a time machine that could take us back to those glory days in all respects. The only legitimate, full-time link is Dave Sholin and I'll bet the farm he knows what's missing. CBS did it on the cheap and probably took the attitude that exploiting the legendary call letters and spending little to do so was a no-brainer.

 

[LKellerIII]

sfradio said: "kfrc today still sounds better their incarnation as the hits of the 70's and 80's and the format before that on 99.7"

Agreed - that first attempt at Soft Rock 70s-80s was an abomination...but after a few months, they changed the playlist and the station was sounding much better until CBS flipped to MOViN'.

Tripton said: "I don't think for a moment that an oldies station with personalities, ala K-EARTH, could make it here. It would be soooooo prohibitively expensive to launch, to staff and to promote, and CBS hasn't shown any willingness to spend that kind of money...CBS did it on the cheap and probably took the attitude that exploiting the legendary call letters and spending little to do so was a no-brainer."

It's obvious that CBS "did it on the cheap," but I disagree that something closer to KRTH would be "prohibitively expensive." With the exception of Gary Bryan who runs a typical talky morning show, and Charlie Tuna, who they just hired; the KRTH jocks could hardly be called "personalities." They're just by-the-book jocks who deliver the format; I'm sure they're on a strict clock, and they're always in and out in just a few seconds. Sue Hall, Jay Coffey, and a whole bunch of current and former local jocks could handle it just fine. If they wanted to do it "on the cheap," they could just go live during drive-times and voice-track the rest.

The difference between the two stations is mostly a matter of formatics and imaging. Since I'm just a listener and not a radio professional, I can't describe it in professional terms, but K-Earth just sounds better - they let the jocks talk for a few seconds into the stop set, and they don't play nearly as many of those pre-recorded bumpers - either between songs or going into the stop set. It's just a brighter and less cluttered sound, and seems more...fast paced somehow. I seem to remember that the old Drake Top 30 programming philosophy was concerned with maintaining "forward movement." K-Earth does that well.

 

[airpab]

Good radio is good radio no matter where you are! KRTH is good radio. WCBS is good radio. KOOL 94.5 is good radio. (and their numbers prove it). Music (there's a lot of good stuff from the 60's and 70's) and DJ's do make the difference in this format. Ironically, these are all CBS properties, so how do the suits not see this?

KFRC is "only okay" radio and the numbers (or lack thereof) show it......that's the bottom line! Relatively, no one is listening to KFRC, so how does one argue for their current approach??

 

[LKellerIII]

"KFRC is "only okay" radio and the numbers (or lack thereof) show it......that's the bottom line! Relatively, no one is listening to KFRC, so how does one argue for their current approach??"

Beats me, airpab. Because people like to argue, I guess. We'll just have to console ourselves by knowing that we're right, and they're wrong. Or maybe those under 1.0 arbs for KFRC will miraculously turn into a 3.3 (KRTH), or a 3.7 (WCBS), and we'll be proven wrong. But I doubt it...

 

[DavidKaye]

David, since you like to like to harken back to the original KFRC, I'll use that as an example. In the 60s, the differences between Drake stations KFRC and KHJ were slight, and mostly a minor matter of style. Robert W. Morgan would have been a great fit on KFRC.. the Real Don Steele - maybe not so much. But who would have guessed that the over the top corny Dr. Don would have worked in supposedly cosmopolitan and sophisticated San Francisco? A lot of the original KFRC jocks moved south to KHJ, and I doubt they had to adjust their style very much.

However, KFRC didn't hit its stride until the 1970s when they tailored their format to the Bay Area. The KFRC of 1974 was not the KHJ of 1974. In fact, KHJ sounded downright archaic to my Bay Area ears. It still sounded pushy, and KFRC sounded anything but pushy.

As for Don Rose, well, would he have worked well in LA? I don't know. I think people related as much to his genuineness as to his schtick. It was clear that he loved people and did lots of charity work. I'm not sure that people in LA appreciate things like that.

