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KISS switching formats

L

Lame_Listener

Just saw the news on KISS-FM flipping formats and I'm absolutely shocked! I listened to this station from literally when they first signed on the air. Any comments on why they would do this and how this affects the rest of the market?

WOW! I haven't listen to KISS that much lately, but thought they were doing quite well. Maybe I completely missed something, but still, you must admit it's quite a surprise.
 
REALLY?? Cmon...you don't see through this as a promotional stunt???
 
I will second the last post that this is a great publicity stunt. Was told by an employee of the station not to worry about anything. I could be wrong, but I am taking it to mean, nothing is going to change, so don't worry about all of the rumors and on air announcements suggesting otherwise.
 
I caught the stream for a few minutes today, it kept dying on me.
"Kiss FM Goodbye Weekend" is I believe what they were calling it?

Me thinks maybe a vacation/trip giveaway deal coming? "Goodbye", ya know?
Just a semi-educated/have-no-facts-on-this guess
 
I heard they are picking up a 24hr. Syndicated Rock Format.
 
Here's the comment I just posted on cnyradio.com:

Did anyone notice that the front page of cnykiss.com has ZERO mentions of this "goodbye weekend" or the impending format change? Or how about the fact they still have a pretty big graphic promoting the "Kiss FM Summer Internship Meeting" on May 19? That's next Tuesday, the day AFTER the so-called change.

I have to agree with Keith222, I think it's nothing more than a PR stunt. Why would the ONLY top-40 in the market shut down? Aside from overlap from 93Q and Hot in Syracuse, which only affects the western half of the market, there's no competition.

Won't be surprised if, come Monday AM, they say "well, we were going to do something else, but 'so many' of you begged us not to, we decided to keep things the way they are."

====

In addition to that... if the music licensing fees are their beef (as they told WKTV), what the heck do they think there are going to play instead? There isn't a whole lot of royalty-free music out there... and it's mostly from obscure artists nobody has ever heard of before. While that might be great for college radio, internet radio or a non-commercial station, I don't see it being successful on a commercial station. They might as well just hand out free iPods and shut off the transmitter.

But before they even said that... the first thing that struck me as odd is just the fact that they announced the format change 3 days in advance and all the jocks will be retained. While I'm very glad to hear nobody will lose their job, it makes the announcements that much less believable.

Who knows, maybe they are just flip-flopping Bug and Kiss, frequencies for frequencies. But what's the point? The coverage areas aren't that much different. The WBUG signal out of Fort Plain reaches the same parts of Herkimer County as the WSKU signal in Little Falls. WBUG's coverage area stretches a little further east, but it doesn't matter -- anything beyond Herkimer County counts as the Albany book, not Utica. And the Bug does even worse in Albany than it does in Utica.
 
Hi Bob...As I mentioned in an earlier post, it also sounds to me like a publicity stunt and have to agree with you and Keith. I also mentioned how someone at their station stated to me that there was nothing to worry about and don't pay attention to the rumors.

Not sure what that is supposed to mean, but I took it that it meant if you're an advertiser with the station, don't worry, nothing is going to change where you would want to cancel your ads because of a format change.

In years past, if a station were to change formats we were notified in advance of any change in formats to quell any fears. Maybe the situation is different this time around, but sounds to me like great publicity. The part with WKTV making a big deal out of it does not surprise me because Roser's ad agency invests plenty of money on WKTV, so they obviously would help him out with any publicity he might request.

If this change is true, we'll find out soon. If it is a publicity stunt, I give them a lot of credit for implementing it to a tee.
 
Yeah the more I think about it, you guys are probably right. However, what a hell of a thing to do to your listeners? I mean, having them call up like that and everything. Couldn't that back fire when people find out it was all for a publicity stunt? They will have a ton of angry listeners and the backlash could be pretty big. Oh well, as previously stated we don't have long to see what happens.
 
chadwik20 said:
Goodbye Kiss Fm....Hello to WOW Fm...LOL
Click to expand...

Yes, I believe it will be “Wow FM” again (WooHoo! I loved that station!) but I have a feeling it might not be the dance “Wow” format you’re thinking of, one that plays only current dance hits. I think it might be something like this. Check it out:

www.wowradiogroup.com

Could “WOW” Rhythmic AC have it’s first affiliate right here in Central New York? We’ll see Monday.

--The Radio Kid
(Oswego, NY.)
My email: [email protected].
 
Interesting format... actually wouldn't mind having a station carry that here. That's actually kinda similar to Movin' (not exactly the same, but pretty close).

At first, I thought it wouldn't be a possibility, because this looked like a satellite format. But once I got far enough into the demo reel, they finally explained it's a turnkey format (also like Movin) where you get all the music, imaging, etc. handed to you locally, and you can choose to use your jocks, their jocks, or a combination of both. (Kinda crappy that you have to sit through the demo to hear this; there's no page where you can just read this information in text format.)

