KNIK

[jeffdfw]

Okay - KNIK Smooth Jazz in Anchorage, AK (#171) pulls a 3.0 and market #5 (DFW) is still without. ???

 

[Talktalk]

Fact remains, DFW HAD SMOOTH JAZZ, for a long time. No one cared then, why should they now? Except for Cameron Smith...

 

[salemjedi54]

Fact remains, DFW HAD SMOOTH JAZZ, for a long time. No one cared then, why should they now? Except for Cameron Smith...

Speak for youself hoss.

I care....

 

[VERITAS DE VOCE]

You know, talk, you are wrong on so many levels:

1. KOAI routinely had good books. It wasn't there for the air talent, it was the music. So, CBS can get its swerve on with 8 shares up the dial, KOAI had its faithful audience. As a former employee, I should know.

2. Jeff brings up a valid point. Eskimos are coolin' out to Boney James, but no one in DFW can unless they streamcast or get HD radio. Yeah, that makes a LOT of sense. But then again, what do you expect from CBS. (Can't Broadcast #$%&)

3. If Jeff would have changed the heading to something about Smooth Jazz, you would be surprised how many people care, just in here.

 

[jeffdfw]

You know, talk, you are wrong on so many levels:

1. KOAI routinely had good books. It wasn't there for the air talent, it was the music. So, CBS can get its swerve on with 8 shares up the dial, KOAI had its faithful audience. As a former employee, I should know.

2. Jeff brings up a valid point. Eskimos are coolin' out to Boney James, but no one in DFW can unless they streamcast or get HD radio. Yeah, that makes a LOT of sense. But then again, what do you expect from CBS. (Can't Broadcast #$%&)

3. If Jeff would have changed the heading to something about Smooth Jazz, you would be surprised how many people care, just in here.

charles123 & JayDavis come to mind... I care too btw ;D

 

[jeffdfw]

Did you realize that the top 19 US radio markets have a smooth jazz station with the exception of:
Dallas/Fort Worth
Puerto Rico
Boston

ARGH!!!

 

[VERITAS DE VOCE]

Well, ask the Master of Puerto Rico Radio, DE about that one. As for Boston, there is jazz about baseball, yeah?

Isn't there a cyber petition we can send to some schmuck at CBS who can read?

 

[jeffdfw]

Shhhhh! Don't mention DE. He's too busy bothering people on the other threads.

 

[salemjedi54]

You know, talk, you are wrong on so many levels:

1. KOAI routinely had good books. It wasn't there for the air talent, it was the music. So, CBS can get its swerve on with 8 shares up the dial, KOAI had its faithful audience. As a former employee, I should know.

2. Jeff brings up a valid point. Eskimos are coolin' out to Boney James, but no one in DFW can unless they streamcast or get HD radio. Yeah, that makes a LOT of sense. But then again, what do you expect from CBS. (Can't Broadcast #$%&)

3. If Jeff would have changed the heading to something about Smooth Jazz, you would be surprised how many people care, just in here.

THEY HAD A VERY FAITHFUL AUDIENCE. I HELPED ON A COUPLE OF PROMOTIONS THEY HAD WHEN KOAI WAS SISTER STATIONS WITH KRBV AND KHVN. ITS A SHAME THAT I HAVE TO LISTEN TO XM OR WHEN IM AT WORK, SMOOTHJAZZ.COM TO HEAR GOOD MUSIC. THE STUFF ON THE OTHER MUSIC STATIONS HAVE VERY LIMITED APPEAL TO ME. I KNOW SMOOTH JAZZ IS HATED BY THOSE WHO LOVE TRADITIONAL JAZZ, BUT I LOVE IT. IF IT WERE NOT FOR THEM THEN I WOULD HAVE NEVER LISTENED TO THE JAZZ PIONEERS LIKE MONK, PARKER, MILES, GENE KRUPA, COUNT BASSIE, AND DUKE ELLINGTON.

 

[VERITAS DE VOCE]

Let's keep it going gang. Maybe this can end up being our cyber petition to the C.B.S. crew to get a great station back on the air? Oh well, a guy can dream right?