And yes, there is a cultural difference between Northern California and LA. It goes back to the very foundations of both regions. SF was settled by intellectuals from the cities who came here to pursue dreams. LA was settled by Dust Bowl refugees, farmers, who moved west on a vague promise of work. (The Grapes of Wrath describes it very well.)

We may think that communities can escape their ancestry, but they really don't. There are big underlying communities of movers and shakers who set the pace for these communities. In LA they tear everything down and start over every few years. In SF they keep things, and people rise up in anger when someone tries to tear down a rotting Victorian house.

In LA the police can sweep streets via helicopters when they think things have gotten out of hand (I've been on Hollywood Blvd when this has happened). In SF people wouldn't stand for such a police action.

In LA it's all about the roads and the TV copters. In SF it's about the new restaurants and the holidays. I doubt the TV copters are going to catch on here. In LA the TV stations couldn't function without them.

There are plenty of differences.

 

[MikeAmatori]

I like some of the tunes I hear on 106.9, but I hear too many tunes that are burnt to a crisp...However, such is the nature of Oldies/Classic Hits radio. So, I don't think the "Music Part" of the KFRC format is strong enough to get people to listen just for that,especially when KOIT and even KIOI are playing a lot of the same songs.

I like some of the People on KFRC, but not all of them. So the Talent is not enough to make me listen either. There is just no appointment listening on KFRC.

(Sorry Kenny, not even JMF...and an hour is not gonna save the place anyway.)

No mater what decade of KFRC your speaking of, what this KFRC lacks is Great Entertainment Value. And no ONE thing is stong enough on this current incarnation to draw listeners in and keep them there, EVEN when another part is not as strong.

To all the posters on this thread who constantly wonder if CBS is listening to them (Posters) I think the real question is does CBS listen to there own radio station?

Sadly, for me, there is not one Superior Element on the station that makes me want to listen to it, AND! Because of that Superior Element, forgive its short comings.

What a sad comentary on the state of Corporate Radio done on the cheap.

 

[airpab]

Hey LKeller. Lol. Exactly! We'll have to talk radio sometime!

 

[LKellerIII]

David Kaye said: "...KFRC didn't hit its stride until the 1970s when they tailored their format to the Bay Area. The KFRC of 1974 was not the KHJ of 1974. In fact, KHJ sounded downright archaic to my Bay Area ears. It still sounded pushy, and KFRC sounded anything but pushy."

I had already moved to the Bay Area by 74, and didn't get back to LA for at least a couple of years - so I didn't hear the KHJ of that year...but maybe that difference you speak of is the reason KFRC remained a top rated station into the late 70s, while KHJ became a shadow of itself, both in programming and ratings. So maybe the difference is not that attributable to the cultural differences between the two places, but to the differences between two programming philosophies.

"As for Don Rose, well, would he have worked well in LA? I don't know. I think people related as much to his genuineness as to his schtick. It was clear that he loved people and did lots of charity work. I'm not sure that people in LA appreciate things like that."

I'm not saying there are NO differences, David - but I am saying that they are often exaggerated. To me, at least, there has always been an element of Bay Area snobbery involved, like we're somehow more cultured, and more intelligent. That seems to be borne out by your last statement - in which you speculate that Dr. Don may not have done well in LA because he was "genuine". You state that you don't think people from LA appreciate genuineness, and therefore imply that people from LA are not genuine...not to mention uncharitable. Sorry, but that's a shallow stereotype, at best. As a young man, I couldn't wait to leave LA - I moved here and never missed the place, but I've never agreed with that knee-jerk anti-LA attitude.

Besides, I think Dr. Don was popular here because he was drop-dead funny, and that would have played just fine in LA.

"And yes, there is a cultural difference between Northern California and LA. It goes back to the very foundations of both regions. SF was settled by intellectuals from the cities who came here to pursue dreams. LA was settled by Dust Bowl refugees, farmers, who moved west on a vague promise of work. (The Grapes of Wrath describes it very well.)"