Still, I noticed every song in the demo seemed to be at least a few years old, with heavy emphasis on the 90s. Not bad, but I still can't believe Kiss (or whatever it gets renamed to) would totally ditch currents. Sure, they blame high music licensing fees, but if you're the only CHR in town and you decide not to run currents anymore, you might as well just hand out free iPods for everyone. If they do completely ditch current titles, it'll be interesting to see how long until someone else flips over to CHR. Only thing is, there are no obvious candidates... all the formats in town seem pretty much locked in. Unless Mindy Barstein finally gets her head of her rectum, pulls Imus off the air, puts Keeler in mornings, and goes CHR the rest of the day... but I don't see it happening. It's too bad WRCK is no longer a commercial station, because that too, would be a great option for CHR -- just like it was in the 80s through mid 90s.
 
I guess they pulled it off well...but really our local media should be ashamed for just taking it at face value
 
I agree I think it's WOW. What goes around comes around. I wouldn't be surprised if with in the next few months most of the WOW line up returns. Linda and Kook are still in the area arnt they? They were mornings...
 
After what I've heard so far since 7:30 this morning, I really HOPE this is a joke.
 
After much thought about this entire ratings ploy, this is my opinion. Let's see how I do. I do not think KISS is changing much of anything at all. Yes, the music might be tweaked a bit, and who knows if they will continue to use their own music or buy from a music service.

I think all of the hype IS ONLY to announce/promote their new morning guy/team and welcome him to the station and area. Nothing more!
 
Congrats to Ken Roser & Co. for pulling off a great stunt. It certainly appears to gained the publicity they were seeking.
Someone mentioned that Ken's advertising agency spends a lot of money on the local media - WKTV & the O. D. and that's why he got the coverage. I have to think, were they in on the scam? If so, where was their journalist integrity? (journalist integrity?). Otherwise the wool was pulled over their eyes just like everyone else.
I do have to say however, in Rochester, none of this would have made the local Gannett paper. The stations could have burned down and a flash flood could have washed the debris away and it would never made it in print.
 
I've definitely seen several postings on various boards asserting that Roser does steer a significant amount of his advertising agency buys towards WKTV. That probably explains why KTV went running down the hill to shoot interviews when they got the press release, and probably why they took everything at face value, without second-guessing any of it.

Let's face it, in small market TV, when a significant advertiser tells you to jump, you're asking them how high. You're not asking why the ceiling is so low or refusing to jump because you know you're gonna hit your head. Larger market stations can afford to tell a client their little PR stunt isn't "news." Smaller market stations can't... especially when that client happens to be an ad agency who controls multiple other clients. Yep, it sucks when journalistic integrity takes a back seat to making clients happy, but that's reality of small market TV, especially in "these tough economic times."

I'd guess the sales relationship is also why WKTV was so "good-natured" in their followup coverage of the hoax. I'd imagine the newsroom staff and management were disappointed about being scammed just like everyone else, and any News Director worth his integrity probably would have cut off the free publicity gravy train... but small market NDs are often and easily overruled by sales.

On the other hand, the O-D, which originally thought the "beautiful music" format was serious, ran an article as such -- but then immediately pulled the link from their homepage when they realized they were scammed. The O-D obviously doesn't get as much business from Roser, because they didn't do a WKTV-like "fluff" piece the same day... rather, they waited until today and labeled it a hoax. (At first, I thought they were so upset, that they just simply wouldn't acknowledge it at all.)

Personally, I had quite a laugh in reading the comments on WKTV's website. People really got fed up! What's the big deal? It's a radio station stunt. It's not like they said they were going to give away free $100 bills, only to have 10 thousand people show up at the mall to learn it was really $100 bills in Monopoly money. This stunt didn't cause any bodily harm, any monetary loss, yada, yada. I think people are just mad b/c they were fooled, and nobody likes to admit they were fooled. I'm not surprised that some people were mad, but I was surprised at the degree of the anger in some of those comments. People need to lighten up.
 
I agree, I think Kiss-FM pulled off a *great* stunt in getting publicity for the station and the new morning show. It's not like RCN to go out on a limb like this but I think doing what they did was a really good thing and an efficient use of resources at hand. It's good to see energy in the Utica-Rome market and it's good to see Kiss being handled so well. The station definitely sounds better since local ownership took over.

Now, if it had been Wow FM again that would have been kind of startling. :)
 
BobRoss said:
Let's face it, in small market TV, when a significant advertiser tells you to jump, you're asking them how high. You're not asking why the ceiling is so low or refusing to jump because you know you're gonna hit your head. Larger market stations can afford to tell a client their little PR stunt isn't "news." Smaller market stations can't... especially when that client happens to be an ad agency who controls multiple other clients. Yep, it sucks when journalistic integrity takes a back seat to making clients happy, but that's reality of small market TV, especially in "these tough economic times."
Click to expand...

The "jump - how high" routine aplies not only small markets, but these days thanks to the economy, to larger ones as well. You should see the inanity that goes on in Buffalo. Stations interviewing their largest auto clients about "proposed federal gas milege regulations;" interviewing Wegman's about "the availability of local produce." You'd think the average Joe or Jane would see through this, but for the most part, they don't.

The Kiss promotion appears to have been well put together; it got good pub locally and even R&R stuck their toe in the water. It was a home run for the PD and new morning guy. They did what it took to get the word out and didn't harm a soul in the process. Isn't this exactly what radio used to be like and what so many of us old goats yelp about on these boards?
 
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