I noticed that Cumulus is switching some of their (under performing) classic rock/classic hits properties to AAA. I was listening to 93.3 in Dallas last weekend via net stream, and quite liked what i heard. Will this decision help them in the long run.
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New Cumulus AAA stations popping up everywhere...
- Thread starter leethalweapon
- Start date
DudeFan said:
Why does that limit the appeal?? Give me an example....
SuperRadioFan said:
I'm not sure how this is proven out in the research, probably different for each market. Let's face it - pretty much every AAA in each market is a little different. But here in the Bay Area we have KFOG, a fairly high-rated station. I find that they can get on a great roll with some interesting music that can hold your attention for a while, then they dump in something tired & boring. Yesterday it was Peter Gabriel. I hit the button in my car radio to send it to KPIG and their low-power, low-fidelity AM signal. Better to hear good music in low fidelity.
Just MHO, of course, but that's an example.
Dave B.
Dave, I think you and I think alike. I have observed most Adult Alternative stations I like have some classic rock tracks sprinkled in here and there. Peter Gabriel is fine as long as they play some less heard tracks which is probably what you did not hear!
I'm in Orange County and when 100.3 The Sound arrived 13 months ago, I was thrilled. That lasted a few months or enough time for the PD and MD to decide to take the station in a heavily classic rock lean. Way way way way too much same ol' same ol' for my ears. These days I listen to The Sound for a total of zero minutes a day. I find refuge in Legato Cafe.net, WXPK 107.1 The Peak, WEHM, WRNR (lower fidelity stream which is a valid comparison to the KPIG-AM station for you), KINK-FM, and sometimes WRSI if I really want different. Also have listened a lot to Radio Paradise especially during the times when good AAA streams were hard to find.
For a really good laugh, Dave, check out the Recently played songs on The Sound ;D ....
Here's a link-
http://www.thesoundla.com/?nid=12&sid=275
I'm in Orange County and when 100.3 The Sound arrived 13 months ago, I was thrilled. That lasted a few months or enough time for the PD and MD to decide to take the station in a heavily classic rock lean. Way way way way too much same ol' same ol' for my ears. These days I listen to The Sound for a total of zero minutes a day. I find refuge in Legato Cafe.net, WXPK 107.1 The Peak, WEHM, WRNR (lower fidelity stream which is a valid comparison to the KPIG-AM station for you), KINK-FM, and sometimes WRSI if I really want different. Also have listened a lot to Radio Paradise especially during the times when good AAA streams were hard to find.
For a really good laugh, Dave, check out the Recently played songs on The Sound ;D ....
Here's a link-
http://www.thesoundla.com/?nid=12&sid=275
TheRob said:
I think that's one of the big reason AAA stations have so much trouble. They have to walk a fine line. Personally, I'd take a few more jamband/improvisational cuts in place of the stuff I've heard before. But I recognize that's not necessarily what sells. I tend to listen to WNCW, KHUM, and fatmusicradio when I'm online. All of them have decent quality streams that you can play on your living room stereo. Fat is sort of country-leaning, but in a tasty way.
Dave B.
If you are targeting a younger (mid-30's) rather than older (45+) AAA audience, Classic Rock tracks are death. The Nirvana/Death Cab/John Mayer folks are not going to stick around in large enough numbers, particularly if you have a Classic Rock/Hits station in the market. The Zeppelins, Beatles, etc are not "alternative artists" for the younger lifegroup. They are classic rock or, even worse, oldies. Many of the pioneer stations in the format came from the progressive era, where the Eagles, Zep, etc were progressive artists and expected. But for any start up, you are mixing in the very music that they are trying to get away from... and which are played on 2-3 other stations in the market.
DudeFan said:
Love your last sentence about a start up. In L.A. there's the "start-up" 100.3 The Sound. Debuting on April 8, 2008, by late summer they had evolved away from most new artists and tracks and instead have been relying on a heavy dose of classic rock cuts by a handful of what I like to call The Usual Suspects. Examples: Stones, The Who, Led Zep, The Cars, The Police, The Doors, Santana, old Bob Dylan (nothing newer than 1980 or so), The Eagles, Jackson Browne, Tom Petty, Fleetwood Mac, The Pretenders, CSN & Y, Talking Heads, ad naseum. (Did you check the "recently played link" above for a good laugh? If not here it is again-- http://www.thesoundla.com/?nid=12&sid=275 ) The Sound apparently IS aiming for the 45+ crowd and totally neglecting the mid-30s and younger crowd. While I fall in the former category I absolutely hate what The Sound has evolved into. Getting back to your great statement about mixing in the music some are trying to get away from, in L.A. we have KLOS (Classic Rock), JACK-FM (adult hits) and KRTH (classic hits) which all share a lot of The Sound playlist. I think its OK to play a classic rock track by a classic rock artist or band (hopefully one not played at all or played sparingly by the other stations in town) -- but play it maybe once every 3-4 hours. That should not scare away too many people. But The Sound plays 5-6 per hour!! YIKES!
OTOH The Sound only plays one "new" or "current" cut per hour!!!! OMG !!! Whether that spells "death" for The Sound, it's only resulted in 1.1 (peak) or below (0.7-0.9) so far.The Sound LA, WRXP, etc. are exactly the stations I had in mind when I was typing my comments. I think the inclusion of what are Classic Rock perceived artists is the very reason why those stations are failing to thrive. Moreover, Clear Channel pretty much has blocked The Sound with KYSR, which is outcuming KROQ in the latest PPM's.
Everytime I see Eagles, etc in a new nominally AAA station, I think that it could only be the result of an auditorium test where the right questions weren't being asked.
Everytime I see Eagles, etc in a new nominally AAA station, I think that it could only be the result of an auditorium test where the right questions weren't being asked.
Totally agree with you. Can the "audience" for this format in Los Angeles be THAT different from the "audience" available only 70-120 miles south in San Diego where at least KPRi has evolved away from tired tracks and at least has some uniqueness in its playlist. The Sound fumbled a great oppotunity to really "own" the format/genre/artists. We will never know if that direction would have worked or not given the demographic realities that any "AAA" staion would face in L.A. But at least some of us would have enjoyed it for the short time of its life!
T
TripleAGeek
Guest
Love your last sentence about a start up. In L.A. there's the "start-up" 100.3 The Sound. Debuting on April 8, 2008, by late summer they had evolved away from most new artists and tracks and instead have been relying on a heavy dose of classic rock cuts by a handful of what I like to call The Usual Suspects. Examples: Stones, The Who, Led Zep, The Cars, The Police, The Doors, Santana, old Bob Dylan (nothing newer than 1980 or so), The Eagles, Jackson Browne, Tom Petty, Fleetwood Mac, The Pretenders, CSN & Y, Talking Heads, ad naseum. (Did you check the "recently played link" above for a good laugh? If not here it is again-- http://www.thesoundla.com/?nid=12&sid=275 ) The Sound apparently IS aiming for the 45+ crowd and totally neglecting the mid-30s and younger crowd. While I fall in the former category I absolutely hate what The Sound has evolved into. Getting back to your great statement about mixing in the music some are trying to get away from, in L.A. we have KLOS (Classic Rock), JACK-FM (adult hits) and KRTH (classic hits) which all share a lot of The Sound playlist. I think its OK to play a classic rock track by a classic rock artist or band (hopefully one not played at all or played sparingly by the other stations in town) -- but play it maybe once every 3-4 hours. That should not scare away too many people. But The Sound plays 5-6 per hour!! YIKES! OTOH The Sound only plays one "new" or "current" cut per hour!!!! OMG !!! Whether that spells "death" for The Sound, it's only resulted in 1.1 (peak) or below (0.7-0.9) so far.
