• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Lafayette 12+ (Spring 2005)

S

Stelly

Interesting book this go-round... KNEK holds onto its first place position, KRKA continues to dominate KSMB (who in turn, fluctuates back down), KBON's upgrade to 50kw seems to have paid off, and KFTE pulls quite a gain to ease back into the top ten.

Out-of-towners (not including Baton Rouge) making an appearance are KSTE/New Orleans and KZMZ/Alexandria. KBIU/Lake Charles doesn't show up as they have in other books after their downgrade to C2/103.3 - you can't pick them up in Lafayette anymore.

Stelly<P ID="signature">______________
AMFMAcadiana: http://www.amfmacadiana.com</P>
 
Maybe we are looking at a different book.

Yes, KNEK held on to first, why? who knows. KRKA is ahead of
KSMB but a half share is hardly domination. Yes, KSMB did go
down, but so did KRKA. My guess is that KTDY picked up a few
CHR listeners this go round. KBON did pick up almost 2 shares
but they are still at 25kw. They moved their tower 12 miles to
Eunice but still have the same C3 they had before. They had
WNOE downgraded to C0 to allow the move. KFTE did pickup a
little over a full share which is odd for a 18-34 male station.

The big news really is KMDL beating KXKC. Overall Regent did
well with most of their stations. Citadel was flat on KNEK and
down on the other 3 stations. Pittman was flat, Broadcast
Partners was down, and KSTE is still licensed to Houma.

Other than that I agree with you Stelly
 
I'm not very familiar with the Lafayette market, so forgive me if I sound moronic. I was down to see a Shinedown concert last summer that was put on by Planet Radio. I listened to them on the way back to my hotel room and was very impressed. Then when I got home and saw the ratings, I was scratching my head. I'm a big fan of the alternative format and wish we could get a solid alt station up here in Monroe. What are everyone's thoughts on Planet Radio down in the market itself? That's just coming from an outsider's POV.
 
Planet promotes the hell out of themselves with what appears to be (from the outside) a nice promotional budget. We're talking concerts out the ying-yang, fly-aways, cash, etc. The whole cluster buddies up with UL-Lafayette since they have the rights to the games and Planet takes full advantage of it, which they should, because well duh. Promotions wise they kick ass, think outside the box on occasion and generally do a great job. The on-air product is matter of debate depending on your programming philosophy.
 
The Lafayette ratings haven't made sense in 3 books. KNEK stays flat. Why this station is #1 still blows my mind. Listen to this thing and you'd understand. The best part is the zydeco show on the weekends. They don't promote it that much and it just appeared out of the blue 3 books ago after being middle of the road for years. Nothing's really changed. You mean to tell me having Tom Joyner in the morning and ABC's The Touch at night cranked it up that much in a book?

WBWorld had a good story with KRKA and KSMB's losses going to KTDY and that still isn't enough to warrant KTDY's gain unless you suspect Rush and Hannity got old for some and they jumped from KPEL-FM back to music on KTDY. And if you follow that conspiracy theory we still don't know where KFTE's jump came from.

KBON moved in closer to Lafayette and took some more out of KROF, but still not enough to account for the rise. Even what's left over from what KXKC lost that didn't go to KMDL added to KBON isn't enough. Maybe they're coming from non-rated KRVS. I don't know.

The 12+ doesn't make sense to me. That market has been on the spin cycle for awhile. It will be interesting to see what the target demos look like.
 
> I'm not very familiar with the Lafayette market, so forgive
> me if I sound moronic. I was down to see a Shinedown
> concert last summer that was put on by Planet Radio. I
> listened to them on the way back to my hotel room and was
> very impressed. Then when I got home and saw the ratings, I
> was scratching my head. I'm a big fan of the alternative
> format and wish we could get a solid alt station up here in
> Monroe. What are everyone's thoughts on Planet Radio down
> in the market itself? That's just coming from an outsider's
> POV.
>

I'll field this one, guys. ;)

I think that Planet's biggest problems are music and personality. They promote the hell out of themselves, but what's promotion without the product to back it up.

Planet Radio was created in 1997 when ComCorp bought Schilling Distributors' radio stations (KMDL, KFTE). They used it as a flanker to KTDY so that KSMB's numbers would go down and KTDY would default to the top. They sounded weird their first couple of days, because not all of the Cool 96 music had been taken out. They would segue from Chalk Pharm to Tom Petty, Nirvana to Little River Band, and so forth. After a couple of weeks (and Dave Hubbell's music collection :p) they started to siphon out the Cool 96 music and sounded much better - they were straight up alternative, not leaning to one side or the other, and the jocks were upbeat, fit the format, and had personality (most notably Peter Gunn, nee "Mutt" from 97-3 the Dawg). At the time, Planet was quick on adds and had a decent library.

After a while, the personalities began to leave or were pushed out one by one, and were replaced by the class that's more or less holding the fort today. This group had a lot less life to it, and was reduced to nothing more than liner card readers: "Planet Radio 96.5, South Louisiana's New Rock, that was ___ with ___. I'm ___ - stay tuned, more nonstop new rock next with ___ and ___."

In late 2001, Dave Steele handed PD duties over to morning guy (former sidekick to Fast Eddie on "the Rude Awakening," which was a decent show) Rob Summers. Upon Rob's installation, a new consultant was brought in who took Planet towards more of a harder edge. This resulted in cutting a large portion of gold and recurrents out of the playlist. All that remained were the "hits." Nowadays, Planet calls themselves alternative (at least in the trade magazines; no mention of "alternative" is made on-air,) but sounds like it's programmed by the guys that tortured the kids that listened to alternative music in high school. They're slow to react on new music unless it's Staind, Nickelback, 3 Doors Down, or the pop punk emo crap band of the week. If a new song doesn't fit the mold, it's added, played for a few weeks, and is subsequently dropped, never to be heard from again.

