Movin' 97.5

[Ford]

I've had the station more or less stuck on my car radio this weekend, and I've got a few thoughts...


First off, I really do like a lot of the music they're playing. Its fun to hear Boyz II Men and Prince on the radio without a segue into a Matchbox Twenty song.

Second, what someone said earlier about the processing is dead on...don't change a thing...it sounds great.

That said, I am absolutely underwhelmed by the presentation/imaging. I mean, maybe they're going for vanilla, or maybe this is what the consultants' focus groups decided was the least offensive/most appealing to a soccer mom/non-threatening way to go, but it kinda sucks.

Cruising around town with the top down and Movin' 97.5 on the radio, I couldn't help but realize what they're doing:

Black music for white people. And not the scary black music, but safe, friendly black music.

This was confirmed for me when I heard the same sanitized version of "Motown Philly" from the aforementioned Boyz II Men today that I heard back when they first came out. In that version, the "rap" was taken out of the song because, at the time, white folks were threatened when they heard a rap song on their radio.

That was...what...1992? Haven't we gotten past that?

I'm guessing that this station is targetted at the consultants' idea of what a 35 year old white suburban soccer mom driving an SUV would have wanted to hear on her radio if it were about 1995. The imaging confirms it...I almost expect a sweeper that says "music to move you as you wait in the drive through at Starbucks!"

I mean, it seems like the folks who wrote the sweepers said to themselves "what kind of words can I string together that are simultaneously non-threatening AND sound like the sort of crap that comes out of a focus group?"

 

[Saladressing]

Agreed.

All of these movin stations are WAY TOO consultant-based, and like their jammin oldies predecessors, 99% of them will be of the air in a few short years.

They should've taken a cue from the whole 'anti-radio' sound (both playlist depth & imaging irreverence) of the Variety Hits stations - 99% of which that have signed on in the last couple of years are still on the air.

 

[sfradio]

>>>Please lets not do anything original, that would be wrong...>>>

Except for the fact that Phoenix is the Only market in the United States with both a commercial CHR/Dance station and a Rhythmic AC on the FM dial!

Not to mention the occasional freestyle and classic r&b uptempo music played on Mega 104.3/99.3.

phoenix is not the only one, san francisco has both a commercial CHR/Dance station and a Rhythmic AC on the FM dial

 

[EricStein]

Having a new Urban AC station in the market will be a huge success because of the huge urban population Phoenix has. Also I can just hear the advertisers on the phone wanting to make a buy. Not since Y-95, Pwr 92 and Kzzp were knocking heads have I seen any kind of moxy from any station. This is just another way to fill an FM signal. When will someone step up and put their money NOT in TV advertising to try and get ratings but in people to try and get an audience. Star spent according to them $250,000 in a advertising campaign to kick the Star format off, less than a year later it's dead. Spend the money on the best people for the format you choose. My perdiction is if they stay this course for two years the highest rating will be 1.1 maybe.

I think Trumper must have thought that since the 97.5 signal booms into the northwest Valley retirement communities, that the Star format would quickly gain an audience with their blend of jazz and standards. They did all they can with promotion, but there's only so many people who can stand hearing a Sinatra song once (or even twice in some instances) an hour, or the same "Great American Songbook" song sung by multiple artists per day. Their advertising list showed it: many of the clients were those in the performing arts community. Just like a commercial classical station (except for markets like the Bay Area and Seattle), while this is an affluent audience, it's a small one.

At the end of the day, radio is a business that serves its clients. Trumper and his investment capital partners paid somewhere near $20 million for the newly-built stick alone over a year ago, and the investors want to see a ROI ASAP. They hope the station finds a broader advertiser base with a more "mainstream" format. Although "Movin'" sounds somewhat similar to the original "Hot 105.9" in 1997, they hope that they can actually be successful.

 

[EricStein]

>>>Please lets not do anything original, that would be wrong...>>>

Except for the fact that Phoenix is the Only market in the United States with both a commercial CHR/Dance station and a Rhythmic AC on the FM dial!