 

[radioinsider2007]

If smooth jazz is so awesome in Alaska, then why don't you all go to Alaska... and please stop beating this dead horse.

 

[MikeShannon914]

Not to be smart-alecky over a sensitive subject, but why not buy yourself an HD radio? One place was running a deal for $59.95. Sure, I miss Smooth Jazz too, just to have something DIFFERENT to listen to on the radio.

Alaska IS nice this time of year, but forget the winters.

 

[jeff715]

Bekuz... HD Radio = Laser disc movies or AM stereo... As soon as I waste money on HD-2 channels they will flip then go away. Tonight I am chillin'... I am hanging in my loft with some candles burning watching the rain and listening to some Sade. Meanwhile - 107.5 is prolly spinnin' Baby Got Back or Michael Jackson or something as irrelevant. CBS Dallas people just don't get it. Yeah - Alaska may get it but so does other places that are not in the top 20. FM IS the new AM. D/FW is a mess.

 

[little1]

CBS gets it.
That smooth jazz wasn't a money maker.

THAT is what they get.

And what many here don't get. That when you boil it down, this is a buisness. Where the deciding factor isn't JUST market share, but profitability.

 

[MikeShannon914]

To bring back an old retort to that argument, I think a lot of the blame has to fall on the sales manager's and AEs' shoulders. The Oasis had the highly unusual selling point of being a station that crossed racial lines, and attracted the mid-to-upper echelon of each race (black and white.) The short time I was there, I became well aware that the black audience was being ignored. The target was apparently 35-54, but from what I saw at events and promotions, it attracted 25-64, both sexes, and heavier black than the intended white. It cut across many boundaries, and, as one could figure, most AE's aren't used to that much latitude in schlepping their station to potential advertisers. The old standby of going to car dealerships to sell ads was short-selling the station's audience. (Well, maybe higher-end cars would have worked.) Any AE will tell you that they'd LOVE to sell ads to companies that serve an affluent audience (affluent people spend more with those companies, and in turn, those companies have more advertising $$$ to spend, AND the AE gets much nicer kickbacks!) but guys like David Henry at CBS push the reps towards quantity and not quality, and the AE's struggle to get anything out there they can find, as quickly as they can, to salvage their job for another day.

To prove my point, the big advertisers on KOAI when I was there were Service King (auto collision repair,) Duncanville Ford, Ritz Camera, and quite a few mom-and-pops and startup businesses. Where's the airlines? Cruises? Vacation packages? Luxury cars? Fine dining? Hotels? High-end realtors? I quickly got the impression that NO ONE CARED. It was a dollar-a-holler. There was quite a bit of crossover sales going on, where, for example, a KLUV rep went to a potential advertiser, and found that they were more interested in buying time on The Oasis. The Oasis reps weren't taught or told to look for anything different than what would sell on KLUV/KLLI/KRLD/KVIL, etc.

As for promotions, KLUV and KVIL were well-outfitted with vans, SUVs, Marti's, even trailers and such for remotes. KOAI had a single, high-mileage Ford Expedition to handle ALL of its remotes and events. We continually used our own cars, or borrowed a KLUV vehicle (and hid it at events) to cover all we had to do. KOAI was indeed the stepchild, even though at the time, we beat both KVIL AND KLUV in 12+ for a couple of books in 2003. None of the KLUV/KVIL marketing budget trickled down to us. We were the little 27kW stepchild who was embarrassing the CBS heritage stations, but we never got the spoils for it.

Homogenizing the format by firing APD Bret Michael in mid-2003 didn't help things, either. The soft R&B was yanked, and the black audience tuned away in droves. The numbers fell steadily thereafter. After Bret left, Kurt kept the station in a 'going through the motions' level...it never grew, never expanded, never branched out, or anything. It was the air talent that kept the remaining listeners tuned it, because THEY were the only ones who understood their audience. You wouldn't believe the "love" and admiration that Lynn, Tempie, Bret and Tim got at their remotes. I wouldn't call it cult-status, but people did indeed appreciate them. Running off Lynn and Tempie because they were making too much money was just plain stupid...and poor Tim Garrison, in the middle of multiple organ transplants, getting the ax as well. At that point, there was really nothing there to listen to anymore.