The presentation isn't even that good - they just switched to a new voice guy (Andy Safnauer) who sounds more active rock than alternative, they're constantly using dry segues, and they don't talk over the intros/outros of songs (they don't even use a talkover pad when they're talking between songs), which completely throws off the flow of the music sweeps. If this was freeform or AAA, I would think it was acceptable, but it's not.

Planet is now merely a shell of its former self, catering to angry 15-year-old males with lame jocks who try to be and fail miserably at being witty. If I had a choice between Planet and 104 the X, I'd go with KNXX in a heartbeat... even though they are a shell of X104.5.com themselves, the DJs they do have know how to cut a break and ramp an intro, plus they know what a recurrent is.

Stelly<P ID="signature">______________
AMFMAcadiana: http://www.amfmacadiana.com</P>
 
Amen.

> I'll field this one, guys. ;)
>
> I think that Planet's biggest problems are music and
> personality. They promote the hell out of themselves, but
> what's promotion without the product to back it up.
>
> Planet Radio was created in 1997 when ComCorp bought
> Schilling Distributors' radio stations (KMDL, KFTE). They
> used it as a flanker to KTDY so that KSMB's numbers would go
> down and KTDY would default to the top. They sounded weird
> their first couple of days, because not all of the Cool 96
> music had been taken out. They would segue from Chalk Pharm
> to Tom Petty, Nirvana to Little River Band, and so forth.
> After a couple of weeks (and Dave Hubbell's music collection
> :p) they started to siphon out the Cool 96 music and sounded
> much better - they were straight up alternative, not leaning
> to one side or the other, and the jocks were upbeat, fit the
> format, and had personality (most notably Peter Gunn, nee
> "Mutt" from 97-3 the Dawg). At the time, Planet was quick on
> adds and had a decent library.
>
> After a while, the personalities began to leave or were
> pushed out one by one, and were replaced by the class that's
> more or less holding the fort today. This group had a lot
> less life to it, and was reduced to nothing more than liner
> card readers: "Planet Radio 96.5, South Louisiana's New
> Rock, that was ___ with ___. I'm ___ - stay tuned, more
> nonstop new rock next with ___ and ___."
>
> In late 2001, Dave Steele handed PD duties over to morning
> guy (former sidekick to Fast Eddie on "the Rude Awakening,"
> which was a decent show) Rob Summers. Upon Rob's
> installation, a new consultant was brought in who took
> Planet towards more of a harder edge. This resulted in
> cutting a large portion of gold and recurrents out of the
> playlist. All that remained were the "hits." Nowadays,
> Planet calls themselves alternative (at least in the trade
> magazines; no mention of "alternative" is made on-air,) but
> sounds like it's programmed by the guys that tortured the
> kids that listened to alternative music in high school.
> They're slow to react on new music unless it's Staind,
> Nickelback, 3 Doors Down, or the pop punk emo crap band of
> the week. If a new song doesn't fit the mold, it's added,
> played for a few weeks, and is subsequently dropped, never
> to be heard from again.
>
> The presentation isn't even that good - they just switched
> to a new voice guy (Jimmy Longtrain) who sounds more active
> rock than alternative, they're constantly using dry segues,
> and they don't talk over the intros/outros of songs (they
> don't even use a talkover pad when they're talking between
> songs), which completely throws off the flow of the music
> sweeps. If this was freeform or AAA, I would think it was
> acceptable, but it's not.
>
> Planet is now merely a shell of its former self, catering to
> angry 15-year-old males with lame jocks who try to be and
> fail miserably at being witty. If I had a choice between
> Planet and 104 the X, I'd go with KNXX in a heartbeat...
> even though they are a shell of X104.5.com themselves, the
> DJs they do have know how to cut a break and ramp an intro,
> plus they know what a recurrent is.
>
> Stelly
>
<P ID="signature">______________
Like a rock-n-roll Jesus with a Cowboy Mouth</P>
 
> Planet promotes the hell out of themselves with what appears
> to be (from the outside) a nice promotional budget. We're
> talking concerts out the ying-yang, fly-aways, cash, etc.
> The whole cluster buddies up with UL-Lafayette since they
> have the rights to the games and Planet takes full advantage
> of it, which they should, because well duh. Promotions wise
> they kick ass, think outside the box on occasion and
> generally do a great job. The on-air product is matter of
> debate depending on your programming philosophy.
>


Stelly, you hit the nail on the head. I was a sophmore at ULL when I heard Nirvana playing on my radio that was on Cool 96 the day before. I had to listen for a while to see if something had really changed. I was ecstatic to hear new rock, as it was no longer present after the demise of 100.7 The Tiger. Years went by and after the original krewe eventually left, the station, as you said went downhill. I lived in Lafayette from the Cool 96 days up until about 18 months ago when I moved to Metairie. I still go back to the area at least 3x/month and can't believe how much planet is still spinning the same 'ol gold they were spinning YEARS ago. Thankfully, they dropped the Matchbox 20 and lighter songs, but these guys need to stop burning out the same Pearl Jam, Chili Pepper, etc. songs. KKND and KNXX have improved dramatically over the past year or so and I've seen the station I went through 5 years of college at UL with go FAR DOWN HILL! I'd like to see KFTE's playlist and airstaff get a facelift.

Steven.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom