crbigband said:
The problem with KAAM (and for that matter most, if not all, music radio) - is the fanatical tendency to pidgeon-hole audiences by age - as if age has anything to do with musical tastes. It doesn't and never has. Case in point - does anyone 30 or older listen to the same music they listened to when they were 14?
And don't hand me that c--p, "Well, that's the way Arbitron does it."
Let's take the ever-important 25-54. What possible relevance does a 25 year old's tastes have in common with someone who's 50+?
None. But no one is seriously programming radio stations to appeal to 25 year olds AND 54 year olds. We're programming them for smaller 'cells' within that demographic, but that 25-54 arbitron breakout is the one that most advertisers care about, so that's the one that gets talked about.
I was born in 1957, the year of Elvis, I grew up during the 60's & 70's. By all right, I should be all about everything from the Beatles to the BeeGees. In the 1980's, Country Music was the rage. Yet, the music I prefer is the music of the big band era. An era of popular music whose popularity ended in 1949 - eight years before I was born!
And don't you think it's possible that you are the exception rather than the rule? Go see a 'classic rock artist' (pick one) and odds are the audience is late 40-s and 50's. Go see Counting Crows or Foo Fighters and odds are the bulk of the audience is in their 30's. "Fiddy-Cent" or some new rap artist? teens and 20's. Are there exceptions, sure, but IN GENERAL, musical tastes fit into generalized age groupings.
When I did the Big Band request show on Sunday nights on KAAM for THREE YEARS, my requests came in from listeners of ALL ages from the 80-something WWll veterans who you would expect to people in their teens and twenties who'd recently discovered the music. My youngest listener was 7. To be sure, there were less WWll generation calling, but they'd been replaced by others who, like me, discovered the music later.
Okay, how MANY 7 year olds do you think you had listening? It's called BROADCASTING for a reason- you're trying to get as BROAD an audience as you can. Which means playing music that is going to appeal to as many people as possible.
I strongly disagreed with McCoy when he offered up that cacamamie tripe that someone who is 55 today was 18 in 1972 so we should be playing more 60's & 70's music, no '30's and a lot less 40's. POPPYCOCK!
If you're trying to appeal to as broad an audience as you can, it's not poppycock.
And this other bit of prevailing "wisdom" that as the WWll generation dies out - so does big band popularity. MORE POPPYCOCK!
In the early 90's KAAM used to do big band concerts-when was the last time you heard about the Benny Goodman band, the Tommy Dorsey orchestra, etc etc touring? When was the last gig that Glenn miller did in this town? (and yes, i know he's dead, that's the point) And If I remeber correctly, KAAM's ratings now are nowhere close to what they were getting when they were originally on 1310.
What evidence do you have, (besides anecdotal evidence), that big band popularity is on the rise? Is "Sing Sing Sing" topping the itunes charts?
When the Dallas Symphony performs a program of Mozart to a capacity house at the Myerson - NOT ONE of the attendees is 300 years old saying, "You fellas play the Magic Flute just like Wolfy did when I heard it in Vienna in 1791!"
Is this teh Dallas Symphony that requires underwriting from the city, massive corporate funding, and a taxpayer subsidized concert hall to stay in buisness?
It's really very simple. Quality is quality is quality. The steak is better at Bob's Steak and Chop House than at a Western Sizzlin'. Logic dictates that music that had a broad appeal from the public in 1940 WILL find an audience in 2009. Greatness is perennial. Music is timeless. The key is the presentaion.
And here you're making the very un-sustainable argument that big band music is 'better' than other music. Music is like art, in that beauty is in the eye/ear of the beholder. You may THINK it's better, and I may think that 50's doo-wop or 60's pop is better. Neither one of us is "right". There is no right when it comes to art, only opinion.
This programming blunder aired for over a year weekdays at 11:00 AM for 10 minutes, with a Friday infomercial from 11-11:30. Shortly after I was hired to do middays, mercifully Andrews Alert went away. But by then, the damage had been done. Even McCoy (AA not his idea) pointed out, "Can you imagine KVIL of KLUV interrupting their music formats in the middle of the day to run this thing?!"
But if big band popularity is on the rise, why did you guys have to resort to airing infomercials in a prime daypart?
In fact, as I said often to co-workers when I was there, "Tweaking the music instead of addressing the real problem (which is the weekend info-mericals & sports programming) is like re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic!"
Most radio stations get the bulk of their listening M-F 6a-Mid. If you really think that your problem was weekend infomercials and weekend sports, maybe you don't know as much about radio as you think you do.
That and more vociferous comments on my part led to my firing. I may be out of a job - but I wasn't wrong. KAAM has lost listeners and sponsors who no longer got results. Is there any wonder why?
KAAM has been losing listeners and advertisers for 20 years because the station has a limited musical appeal, and an undesirable audience from most advertisers perspective.
Until they start to serve the public interest and listen to their listeners, the downward trend will continue.
How does playing music, any music, serve the "publics" interest in any way? Or to put it another way, if playing big band music is somehow in the publics interest, why is playing rock music, or rap music, or the 'best mix of the 80's 90's and today' also not in the publics interest?