Not to mention the occasional freestyle and classic r&b uptempo music played on Mega 104.3/99.3.

phoenix is not the only one, san francisco has both a commercial CHR/Dance station and a Rhythmic AC on the FM dial

Yet both markets have the same situation: the dance stations in Phoenix and the Bay Area each have very weak metro-area signals. While the 97.5 signal has some weak spots, especially in the shadow of the Phoenix Mountains and Camelback Mountain, it can reach at least 70 percent of the metro.

 

[ajhenderson]

IIRC, it was between $25 and $26 mil, about 25% more than the $19.3mil similarly located 95.1 went for in '04.

 

[DrAkbar]

Star spent according to them $250,000 in a advertising campaign to kick the Star format off, less than a year later it's dead. Spend the money on the best people for the format you choose. My perdiction is if they stay this course for two years the highest rating will be 1.1 maybe.

Is that "perdiction" for Movin' 97~five, or Star 97~five? Fact of the matter is Star had less than a one share (12+) after a year. And the demos? Racing toward dentures & Depends! Movin' is too hot of a format to ignore. Trumper had nothing to lose and everything to gain.

 

[Intheday]

Any owner will continue to try any format until they find the one that makes money. The question is how much money can they loose? KKfr in the early days lost millons, can Trumper lose $5,000,000.00 on top of his purchase price before he makes a dime? This is not Seattle in any way shape or form of demographic. Where is the hot morning show like Bruce Kelly back in the early 80's or Crazy Kid in the late 80's. Wher is a hot local afternoon show like a JJ Morgan in the early 80's and a Super Snake in the late 80's? The local passion must be there or the 30 something white female will plug her ipod in.

 

[Joe Cool]

Well it won't take much for anyone to do the jammin oldies format better than Sierra H hasd been doing it. Under Mike Mallace the station has been all over the place musically and with personnel over the last few years and listeners are growing tired.

If Movin can just remain consistent, and <<shocker>> advertise it consistently, and give it a chance to grow listeners, people will be happy to tune in just to know what they are getting from one book to the next.

Anyone know: how is Trumper with paying people? Competitive? Did they do any direct mail with Star? What were their "street promotions" like? If they get halfway serious about those things, then I predict they can bury Mega by SP '07... either way Sierra is in for an uphill battle they didnt count on when they signed up to move that stick.

 

[AZJoe]

Well it won't take much for anyone to do the jammin oldies format better than Sierra H hasd been doing it. Under Mike Mallace the station has been all over the place musically and with personnel over the last few years and listeners are growing tired.

If Movin can just remain consistent, and <<shocker>> advertise it consistently, and give it a chance to grow listeners, people will be happy to tune in just to know what they are getting from one book to the next.

Anyone know: how is Trumper with paying people? Competitive? Did they do any direct mail with Star? What were their "street promotions" like? If they get halfway serious about those things, then I predict they can bury Mega by SP '07... either way Sierra is in for an uphill battle they didnt count on when they signed up to move that stick.

And when are they going to finally move it?

 

[EricStein]

IIRC, it was between $25 and $26 mil, about 25% more than the $19.3mil similarly located 95.1 went for in '04.

It was actually $22.6 million for the stick alone, so I was wrong as well. (note: Peppertree and M/C are two of the investment capital partners for Trumper). If that's the case, that makes the $30M that KEDJ was sold to Riviera for a half-year later a bargain (given The Edge was and is an established station with facilities and cash flow).

As for the message noting that KKFR losing millions for a few years after signing on, it was owned by Detroit beer distributor The Wolpin Company, in which Fred Weber was a partner in. The profits for the distributorship helped ease the early losses at KKFR and KFYI.

 

[EricStein]

Well it won't take much for anyone to do the jammin oldies format better than Sierra H hasd been doing it. Under Mike Mallace the station has been all over the place musically and with personnel over the last few years and listeners are growing tired.

If Movin can just remain consistent, and <<shocker>> advertise it consistently, and give it a chance to grow listeners, people will be happy to tune in just to know what they are getting from one book to the next.

Anyone know: how is Trumper with paying people? Competitive? Did they do any direct mail with Star? What were their "street promotions" like? If they get halfway serious about those things, then I predict they can bury Mega by SP '07... either way Sierra is in for an uphill http://www.radio-info.com/smf/index...lies=30;sesc=d9e7745f3f1d2e08b54b29cab844190a
Post replybattle they didnt count on when they signed up to move that stick.