So to blame the performance of KOAI strictly based on an aging audience and bad music is just not correct. This was a CBS f***-up. They couldn't make the station fit into a convenient, safe, predictable, corporate-formed mold that didn't require special treatment. This is why someone with a brain and an understanding of the Smooth Jazz audience should pick up this format and run with it. 96.7, 94.5, 105.7, 102.9 and 104.1 would all make good homes for it, let alone a few erstwhile Spanish FM frequencies.

 

[mrwonton]

First of all congrats to Mike on the world's longest post. Second of all let's face facts. Smooth jazz is terrible, not profitable, irrelevant, has very few active listeners, and did I mention that it is virtually unlistenable. CBS was right to flip the Oasis because it was horrible. Get off Movin's back you fogies, at least it's attempting to reach out to a demographic that's still lucid. Give CBS a break, they were at least smart enough to realize that advertisers don't want to spend money on a group of listeners that spends a majority of their disposable income on perscriptions, rent at the nursing home, or rides on the short bus. How bout for the sake of sanity nobody brings up irrelevant topics like smooth jazz on this board for a good long time.

 

[board monkey]

No matter how long your posts, no matter how many times you bring this up, CBS corporate will not bring back smooth jazz. It is a crap format and if you really want it that bad download ya some songs and put the ipod on shuffle!!!! Let this dead horse rot and the lil black angles take it away!!!!!

 

[txchipk]

The target was apparently 35-54, but from what I saw at events and promotions, it attracted 25-64, both sexes, and heavier black than the intended white. It cut across many boundaries, and, as one could figure, most AE's aren't used to that much latitude in schlepping their station to potential advertisers. The old standby of going to car dealerships to sell ads was short-selling the station's audience. (Well, maybe higher-end cars would have worked.) Any AE will tell you that they'd LOVE to sell ads to companies that serve an affluent audience (affluent people spend more with those companies, and in turn, those companies have more advertising $$$ to spend, AND the AE gets much nicer kickbacks!)

Reality would seem to differ from the above. If serving affluent audiences is all it took, we would have competing classical music stations in every market fighting over people with real money in their bank accounts.

Sure, advertisers would love to get people with big bucks to buy their products...provided they aren't "too old" (i.e. 55+). If that weren't true, we wouldn't have to keep wondering about WRR's long-term future (i.e. at some point when some city council sells it, no owner will maintain the format since its audience is too old, although well off). Washington saw WGMS killed off despite the fact it's audience was extremely well off and powerful (senators, congressman, etc. guest co-hosting a show, etc.)...but old.

 

[BSchecker]

The old standby of going to car dealerships to sell ads was short-selling the station's audience. (Well, maybe higher-end cars would have worked.) Any AE will tell you that they'd LOVE to sell ads to companies that serve an affluent audience (affluent people spend more with those companies, and in turn, those companies have more advertising $$$ to spend, AND the AE gets much nicer kickbacks!) but guys like David Henry at CBS push the reps towards quantity and not quality, and the AE's struggle to get anything out there they can find, as quickly as they can, to salvage their job for another day.

To prove my point, the big advertisers on KOAI when I was there were Service King (auto collision repair,) Duncanville Ford, Ritz Camera, and quite a few mom-and-pops and startup businesses. Where's the airlines? Cruises? Vacation packages? Luxury cars? Fine dining? Hotels? High-end realtors?

I know for the last two years of KOAI, Cadillac was a main spender on the station. And the Trip-A-Day that seemed last all year would also fit the vacation packages you listed. Smooth Jazz doesn't sell well in this market. CBS needs to make money from all 6 stations so they went to a format/demographic that makes money.

 

[little1]

Where's the airlines? Cruises? Vacation packages? Luxury cars? Fine dining? Hotels? High-end realtors?

With the exception of luxury cars, Most of those aren't 'radio' advertisers. Much more likely to find them advertising in anither medium...