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Nov 6+..and still no WOW!

tbolt909 said:
You "prepare" by having a plan and then trying to execute it. If the plan was to launch with only music and add personalities later, then yes it's a work in progress.
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Did you read the interview? He talked about personalities. After three months, there are no personalities. So that's why I say it's a work in progress.

tbolt909 said:
The sales department is responsible for finding clients. In this case, maybe Sebastian "is" the sales department.
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The John Sebastian I know never sold a single spot.

tbolt909 said:
WOW is hardly "a brand new" concept. It's another variation of JACK or the many tired "Variety" formats.
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I'm just quoting him. He thinks he's got something never tried before. JACK aims at 25 to 54, not over 55.

tbolt909 said:
Not all Boomers are the same. That's a huge number of people with diverse tastes. The tired WOW music doesn't represent what all Boomers want...
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There is no radio station in the country that gets a 100 share. So he recognizes not all people are the same. I'm sure he was hoping for better than a 1 share.
 
Deus Ex Machiato said:
Yep. The "wow factor" of the station is at the moment "wow, I had no idea this was even a thing."

They flipped, and only the people who had The Oasis on their presets had an inkling that something was different. Where's the marketing? Where's the message being spread that there's something new? Nowhere. Like a lot of folks, I've been part of the launch of a new station/format, and you can't just put it on the air and hope people stumble across your station. You've got to shout it from the rooftops.

Plus it's a rim-shot, so even if someone happens to have their radio on seek, it might not stop on the "Wow Factor" at all. These signals have to work extra hard to compete. The "Wow Factor" is like a new restaurant that opened up and didn't put a sign outside the business or even a sign in the window that said "open."
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Plus, I've noticed that a lot of people in the Valley use the 95.1 frequency (even in areas where "The Wow Factor" has good reception) for their personal transmitters to pipe their cell phone streams or SiriusXM in their old beater. That and gyms that use them for TV audio too.
 
"Oh wow, what awful song is next?"

If there hasn't been a tweaking of the library do any of you see one now? Are they doing any music testing or is this format based on a gut feeling? As we all know, a song that once tested well may not test well these days and vice versa.
 
eriedj said:
Tested back in 1992? LOL. Sorry.
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1992?

That is likely the year when the portrait photo of him that appears in the article was taken.
 
TheBigA said:
Once again referring to the RadioInk interview with Sebastian, he claimed the music was thoroughly tested and ready for air.

Here's the link again. Please read it:

https://radioink.com/2019/08/23/why-sebastian-believes-his-new-format-will-work/

The picture is probably about 20 years old.
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When I read that article, I thought that it was fairly laden with hyperbole, starting with the "pot of money" quote.

Advertiser don't shun the 55-72 year old boomer audience for lack of a station specifically programmed for them in each market. They don't buy against the demo because, in general, that audience is a hard and expensive selling proposition.

And, after roughly three months, the station is not going anywhere. There is no positive week-to-week trending and there is no indication that any fine tuning is being done. On the other hand, there seems to have been no effort to let the "massive" boomer audience know about the station, which makes the commitment of the owners questionable.
 
That article is just Sebastian making a sales pitch. It's bombast. The line about the playlist being "pristine" is laughable...
 
tbolt909 said:
That article is just Sebastian making a sales pitch. It's bombast.
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DavidEduardo said:
I thought that it was fairly laden with hyperbole, starting with the "pot of money" quote.
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What do both of you expect? It's like expecting unbiased abortion talk from the Pope.

He's been out of work for a while as it is. He wants to get back in. This is pretty much his last chance.

If you notice, he has no other clients. No other markets are rushing to hire him with his unique format.
 
TheBigA said:
What do both of you expect? It's like expecting unbiased abortion talk from the Pope.

He's been out of work for a while as it is. He wants to get back in. This is pretty much his last chance.

If you notice, he has no other clients. No other markets are rushing to hire him with his unique format.
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Other stations don't need Sebastian's "expertise" to program this horsesh**. If a station wants to attract 55+ demos, it can be done better than this. The sales part of the equation is the reason others won't try.

AAA can be viable format option for listeners 45-65 in some areas. It won't be #1, but could certainly attract a higher qualitative audience. Of course, it requires effort and commitment from a savvy programming & sales staff(and ownership that feels the ROI is worth it)...
 
tbolt909 said:
Other stations don't need Sebastian's "expertise" to program this horsesh**. If a station wants to attract 55+ demos, it can be done better than this. The sales part of the equation is the reason others won't try.
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They can just throw on a customized stream from MeTV FM and get better sound quality right out of the box. Plus, they’ll handle the promotion for the station (and yes TheBigA, there are examples of this format airing in markets which the MeTV TV affiliate DOESN’T own a radio station).
 
EricStein said:
yes TheBigA, there are examples of this format airing in markets which the MeTV TV affiliate DOESN’T own a radio station.
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However, the cross promotion works best when they do. One disadvantage of METV is it's unhosted. And it's not local.

The fact is there is no shortage of over 55-formats available to radio stations. Some hosted, some not. If national oldies is what you want, it's not hard to find. But as I said, Sebastian thinks he's got something unique. As we see, that's not always a selling point.
 
TheBigA said:
However, the cross promotion works best when they do. One disadvantage of METV is it's unhosted. And it's not local.

