New Format idea - feedback welcome

[JD36108]

For about 7 years now, i've been streaming Alternative Rock over on thebuzzalternativerock.com- The Buzz and i have been thinking about shaking things up quite a bit.

My idea wouldn't necessarily be a NEW format, but rather a reboot of the old AOR format.

i've listened to a few AOR stations, including my own local station, 107.1 The Vault here in Montgomery, Al and thought about what a modern reboot of the format could sound like.

at it's core would be long form and deep cuts from Alt/modern rockers like Foo fighters, nirvana, ect. with long form/jam acts like phish and dave matthews band.

would this be of any interest to anyone? or am i thinking way too far out of the box?

i ask because the traditional AOR stations i have come across all seem to be all over the place with the music they play, from 70's soft rock to 80's yacht rock on most stations, with no consistency.

 

[TheBigA]

would this be of any interest to anyone? or am i thinking way too far out of the box?

As a subscription based streaming channel? Sure. As a member supported non-commercial FM, along the lines of WFUV in New York? Maybe. But I don't see ad-supported commercial FMs being interested. As I often say, commercial radio doesn't see itself in the free music distribution business. There are other ways for people to get their music now that didn't exist in AOR's heyday. The purpose of AOR at the time was to promote albums. That time has passed, and the commercial viability of it has also passed.

But hey, when John Sebastian proposed his "Wow Factor" format four years ago, I thought he was on drugs. But he found a station that was interested, and he's been happily employed ever since.

 

[Theater of My Mind]

There are non-commercial Triple-A stations like this. WFUV New York comes to mind doing almost exactly what you describe with alternative acts in the mix alongside deep cuts from folk, blues and classic rock artists including the ones you mentioned. There are others like KCSN Los Angeles. The non-commercial AAA's usually go deeper than their commercial Triple-A counterparts.

 

[JD36108]

As a subscription based streaming channel? Sure. As a member supported non-commercial FM, along the lines of WFUV in New York? Maybe. But I don't see ad-supported commercial FMs being interested. As I often say, commercial radio doesn't see itself in the free music distribution business. There are other ways for people to get their music now that didn't exist in AOR's heyday. The purpose of AOR at the time was to promote albums. That time has passed, and the commercial viability of it has also passed.

But hey, when John Sebastian proposed his "Wow Factor" format four years ago, I thought he was on drugs. But he found a station that was interested, and he's been happily employed ever since.

I’m not looking to market this to anywhere beyond my own streaming station.

I mean, if I do it and catches on with interest from an FM station, sure.

 

[JD36108]

There are non-commercial Triple-A stations like this. WFUV New York comes to mind doing almost exactly what you describe with alternative acts in the mix alongside deep cuts from folk, blues and classic rock artists including the ones you mentioned. There are others like KCSN Los Angeles. The non-commercial AAA's usually go deeper than their commercial Triple-A counterparts.

And if you go to my site in the original post above and listen for an hour or so, you’ll hear deep cuts and b-sides in full rotation too.

What I wanted to do is take out the hits and just play the deep cuts and live or acoustic versions.

 

[TheBigA]

I’m not looking to market this to anywhere beyond my own streaming station.

That's the thing about streaming. There is virtually no risk in doing limited interest programming.

It's why Audacy puts its weaker selling formats on either HD-2 or a streaming channel. They know there's likely some interest, but not enough that they can monetize it.

To my thinking however, the music business has changed a lot in the last 20 years. So while there was a lot of excitement and interest in "album oriented rock" in the 80s, very few artists are making albums the way they did then. I think of rock operas, theme records, and live albums. Deep cuts then were part of the overall body of work. Now they seem more like filler. We're more song oriented now, as we were before the album era. Of course the digital radio rules in the DMCA were really designed to prevent stations from playing entire sides of albums, such as Dark Side of the Moon.

 

[Saladressing]

Anytime someone goes outside the so-called normal thinking - especially on a streaming station - and creates art that could resonate with an audience of people - it's a good thing. Might as well spice things up especially if there's no major profit directive.

 

[Theater of My Mind]

Of course the digital radio rules in the DMCA were really designed to prevent stations from playing entire sides of albums, such as Dark Side of the Moon.