[/quote]
Don't see anything wrong with including The Pretenders, Talking Heads, The Police, and Tom Petty on a Triple-A station, and personally, I think the occasional Bob Dylan track would work as well. But yeah, all the other artists don't really fit in with the average Triple-A lineup to me. Generally, the year these stations should start with should be around the mid-1970's or so. Yes, they can have the occasional Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell, Bruce Springsteen, John Lennon, etc. to make it more eclectic (personally, I wouldn't mind The Velvet Underground or Nick Drake on there at all but no commercial Triple-A station seems to do that) but in order to stay in touch with the audience they should probably focus more on tracks from about, maybe, 1977 onwards since that's when punk and new wave came into the picture. If I were running a Triple-A station, I guess mine would be "semi-commercial" (focusing mainly on the hits but also going slightly deeper than that sometimes). A typical track selection would probably be as follows:
"On Call" - Kings of Leon
"So Lonely" - The Police
"No Cars Go" - Arcade Fire
"Live Forever" - Oasis
"One Love/People Get Ready" - Bob Marley
"Oxygen" - Willy Mason
"Golden Touch" - Razorlight
"Tomorrow Never Knows" - The Beatles
"Run" - Snow Patrol
"Young Folks" - Peter Bjorn and John
"Snow (Hey Oh)" - Red Hot Chili Peppers
"Karma Police" - Radiohead
"Shuffle Your Feet" - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
"City of Blinding Lights" - U2
"When You Were Young" - The Killers
"Elderly Woman Behind the Counter In A Small Town" - Pearl Jam
Do you think this playlist resembles any you've heard from a particular station before? If so, lemme know and I'll check it out! THIS is what The Sound SHOULD have been like.
OTOH The Sound only plays one "new" or "current" cut per hour!!!! OMG !!! Whether that spells "death" for The Sound, it's only resulted in 1.1 (peak) or below (0.7-0.9) so far.[/quote]
Don't see anything wrong with including The Pretenders, Talking Heads, The Police, and Tom Petty on a Triple-A station, and personally, I think the occasional Bob Dylan track would work as well. But yeah, all the other artists don't really fit in with the average Triple-A lineup to me. Generally, the year these stations should start with should be around the mid-1970's or so. Yes, they can have the occasional Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell, Bruce Springsteen, John Lennon, etc. to make it more eclectic (personally, I wouldn't mind The Velvet Underground or Nick Drake on there at all but no commercial Triple-A station seems to do that) but in order to stay in touch with the audience they should probably focus more on tracks from about, maybe, 1977 onwards since that's when punk and new wave came into the picture. If I were running a Triple-A station, I guess mine would be "semi-commercial" (focusing mainly on the hits but also going slightly deeper than that sometimes). A typical track selection would probably be as follows:
"On Call" - Kings of Leon
"So Lonely" - The Police
"No Cars Go" - Arcade Fire
"Live Forever" - Oasis
"One Love/People Get Ready" - Bob Marley
"Oxygen" - Willy Mason
"Golden Touch" - Razorlight
"Tomorrow Never Knows" - The Beatles
"Run" - Snow Patrol
"Young Folks" - Peter Bjorn and John
"Snow (Hey Oh)" - Red Hot Chili Peppers
"Karma Police" - Radiohead
"Shuffle Your Feet" - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
"City of Blinding Lights" - U2
"When You Were Young" - The Killers
"Elderly Woman Behind the Counter In A Small Town" - Pearl Jam
Do you think this playlist resembles any you've heard from a particular station before? If so, lemme know and I'll check it out! THIS is what The Sound SHOULD have been like.
Interesting discussion, guys!
I'm at a point where I'm wondering about the classic rock stuff myself. Phasing out that material means finding something else that fills the void so that the careful balance of the other elements would not be disturbed (i.e. what is left starts to play too much). The trick is...what to fill with!
;-)
-Cornelius
LegatoCafe.Net
I'm at a point where I'm wondering about the classic rock stuff myself. Phasing out that material means finding something else that fills the void so that the careful balance of the other elements would not be disturbed (i.e. what is left starts to play too much). The trick is...what to fill with!