The fact is there is no shortage of over 55-formats available to radio stations. Some hosted, some not. If national oldies is what you want, it's not hard to find. But as I said, Sebastian thinks he's got something unique. As we see, that's not always a selling point.
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What's the difference between local and unhosted (like Wow currently is) and neither local nor hosted (even though MeTV FM cuts market-specific bumpers for each station)?

Yeah, there are satellite formats that target Boomers, but they're only as good as the effort the local station puts into them (KIKO-FM is running Westwood One's "Good Time Oldies," and that station is a train wreck from top to bottom, and I've heard many a satellite-fed format repeater with lots of dead air). A station could go the Local Radio Networks route (which runs its system like the old Waitt/Dial Global "semi-local" formats) if they want less dead air, but we already have Oldies 92.7 for the "mostly uptempo oldies for Boomers" segment.
 
EricStein said:
What's the difference between local and unhosted (like Wow currently is) and neither local nor hosted (even though MeTV FM cuts market-specific bumpers for each station)?
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I don't know. That's a question to ask the folks at Riviera. They decided to go with Sebastian.

All of the other satellite formats will also cut market specific liners. Nothing unique there.
 
TheBigA said:
I don't know. That's a question to ask the folks at Riviera. They decided to go with Sebastian.
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Riviera was sold a bill of goods by Sebastian. They took a chance given his winning (for the most part) track record. But, no one (not even legendary programmers like Lee Abrams) can bat 1.000. But, Riviera had to pull some weight when it comes to the promotion of the station. How many billboards or TV ads do you see promoting The Wow Factor (or Hot 97.5/103.9 or Power 98.3)? Even AM stations with smaller marketing budgets like KFNX have purchased billboard space (albeit virtual billboard rotation).

TheBigA said:
All of the other satellite formats will also cut market specific liners. Nothing unique there.
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The stations I've heard running Westwood One satellite formats (KIKO-FM and KKLD here in Arizona) have their liners produced in-house by the station's production staff (or lack thereof). And they rarely ever match the imaging of the station. Plus, they never seem to match the length of silence the network gives them to run them, henceforth 2-3 seconds of dead air between the liner and the next song.
 
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EricStein said:
Riviera was sold a bill of goods by Sebastian.
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Do you know the guys who run Riviera? They have some background in radio, and I'm sure they know Sebastian from one of his previous stations. And yes they need to do some promotion. But as I said earlier in this thread, it's my opinion that the station isn't ready to do that yet, until they add at least one local talent to the mix. My guess is they're doing this in stages.

EricStein said:
The stations I've heard running Westwood One satellite formats (KIKO-FM and KKLD here in Arizona) have their liners produced in-house by the station's production staff (or lack thereof). And they rarely ever match the imaging of the station.
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That's their decision, but it's not because they can't get liners from the syndicator. They choose to do their own thing.
 
I've been largely ignoring the back-and-forth arguments (familiar as they are) on this thread but finally reached my threshold and decided to listen for myself. I spent almost 4 hours listening last night between 11pm and 3am and here are some of my thoughts (from a listener standpoint and not a radio station programmer):

Because of my location in S. Tempe I found the best signal was on 94.9 rather than 95.1. The signal seemed perfectly good to my Sansa Clip with earbuds. 95.1 was barely listenable here.

Music selection: I was a bit amazed that the majority of songs during this period were what I would call hard rock. In my experience, once the evening party times have passed, stations tend to revert to softer songs. There were about half a dozen songs out of the total I either didn't recognize or had forgotten about but most were familiar. Most songs seemed to be from the period 1960-1980. Like the rock stations of old there was a mild mix of Country ("On The Road Again" I remember and there might have been another or two). I also think I remember a Standard or two. I heard no repeats.

Presentation: The songs come at you in machine gun fashion with each beginning on the last notes of the one before. This becomes tiresome (at least to me). I would have preferred to have a brief interlude between one and the next although during daytime it may not matter. The lack of local air talent might or might not be an issue. If the talent is good (think Steve Goddard quality) then there will be an advantage over just announcers and liner readers. Otherwise the jukebox approach might work better. Kids don't like commercials either.

Commercials: I heard only one set right after beginning my listening which contained about three different commercials. It was about 90 seconds long. For someone who hates long commercial sets this was a nice surprise.

Audience: These stations have been billed as appealing to 55+ listeners but that might be slightly incorrect. Both the Sun City area (including North Glendale, Peoria, NW Phoenix) are loaded with young people. If this music appeals to them (and I know the radio professionals will say not) there is a large volume of listeners to be had. Likewise for the Gilbert station. It is in the middle of a very young audience. The obvious trick will be attracting them to the Oldies/Classics. The popular opinion is that the kids prefer streamed music and these stations sound exactly like that.

Sustainability: Most of the discussion on this thread is criticism of the programmer's choice of music to attract enough revenue to stay afloat. If the station is marketed to old-timers the kids will not show up and I am not sure what I heard last night would appeal to people my age or older (it was a bit frantic for the middle of the night) even though I personally liked most of it. I suspect the ideal target audience might be people in their 60's, 70's or 80's but still 17 mentally. Like me.
 
landtuna said:
I suspect the ideal target audience might be people in their 60's, 70's or 80's but still 17 mentally. Like me.
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You were someone who occasionally listened to the station when it was the Oasis. I seem to recall you saying you liked it then. How does this approach compare?

Also the criticism of the commercials hasn't been the length of the break, but the content of the advertising, and the repetition within the hour. Do you agree?
 
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