Which is a real shame. Absolutely horrible piece of legislation written by music industry lobbyists afraid people would record streaming music from the internet. They had zero ability to envision a future where technology would not resemble something out of the 80s where people were destroying their business by making cassette tape recordings off the radio.

Canada's CBC Radio 2 still features a full album every Friday, playing it front-to-back, narrated with all the interesting backstory details in the breaks between songs. AOR radio used to be able to do that here too, back in the day. It was a great feature then, and since Canada doesn't have such stupid DMCA laws it's still a great feature up there today.

 

[TheBigA]

Which is a real shame. Absolutely horrible piece of legislation written by music industry lobbyists afraid people would record streaming music from the internet. They had zero ability to envision a future where technology would not resemble something out of the 80s where people were destroying their business by making cassette tape recordings off the radio.

I would have thought that small part of the legislation would have been removed or repealed a few years ago in the Music Modernization Act. The opportunity was there, but no one brought it up.

 

[Saladressing]

Fair points were made earlier about singles (as opposed to album) culture and hit culture. The idea used to be to listen to a whole recording start to finish. Doesn't happen like that nearly as much anymore.

 

[Theater of My Mind]

And if you go to my site in the original post above and listen for an hour or so, you’ll hear deep cuts and b-sides in full rotation too.

What I wanted to do is take out the hits and just play the deep cuts and live or acoustic versions.

Yeah, that's pretty esoteric. Without any hits to anchor the format I think you'd really be serving a specific kind of musicphile whose tastes you hope will align with your own. I'd expect it to be a pretty small bunch, but those who discover it might really like what you're doing. It's your station, so you can do whatever you want.

 

[JD36108]

Yeah, that's pretty esoteric. Without any hits to anchor the format I think you'd really be serving a specific kind of musicphile whose tastes you hope will align with your own. I'd expect it to be a pretty small bunch, but those who discover it might really like what you're doing. It's your station, so you can do whatever you want.

the hits are there currently, i was just bouncing ideas off the wall for my plans for a rebooted AOR that relied less on the hits, not saying i won't play them at all, just kinda bury them lower in the selection so that lesser played/known songs get air time.

Right now, my current format is playing 80% older "Gold" Songs and 20% newer alt rock, which is about the norm for what many Alternative stations are doing.

i'm constantly evolving the sound of my stream and at the same time looking through old charts from long gone alt rock stations like WRAX birmingham and project 96.1 atlanta as models to build off what they did right.

 

[TheBigA]

i'm constantly evolving the sound of my stream and at the same time looking through old charts from long gone alt rock stations like WRAX birmingham and project 96.1 atlanta as models to build off what they did right.

I just listened to the stream and it's really well done. Compliments to all of you. This is not some hobby stream. My only question is why limit the target to Birmingham? It's called the world wide web for a reason.

My sub-question to that is why focus only on one stream? Do this AOR station as an alternate alternative. There are no limits on the number of stations on the web.

 

[JD36108]

I just listened to the stream and it's really well done. Compliments to all of you. This is not some hobby stream. My only question is why limit the target to Birmingham? It's called the world wide web for a reason.

My sub-question to that is why focus only on one stream? Do this AOR station as an alternate alternative. There are no limits on the number of stations on the web.

1. thanks..i'm a one man staff, though i do have shows on barter. i used my nearly 18 years in terrestrial radio to make this sound more than just a hobby, i hope you bookmark it and make it a regular listening destination. currently it's avilable via tunein app and Live365's app...i don't have the budget at the moment to afford my own app but working on it.

2. i'm based out of Montgomery, Alabama, i used WRAX out of b'ham just as a template to build the station off of, even though i have a few local sponsors, it's not marketed locally..as a good 75% of listeners are from New York/toronto area.

 

[TheBigA]

1. thanks..i'm a one man staff, though i do have shows on barter.

I was wondering why the names were so familiar.

75% of listeners are from New York/toronto area.

Not surprised at all.

 

[Saladressing]

Agreed with the earlier compliments about the station. Great imaging!

 

[JD36108]

Agreed with the earlier compliments about the station. Great imaging!

thanks, i use a combo of imagingthing.com for my main voices along with plug and play elements from benztown i pay a monthly fee for, plus my own skills with adobe audition i've fine tuned over the years.

