KOLA new music adds

[Neel]

Listening to KOLA 99.9 at work lately, it is starting to sound more like AC than "classics". Heard Goo Goo Dolls "Iris" and Natalie Imbruglia "Torn" today. I've also heard Alantis Morisette on there. Virtually no 60s music, less 70s and more 80s driven playlist. Guess this is the new classics.

 

[kn3ick]

I noticed that same thing this morning. KOLA is doing a great just with there playlist. I love it!

 

[Neel]

Heard Rob Thomas/Santana "Smooth" today.

are pretty recent songs

 

[oldies76]

Heard Rob Thomas/Santana "Smooth" today.

K-Earth 101 plays that too.

 

[ChannelFlipper]

Heard Rob Thomas/Santana "Smooth" today.

K-Earth 101 plays that too.

It is sad to see some of the older titles take off for good. There is a lot of great music from the 50s and 60s, but oldies stations like KRTH ruined the whole genre by reducing library down to 500 titles and playing them ad nauseum.

Just as AOR stations have killed rock by refusing to play anything new for the last 20 years. Kind of ironic that radio, which essentially gave birth to and nurtured rock n' roll music when it was young, is also the executioner that will make sure it dies.

 

[Thomps2525]

In January 2006, Jhani Kaye, program director of KOST, moved to KRTH and immediately made major changes to the playlist, which at one time had shrunk to only 330 regularly-played titles. He dropped almost all of the pre-1964 songs---among the few that remained were Shout, Tequila, La Bamba and You Send Me---and added a few hundred songs from the 1970s-80s plus I Could Fall In Love from 1995 and Smooth from 1999. Kaye also began playing album versions of songs instead of the single edits. KRTH was no longer an oldies station; it became "classic hits." In a typical hour now, half of the songs are from the '70s, one fourth are from the '60s and one fourth are from the '80s.

About the same time, KOLA evolved from "oldies" to "classic hits." And now, as many of you have already noticed, KOLA has evolved even further: all of the pre-1970 songs are gone. The playlist is now 1970s-80s-90s. Yes indeedy, '90s. KOLA now plays Iris (1998), Hero (1993), Torn (1998), Santeria (1997), Smooth (1999), Under The Bridge (1992), Give Me One Reason (1996), Every Morning (1999), Quit Playing Games (1997), Mambo No. 5 (1999), Only Wanna Be With You (1995), You're Still The One (1998), and many others.

The earliest Beatles songs are now 50 years old. The decade of the '60s produced what many consider to be the best music of all time, but those songs have been played to death for the past 40 years and, sadly, a lot of people who were buying records in the '60s are dying. Will KRTH someday follow KOLA and drop all the 1960s hits? Are classic hits stations in other cities adding 1980s-90s music? Do any still play 1950s and early '60s? What is the future of oldies radio? Will songs by Justin Bieber and Lady GaGa someday be "classic hits"? Yikes!

 

[36james]

KOLA is simply updating its flavors if you will, 60's music is pretty much dead, and 70's is also on the way out, i would not be surprised if KOLA becomes a Hot AC station, that play a little older stuff 90's and more currents eventually.

 

[Thomps2525]

So KOLA has decided that the Beatles, Beach Boys, Supremes and Temptations no longer are worthy of airplay but instead we get to hear Madonna, Huey Lewis and Aerosmith every hour. David Eduardo can post the ratings a year from now and we'll see how successful (or unsuccessful) the new format is.

 

[davideduardo]

So KOLA has decided that the Beatles, Beach Boys, Supremes and Temptations no longer are worthy of airplay but instead we get to hear Madonna, Huey Lewis and Aerosmith every hour. David Eduardo can post the ratings a year from now and we'll see how successful (or unsuccessful) the new format is.

KOLA's 25-54 numbers have come down from the mid to high 5's in 2010 to the low 5's in early 2011 to the high 4's in early 2012 to a 4.1 in January of 2013.

That's second to around 8th.

It is pretty obvious that they have a problem in the sales demos. They needed to make some changes before they completely fell out of the top 10 stations in 25-54 because they have managed to keep sales from declining despite the recession and and the declining PUR of radio overall.