And when are they going to finally move it?

I think they're waiting for the FCC application for a Towers Mountain move without a directional antenna to be approved (their current CP calls for a directional system, which costs a bit more to implement than a non-directional setup). That could take some time. And, even with the signal being near the location of 95.1, 97.5, and 98.3, 104.3 won't be as strong as the aforementioned three, but there still would be an improvement in parts of the Valley.

 

[jazzdoc]

My fellow musicians and I have thoroughly enjoyed the original format of your station. What you are playing now is nothing but "crap" that can be found on any one of many local stations. Instead of introducing younger people to the real music of yesterday, you are encouraging the junk that they are all listening to today. You have lost a lot of real music lovers and are pandering to the basest instincts of the pierced, tattooed vulgar generation of today.

 

[rkchgo]

My fellow musicians and I have thoroughly enjoyed the original format of your station. What you are playing now is nothing but "crap" that can be found on any one of many local stations. Instead of introducing younger people to the real music of yesterday, you are encouraging the junk that they are all listening to today. You have lost a lot of real music lovers and are pandering to the basest instincts of the pierced, tattooed vulgar generation of today.

And probably making more money at it. Which is what businesses are supposed to do, right?

 

[ephemera]

My fellow musicians and I have thoroughly enjoyed the original format of your station. What you are playing now is nothing but "crap" that can be found on any one of many local stations. Instead of introducing younger people to the real music of yesterday, you are encouraging the junk that they are all listening to today. You have lost a lot of real music lovers and are pandering to the basest instincts of the pierced, tattooed vulgar generation of today.

Haha, this sounds kinda like my grandma when I used to whine for her to change it from Sinatra on the AM to Y95. Granted, I did eventually develop an appreciation for jazz, but that's what KJZZ is for (and if they end up sending someone like me on a goose chase for Ben Webster Meets Oscar Peterson, they're doing their job well.)

I'm quite enjoying some of this "crap" they're playing as a lot of it is the exact stuff I listened to back in the Y95/rhythmic Power92 days (which is the hook they seem to be going with in the promos, "stuff you listened to back in your school days!"). KISS plays this stuff sometimes, but you have to sit through a ton of Chamillionaire and Nickelback first. (I was so cheesed when they did away with the "Back in the Day Cafe"; where else was I supposed to hear Nice & Wild and Freestyle within the same hour?)

So 97.5 gets a preset. Hopefully they'll spin some Zapp and Roger soon.

 

[Ford]

What you are playing now is nothing but "crap" that can be found on any one of many local stations. Instead of introducing younger people to the real music of yesterday, you are encouraging the junk that they are all listening to today.

Turn the clock back a few decades, and the "older" generation would have said exactly the same thing of a radio station playing music from those hoodlums like Frank Sinatra and the Platters.

Popular music changes. Hits become oldies. Oldies become classics. Classics become the "real music of yesterday."

Our grandchildren will think of Alicia Keys and Kanye West in the same way we think of Al Green and Sly Stone...cool, but hopelessly old.

Deal with it.

 

[Mark Adkins]

Here is a copy of a letter which I sent to the President and General Manager of the now defunct Star 97.5 FM. I was unable to send it as feedback to the address provided at the Website because the email address was bad and the email bounced. Perhaps we were never intended to be able to send feedback. Certainly the statement urging Star 97.5 listeners to "give the new format a try" argues a complete disconnect, and lack of sincerity, on the part of management. Also, please don't misunderstand the emphasis of my letter: it simply doesn't work to appeal to troglodytes on the basis of consumer choice, cultural decay, or aesthetics; you have to speak in the one language they understand: money, money, money, money, and more money.

As an aside, I'm 42 years old. I wouldn't have liked most of what now passes as popular music when I was 15. No longer intimidated by peer pressure, more open-minded, and with better developed tastes, I was happy to have discovered at a late age the pleasure of "standards" sung by the greats (both past and present). Now, my listening options have considerably narrowed.
To those who say that music marches on, I say that music has to be judged on its merits, whether it is a month old or 200 years old. To dismiss good songs and good music because it is "old" (by what standards?) is simply infantile.


