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KROQ

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TheBigA said:
It depends. WABC used to call record stores. Of course now there aren't any record stores. But they were once good barometers of what was selling locally.

There is a lot of music research going on. Record labels do their own research to convince radio stations to add their songs. Publicists use research to build word of mouth. Promoters use research to get people to attend concerts. Everyone wants to know what the listeners like. It's not just radio research.
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If you don’t know what the listeners like, you won’t last long in the radio business. That’s why Audacy Alts have done a complete 180 and gone back to primarily playing rock music.

I remember hearing from Cane and Corey’s podcast when they got fired that they pleaded with The Show Killer that the listeners were not interested in what Audacy was playing and Show Killer told them to stuff it. Sure enough the research came back and nearly all of the markets wanted more rock music and less of the Kid LAROI/Billie Eilish quirky pop stuff.

That’s why John Allers and Christy Taylor make most of the music decisions now. The guy in charge wasn’t playing what the listeners wanted. He hasn’t been fired but he isn’t making the bulk of the music decisions anymore.
 
MarkW said:
...in other words, the online "new music surveys" are phony and dishonest. Why am I not surprised?

Perhaps radio stations need to stop treating their listeners with disdain.
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They may have some limited value in alerting stations to songs that are surging in new media that ought to be considered. But self-recruited research is always invalid.

For example, we know how a poll that is posted on the Fox News site will judge Biden. Any self-recruited pol will have the same kind of bias and problems.
 
TheBigA said:
It depends. WABC used to call record stores. Of course now there aren't any record stores. But they were once good barometers of what was selling locally.
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The problem in bigger markets was that the record ducks would try to "influence" the record reports. They'd give additional free product to report big moves in certain songs, or they would reward staff members at reporting stores.

In one market I was in, we obviated that practice by sending a couple of interns to record stores on payday and the following Saturday to see what was moving. We made arrangements with several big record outlets to accommodate this.
TheBigA said:
There is a lot of music research going on. Record labels do their own research to convince radio stations to add their songs. Publicists use research to build word of mouth. Promoters use research to get people to attend concerts. Everyone wants to know what the listeners like. It's not just radio research.
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Record companies have tried all kinds of studies to see if they could analyze a song and predict if it would be a hit. So far, that has been almost perfectly unsuccessful. There are limits as to how far research can go, and predicting the future is one area where there are too many variables.
 
DavidEduardo said:
The problem in bigger markets was that the record ducks would try to "influence" the record reports.
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Or you got the personal bias from the record store employee. That's why when record sales changed to bar codes, the numbers were so drastically different. Take the human element out of it, remove the bias, then you get real results.

DavidEduardo said:
Record companies have tried all kinds of studies to see if they could analyze a song and predict if it would be a hit. So far, that has been almost perfectly unsuccessful. There are limits as to how far research can go, and predicting the future is one area where there are too many variables.
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Early on, I'd get all these emails from record labels telling me the YouTube views a song was getting. The problem with that is YouTube has a repeat function, so fans could jack up the views without actually listening. Or I get emails telling me a certain artist has sold out his entire tour. Then you see the actual tickets sold or the venue sizes, and you get the rest of the story.
 
DavidEduardo said:
And those "website" invitations do not produce valid results. I know of no successful station that even tabulates such results. It's strictly done for listener involvement and loyalty building.
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Based on some of the responses, I will add (again) that random research does not give valid results. It may, however, help spot trends and has some value particularly when radio station users also spend a lot of time discovering new music online. In other words, it can give a "heads up" warning about new songs or artists or even trends, but can't tell you how to determine current music rotations.

I'm always fascinated by research. When I am asked online to take a poll or survey, I purposely put my age in the range I believe the pollster is looking for, typically a 44 year old male "with some college" and employed fulltime and with (if asked) an income between $45 k and $60 k annually. That gets me in, and I get to look at how the research is structured, the wording of questions, the options on responses and so on.

But the fact is that the researcher has no way of knowing that I ceased to be 45 over a quarter century ago...

This is one of the issues Nielsen fights every day in the PPM world. Families get rewarded only if everyone participates. So, if someone does not cooperate and the family wants that new microwave or some other premium or incentive, they have another family member carry the meter. Or one person alternates their meter and the other person's meter. Or they tie the meter to the dog's collar. Or a ceiling fan.

And the PPM participants are carefully recruited. Yet there are all kinds of pitfalls that can distort the research. When you have self-recruited participants, the distortions multiply. In any field, volunteers are not representative of the overall population. Are the fine people who volunteer to help the Red Cross do blood drives the same as people who don't do community service?

Given the opportunity, getting listener "votes" on new songs or getting them to do a "dream set" of 10 songs or such is a great promotion. Some of the results can be used... I've used the "dream set" to do once a day a music sweep but the set was picked to match the station's library first. And the person who picked the set got a T-Shirt that said "I programmed WWWW's Dream Set" (not my real wording, of course). Done today, I'd feature the person on the station website and paint them as "the WWWW listener family... join him/her/them every day on WWWW for your favorite music".

