74WIXYGrad said:
I now wonder anybody can remember any great backlash from a format change?
Back when WMMS became a CHR in the 80s, many listeners were wondering "what was going on?".
After all this station ( WMMS ), was born in the underground of counter culture and seeped in the anti-establishment rhetoric of the late 60s/early 70s,
Suddenly it became a trumpet for the, at the time, current MTV mainstream sugar coated pop music . That move was the
polar opposite of what constituted its appeal in the 70s.
The only " backlash" you mention in reality is on discussion forums like this one. Listeners don't care. Radio in not important anymore. Buy an iPod at Best Buy and load it up with
your favorites is the world we live in now. Who needs some payola taking disc jockey to tell you what is " hot" and what you should listen to?
Radio is not dead, but radio's importance in the lives of listeners is falling way below kitchen appliance toaster level importance.
Listeners look for stations playing the music they like, ( see success of The Lake ) or specifically,
their favorite songs. When WMMS flipped format and started reporting CHR in the 80s, the rock listeners who "grew up" with the station liked the rock music and were
shocked when it was replaced by disposable pop. When rock was replaced in heavy rotations by pop artists, the core audience went elsewhere.
When WMMS became a CHR and Michael Jackson, Wham, Madonna, etc became the core artists, a line was drawn in the mind of the consumer.
At that point in time the MTV-CHR pop artsts were getting major exposure on a new medium and selling a whole lot more product than the previous FM radio staples like Bad Company, Led Zepplelin, or the Who. Then that trend changed. Inevitably the CHR product got
STALE, as it does in its cycle of popularity.
WMMS flipped back to rock, and left the CHR game.
So as far as format flips go, WMMS had
several over the past decades. Let's trace. AOR to CHR 80s ) , CHR to AOR ( late 80s ) , AOR to Alternative ( mid 90s ) , Alternative to AOR ( mid 90s ) , then AOR to Talk ( most recent ). WMMS is no longer a music station.
That 100.7 signal has more format changes (5) than any other signal on FM in Cleveland.
And no one threw themselvles off the I-480 brigde the formats flipped. ;D
News, sports talk, country, AC , and black targeted formats are the most stable.