I can confirm that there is some truth to that. I grew up in a right-wing LA suburb with a lot of transplanted southerners who worked in the cold-war aerospace industry (Lockheed, etc) and often had frighteningly pro-war, paranoid anti-communist, backward, and even racist views. I don't think you could find a community that "redneck" (if you'll pardon another stereotype) anywhere in the Bay Area - or even in nearby parts of the San Joaquin Valley. Nevertheless, I don't believe you can extend that line of thinking to Oldies radio stations. K-Earth is not particularly programmed as an LA-centric station. And the current version of KFRC is certainly not "tailored to the Bay Area" - in my opinion, it's just generic and lifeless. If anything, it would fit better in some mid-size mid-western city (market #45, or something) where it would be more obvious that the corporate owners really never leave their corporate big city offices, and didn't give a damn.

 

[BnRinBayArea]

The "Powers that Be" (aka: one of the jocks) at KFRC are making changes!

When the "History of R&R" ends on Friday, we'll (supposedly) notice:

• more 60's
• more 70's pop
• less of a "classic rock" sound

Fingers crossed here....how about you?

 

[DavidKaye]

To me, at least, there has always been an element of Bay Area snobbery involved, like we're somehow more cultured, and more intelligent. That seems to be borne out by your last statement - in which you speculate that Dr. Don may not have done well in LA because he was "genuine". You state that you don't think people from LA appreciate genuineness, and therefore imply that people from LA are not genuine...not to mention uncharitable.

Well, first, there are two kinds of people in LA: those who are in the business and those who are not in the business, the business being the entertainment media. I know a lot of people who have either moved from here to there or from there to here, and others who go back and forth. And I briefly lived there and have gone back and forth between the communties, frequently at one point.

I don't mean to come across as a Bay Area snob, for there is certainly a lot to recommend LA. One thing is that LA embraces the downright silly, where in SF the "silly" has to have some Greater Purpose. In LA, people would shrug over a blow-up Budweiser can balloon on the beach -- ("It's just advertising.") In SF, people would go apoplectic if they saw advertising on the beach. ("My God! It's advertising!") They'd storm the city council or board of supervisors or whatever and demand that the thing be taken down and the perpetrators fined. SF people are way too serious. LA people I think take things in a lighter vein.

But LA people seem to like hype. They appear to embrace commercialism. Being the media-savvy folks they are, they accept the hard edge as something that is "just done" in the media. Here, people rebel against it, as I see it.

As it applies to radio and TV, I think the hard edge, the in-your-face marketing just doesn't sit well with folks here.

And the current version of KFRC is certainly not "tailored to the Bay Area" - in my opinion, it's just generic and lifeless. If anything, it would fit better in some mid-size mid-western city (market #45, or something) where it would be more obvious that the corporate owners really never leave their corporate big city offices, and didn't give a damn.

I've listened to the current KFRC a few times and there's really nothing there for me. I didn't say that I felt today's KFRC was tailored to the Bay Area. I only suggested that maybe the person/people complaining about it might not be in the target audience CBS wants. In reality I have no idea; I'm just speculating based on a fairly intense 10 years I spent in broadcasting and ad agency work. My remarks may or may not be on target. But from my listening so far, KFRC's current stuff sounds like a plug-in format. Most of them do, actually.

To me the Bay Area English language stations that appear to be tailored to the local community are KGO, KCBS, KDFC, KALW, and maybe KQED. It bothers me that KQED spends 1/4 of its broadcast day playing and repeating "Morning Edition". But I'm hard-pressed to think of any Bay Area music station (English language) that tailors its format to Bay Area interests. Maybe KMEL, but I don't listen enough to know.

 

[LKellerIII]

"But I'm hard-pressed to think of any Bay Area music station (English language) that tailors its format to Bay Area interests. Maybe KMEL, but I don't listen enough to know."

Up to about 5 years ago, my kids (now grown up) insisted on having Wild and KMEL on in the car. Though I'm certainly no hip-hop expert, I'm aware that the station - even under the first few years of the evil Clear Channel, did give a lot of air-time to local Bay Area Hip-Hop artists. But from what I've heard, that is largely changed, and it's now just another generic urban any-city USA format.