 

[Thomps2525]

Don't tell me---they did an auditorium test and "proved" that men in their 30s would rather hear Richard Marx, Phil Collins, Lou Bega and the Backstreet Boys than hear the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Kinks and Yardbirds. Am I close?

 

[davideduardo]

Don't tell me---they did an auditorium test and "proved" that men in their 30s would rather hear Richard Marx, Phil Collins, Lou Bega and the Backstreet Boys than hear the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Kinks and Yardbirds. Am I close?

Nope.

The target of a classic hits station is pretty much 40-54, with a lot of spillage into 55+.

If they test... they likely tested 40-49, about 50-50 male and female.

 

[Thomps2525]

KOLA used to play 1950s-60s and almost every song was a top-ten hit. Then they switched to 1960s-70s-80s and almost every song was a top-ten hit. Now they play 1970s-80s-90s and almost every song is a top-ten hit. And people think there's no creativity or originality in radio anymore!

After two days of listening to the new format of KOLA, I'm hearing a lot of repetition...and the station sounds like a hybrid of KLOS (minus the '60s) and KOST.

 

[Marv-L.A.]

Like KRTH and tons of other Classic Hits stations out there, KOLA has to wean themselves from the pre-Beatlemania stuff and add more tunes from the late eighties. Since KBIG doesn't play as much 80s product as they used, to, there's still a ton of music from the 1985-89 time frame that's been tested in the market, and which would certainly work well for KOLA, although they've seemingly played a lot more classic rock stuff than KRTH has for several years running.

 

[Thomps2525]

Yesterday I was surprised to hear the Eagles' 1980 live version of Hotel California. At least KOLA is playing a lot of 1980s-90s songs that haven't been played to death in the last 20 years...but give 'em time!

 

[oldies76]

there's still a ton of music from the 1985-89 time frame that's been tested in the market, and which would certainly work well for KOLA

85-89?? It seems like 80-82 was just skipped right over. And the stuff they play from 80-85 today is only a small fraction of the total.

 

[Thomps2525]

I've heard a few from 1980-82: Open Arms, Physical, The Tide Is High, The One That You Love, Crazy Little Thing Called Love, Kiss On My List...and Our Lips Are Sealed, one of the few songs that was not a top-ten hit. I've heard enough songs to get a pretty good idea of the playlist, so I know that KOLA will not be playing Coward Of The County, Pac-Man Fever, I Love A Rainy Night or Theme From Hill Street Blues. Instead of safe predictable overplayed 1960s hits, we'll now get safe predictable (and soon to be overplayed) 1980s-90s hits.

 

[semoochie]

This should be interesting, with an entire decade, that apparently doesn't test well!

 

[davideduardo]

This should be interesting, with an entire decade, that apparently doesn't test well!

You have to ask "against whom" before concluding that a certain decade does not test. It may test poorly against a bunch of the current listeners, but the station needs to move younger and so having some of the changed music presenting limited appeal to older listeners is quite intentional.

 

[oldies76]

You have to ask "against whom" before concluding that a certain decade does not test. It may test poorly against a bunch of the current listeners, but the station needs to move younger and so having some of the changed music presenting limited appeal to older listeners is quite intentional.

The big problem with the 90's is all the grunge, hair bands and all the hip hop/ rap that just will not fit on a classic hits station. That leaves you with the just the pop hits from the 90's. Then you take out songs that probably will not "test well", which leaves you a very limited selection after all these deductions. 1996 - 1999 has a decent selection of pop / AC songs, but the early half of the decade could be a bit riskier.

 

[Hot Hits]

I've heard a few from 1980-82: Open Arms, Physical, The Tide Is High, The One That You Love, Crazy Little Thing Called Love, Kiss On My List...and Our Lips Are Sealed, one of the few songs that was not a top-ten hit.

Our Lips Are Sealed reached top 7 in the U.K. with an all boy band! I remember at KOLA we would play Crazy Little Thing Called Love followed by Crazy Little Thing Called Love. Sort of a double play from Fred Cote