But in the end, that raw un-recruited research data is not valid except for things like the "dream set" or as a hint about trends and breaking songs. But it's fun for some listeners, and can help less experienced programmers understand the audience a bit better. So it is not invalid, totally.

In Spanish, there is an expression "bueno el culantro pero no tanto". It means "Coriander is great, but in moderation". Same goes for self-recruited research... it can be a tool but not the final product.
 
TheBigA said:
Or you got the personal bias from the record store employee. That's why when record sales changed to bar codes, the numbers were so drastically different. Take the human element out of it, remove the bias, then you get real results.
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Unfortunately, you got bar codes long after the "single" 45 rpm record was pretty much a thing of the past. You knew the big artists and albums, but not which songs were the hits.

But you could use that data productively. In the past, stations would not have more than one current by an artist (that was a big problem when The Beatles had 4 songs in the Top 10 on Billboard), and seeing an album with several hit cuts selling "big" you might decide to have several songs in the current rotation categories and you might even reduce the time separation for "same artist" play.
TheBigA said:
Early on, I'd get all these emails from record labels telling me the YouTube views a song was getting. The problem with that is YouTube has a repeat function, so fans could jack up the views without actually listening. Or I get emails telling me a certain artist has sold out his entire tour. Then you see the actual tickets sold or the venue sizes, and you get the rest of the story.
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Yes! Good point. If an artist was selling out a 4,000 seat auditorium in a city of 6 million, that was meaningless. And even then, how many tickets were promotional, how many were part of some deal with a merchant ("Test drive the new Mazda F-100 and get a pair of tickets to Ginger Goldrecord's show this weekend at the Auditorium") and so on.
 
I wish they'd change back to one of the old logos; the current one is so bland and devoid of creativity. Is that the image the station wants to project?
 
AceBiscuits said:
I sense this is the beginning of KROQ's attempt at the alt/active hybrid discussed prior. Time will tell, but I think this is pretty telling.
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91X just flipped to an '80s/'90s'-heavy alternative rock format. They are branding the station as the "The Original" and "The Real Alternative." Wonder if KROQ flipped to this format it would help them improve in 25-54, or if they would stay away from the shift as it would impact KCBS.
 
MarkW said:
I wish they'd change back to one of the old logos; the current one is so bland and devoid of creativity. Is that the image the station wants to project?
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Logos have become very simplified as they now have to be clean and clear for online buttons and links.
 
This isn't a new sound for KROQ, it's simply a return to the pre-2020 tweak. With the kind of ratings it would have had back then without Kevin & Bean. Yawn
 
TheBigA said:
They're playing all the "burned to a crisp" songs that everyone here says people hate.
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As you and I both know, A, those are the very songs which will resonate with the audience 91X is aiming at with this format tweak.

I will not bother naming those who will disagree because of their own biases. Everyone here knows who they are.
 
TheBigA said:
They're playing all the "burned to a crisp" songs that everyone here says people hate.
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So far, 91X has dug deeper and plays some real gems for those of us who were into this format before grunge dominated the gold category. I don't know when the last time was that KROQ spun Midnight Oil or XTC. 91X, so far, is doing this a bit differently.

And I for one, quite like it.
 
Andy Travis said:
So far, 91X has dug deeper and plays some real gems for those of us who were into this format before grunge dominated the gold category. I don't know when the last time was that KROQ spun Midnight Oil or XTC. 91X, so far, is doing this a bit differently.

And I for one, quite like it.
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Hey Andy how are things at wkrp in Cincinnati? Is jenny still the receptionist? Not quite the sex goddess she once was. Bailey looks rough. Herb Mr Carlson Dr fever no longer with us. Last I saw you got the station up to number 3 blowing the station up from easy listening to rock. Nice job dude. Hey I have a idea for a promo this Thanksgiving...Drop some turkeys from the sky don't know if it has ever be done lol
 
macattack said:
If you don’t know what the listeners like, you won’t last long in the radio business. That’s why Audacy Alts have done a complete 180 and gone back to primarily playing rock music.

I remember hearing from Cane and Corey’s podcast when they got fired that they pleaded with The Show Killer that the listeners were not interested in what Audacy was playing and Show Killer told them to stuff it. Sure enough the research came back and nearly all of the markets wanted more rock music and less of the Kid LAROI/Billie Eilish quirky pop stuff.

That’s why John Allers and Christy Taylor make most of the music decisions now. The guy in charge wasn’t playing what the listeners wanted. He hasn’t been fired but he isn’t making the bulk of the music decisions anymore.
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That reminds me when show killer was PD at alt 98.7...He was on the woody show arguing with them...But when he left woody played a mudvayne song saying even if this isn't your cup of tea be happy knowing show killer will hate it and cringe
 
You know, Patrick, I am probably not the only person who is tiring of you bringing "show killer" into every discussion about KROQ or KYSR, and I bet there are a lot of people who have no idea who you are talking about.

To use one of your catchphrases ... just sayin'.
 
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