Dear Mr. Trumper,

I was seriously disappointed when I turned my radio preset to Star 97.5 FM only to find that instead of the wonderful music that has been like a breath of fresh air through Phoenix radio, there was just another rock/pop radio station. It's truly ridiculous that, once again, a major metropolitan market like Phoenix has no FM radio station with vocal music marketed to adults.

Your message to listeners, posted at the station's Web site, states that a decision was made to abandon the format on business principles. I believe that the format change is a serious mistake, for the same reason. Surely you must realize that the market for FM rock/pop stations is already saturated. You went from being the only station in the valley offering music in your niche, to being one of many competing for a slice of market share in an already glutted market. Instead of demonstrating the sort of business vision necessary to realize that, despite your small initial audience, you could built a very good thing (read: lucrative) by means of sufficiently imaginative and persistent marketing, you gave up because the numbers were not there in the short term.

Those who are doling out allowances to their teenage children, or subsidizing their college education, or doting on their grandchildren, are surely every bit as capable as their offspring are, of spending their disposable income on the products and services of your advertisers. Of course, you have to match your advertisers with your target audience.

Another point to consider is whether your best marketing efforts should be directed toward increasing the number of listeners or in making sure that your smaller, more discriminating audience consists of a larger than average percentage of professionals and well-off retirees. Which do you think your advertisers would prefer: knowing that their message is targeted at a large number of persons with relatively little disposable income, or knowing that their message is reaching the ears of well-off individuals who are more likely to be able to afford their product or service? It depends on the advertisers, and what they have to offer, doesn't it? Do you want to run McDonald's or the Four Seasons? Which do you think is more likely to appeal to the Lexus crowd: Prince, or Frank Sinatra? Do they want to hear beautiful music sung by charming individuals, or do they want shrieking, intrusive, distracting blather from the flavor-of-the-day pop star, whose career life-span seems to be shrinking with every passing year, and whose one-time popularity, in retrospect, becomes more and more puzzling and laughable with the passage of time? Purple Rain, or Luck Be A Lady? [Note: the Prince song I actually heard was "You've Got The Look", and even so, it was immeasurably more listenable than the more contemporary stuff which constitutes the bulk of the new format.]

Frankly, it's no wonder that there is precious little adult music available on the FM dial (and we all know what AM is, from an audiophile's perspective) when the people in charge of marketing it think with the same short-term, instant-gratification-or-else mentality as the teens to whose undeveloped tastes they inevitably bow. This needn't be regarded as a personal attack, since in a corporate business setting decisions of this sort are seldom made by one person: but as the President and General Manager you must surely share the culpability.

The good news, I suppose, is your announcement that the format will hopefully be up and running again in the near future. I don't know what this means, since if you shut the format down because you believed it wasn't sufficiently lucrative, it is unlikely to be the case that you would repeat the experiment in the near future. I have a sneaking suspicion that the return of the format will mean some sort of pay-radio or private-Webcast. If so, I think you'll be even more disappointed by those results.

By all means, please notify me if and when a station with the format of the defunct Star 97.5 FM again appears on the regular FM dial. And this time, please choose a frequency sufficiently isolated from its neighbors (or a broadcasting strength sufficiently robust to overcome them) so that I need not hear Tony Bennett interrupted by Megadeth on KUPD when my listening location should happen to stray out of the station's (rather spotty) reception footprint.


Sincerely,

Mark Adkins
[email protected]

 

[zumahans]

That will teach him. Not.

Save yourself the postage and buy a satellite radio.

 

[mr.carlson]

Mr. Adkins' post was "sufficiently" condescending.

Listeners like him are a dime a dozen. They fail to support a station and its advertisers, then send scathing letters full of misnomers that clearly constitute a complete misunderstanding of commercial radio.

My favorite part of the letter is at the end where he suggests to GM that when Star does return, to find a frequency "sufficiently isolated from other stations or sufficiently robust so as to overpower them". HA! :

I'm quite surprised that he didn't use the usual "I'm writing a letter of disaproval to the FCC. You're not broadcasting in the public interest." threat in his letter. He should go have a good cry about the loss of Star over a drink at The Westward Ho or maybe dust off his Dave Brubeck vinyl and put it on the "hi-fi".

 

[testing]

I liked Star. But frankly, I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did. Zumahans is right, whiners like the doc should just pony up a few bucks for satellite radio. I know I have.