;-)
-Cornelius
LegatoCafe.Net
TripleAGeek said:
Take out the Beatles song, and that probably would've matched Drive 105 in Minneapolis if it still existed. I lived in Minneapolis when the format change occurred, and it was a welcome change from Cities 97 fare (they were leaning soccer mom/AC at the time). Eventually Drive 105 became more of a straight-ahead alternative.
D
Dick Skinner
Guest
Nick Drake?
cgould said:
Tasty covers by new artists?
Dave B.
DaveBayArea said:
Maybe. As long as they don't follow the smooth jazz path of remakes (re-doing Hall and Oates type stuff) or that God awful rock remake of Creless Whisper. However, I agree some "tasty covers" could fit well. KHJK in Houston plays a remake of Zepplin's Dancing Days by Stone Temple Pilots...although that cover is a over a decade old. There's a few more cool Zep remakes on that tribute cd from '94. There's a group called Steel Train who has an ep titled 1969, where they do some neat acoustic rock covers of CCR, The Beatles (I've found a ton of Beatles remakes), Bob Marley and David Bowie. Blues Traveler has a remake of Lennon's Imagine, Dave Ghrol has a cool cover of Baker Street. I'm sure there's some more out there.
Hi all! Great to see others discussing what has been a long-time passion of mine, trying to get KFOG (Cumulus-owned SF station) to sound more like KPIG. :-}
BTW, I just listened to The Sound. They were playing ZZ Top's "Legs", which KFOG would never play, but which is fine by me, once in a while. But then they segued into... Jack Johnson's "Upside Down"? WTF!? And after that they went into the Eagle's "Life In The Fast Lane?" Good grief. Even I could program a computer to come up with a better playlist than that. Geeeeeeez.
Anyways, I was actually Googling trying to find AAA or KFOG chart information for earlier this year. I have a script that scrapes their "Now Playing" window and tries to record the playlist. I've got semi-complete data going back as far as 2004-2005ish. But recently some totally bogus entries have shown up because of discrepancies between their internal song database and the outside company that provides Just Played info ("The Radio Experience"). Unfortunately, they fixed some of the errors before I could match up the oddballs (I'm pretty sure that Shawn Colvin's "Whole New You" was not the #1 song KFOG played in Mar 2009. I *think* it was U2's Majestic, but I'm having a hard time digging up historical charts.)
I found this one: http://charts.mediaguide.com/format/Triple_A_C_single.html
Does the C mean commercial, as opposed to NC? http://charts.mediaguide.com/format/Triple_A_NC_release.html
I'd be happy to post what I've got if people think they could help me decipher what was *really* played.
Thanks!
BTW, I just listened to The Sound. They were playing ZZ Top's "Legs", which KFOG would never play, but which is fine by me, once in a while. But then they segued into... Jack Johnson's "Upside Down"? WTF!? And after that they went into the Eagle's "Life In The Fast Lane?" Good grief. Even I could program a computer to come up with a better playlist than that. Geeeeeeez.
Anyways, I was actually Googling trying to find AAA or KFOG chart information for earlier this year. I have a script that scrapes their "Now Playing" window and tries to record the playlist. I've got semi-complete data going back as far as 2004-2005ish. But recently some totally bogus entries have shown up because of discrepancies between their internal song database and the outside company that provides Just Played info ("The Radio Experience"). Unfortunately, they fixed some of the errors before I could match up the oddballs (I'm pretty sure that Shawn Colvin's "Whole New You" was not the #1 song KFOG played in Mar 2009. I *think* it was U2's Majestic, but I'm having a hard time digging up historical charts.)
I found this one: http://charts.mediaguide.com/format/Triple_A_C_single.html
Does the C mean commercial, as opposed to NC? http://charts.mediaguide.com/format/Triple_A_NC_release.html
I'd be happy to post what I've got if people think they could help me decipher what was *really* played.
Thanks!
- Status