 

[davideduardo]

After reading this whole thread, and it is a very fun read, I'd say that this is not "a new format idea" but, rather, an idea discussed and maybe even researched in the past but never implemented on a fulls signal FM because it had limited appeal.

That's not to say that it does not have some appeal... just not enough. But that means it is a perfect streaming format because nobody will "steal" the concept for a "real" station.

The more you work on it the more you will learn. Maybe even do some "vote in / vote out" promotions online to find song preferences and find out what songs annoy some people. You'll likely find some songs have equal love and hate scores, and then you will have to figure out whether to play them, perhaps surrounding them with bit all-positive score songs.

Do a "one hour test" and have listeners come back at a very specific appointment time and vote on each song. Listeners love to participate, and feeling that you listen and care is a great audience builder.

Figure out other ways to make your listeners part of the format. You have nothing monetary to loose, so try new ideas... particularly the ones us "radio pros" keep saying will not work. Create your own world using a music library and selection that is not comparable to anything on radio or satellite. Most of all, and it seems you are doing this, have fun. It's contagious.

 

[tall_guy1]

For about 7 years now, i've been streaming Alternative Rock over on thebuzzalternativerock.com- The Buzz and i have been thinking about shaking things up quite a bit.

My idea wouldn't necessarily be a NEW format, but rather a reboot of the old AOR format.

i've listened to a few AOR stations, including my own local station, 107.1 The Vault here in Montgomery, Al and thought about what a modern reboot of the format could sound like.

at it's core would be long form and deep cuts from Alt/modern rockers like Foo fighters, nirvana, ect. with long form/jam acts like phish and dave matthews band.

would this be of any interest to anyone? or am i thinking way too far out of the box?

i ask because the traditional AOR stations i have come across all seem to be all over the place with the music they play, from 70's soft rock to 80's yacht rock on most stations, with no consistency.

AAA went away about a decade ago on the commercial side though, so I doubt this would fare much better. It might work for a non-com or maybe mix in tracks perhaps and slowly see if it works on a traditional alt station, and if it does not, then back off the idea.

 

[JD36108]

After reading this whole thread, and it is a very fun read, I'd say that this is not "a new format idea" but, rather, an idea discussed and maybe even researched in the past but never implemented on a fulls signal FM because it had limited appeal.

That's not to say that it does not have some appeal... just not enough. But that means it is a perfect streaming format because nobody will "steal" the concept for a "real" station.

The more you work on it the more you will learn. Maybe even do some "vote in / vote out" promotions online to find song preferences and find out what songs annoy some people. You'll likely find some songs have equal love and hate scores, and then you will have to figure out whether to play them, perhaps surrounding them with bit all-positive score songs.

Do a "one hour test" and have listeners come back at a very specific appointment time and vote on each song. Listeners love to participate, and feeling that you listen and care is a great audience builder.

Figure out other ways to make your listeners part of the format. You have nothing monetary to loose, so try new ideas... particularly the ones us "radio pros" keep saying will not work. Create your own world using a music library and selection that is not comparable to anything on radio or satellite. Most of all, and it seems you are doing this, have fun. It's contagious.

First off, thank you to everyone who has taken the time to stop, read and reply to this little ol' thread.

again david, i more or less used the words "format reboot" and yes it's something i had been considering and just wanted to bounce ideas off before actually pulling the trigger on it.

With the success from netflix giving the spotlight to older songs like Kate Bush's "Running up the hill" and the cramp's "The Goo Goo Muck" , i have not only thrown those songs into daily rotation, but after they ran their course in power, i am running a "One Hour" test where i play a lot of stuff from as old as 1975 up to 1999 at 12pm central time Monday thru friday in a show i call the classics cafe.

here's what i have on today's Menu:

Talking heads - psycho killer
Stan Bush - The Touch
The Donnas - Skintight
Primus - John The Fisherman
Guns N' Roses - Welcome to the jungle
The Dandy Warhols - Not if you were the last junkie on earth
The Smithereens - A Girl Like You
Black Lab - wash it away
Blues Traveler - Canadian Rose
Presidents of the USA - Mach 5
Buckcherry - for the movies
Elastica - connection
Mcqueen Street - in Heaven