POSTMORTEM OF A CLASSIC HITS STATION

[RIN3GUY]

Two years ago in this market we had a tremendous Classic Hits station (KHST, STAR 101.7, Pittsburg KS) which played 1970-1989 for several years with incredible variety and a wildly popular lunch hour request show on weekdays, but abruptly changed format and went Country. This is in a market where they had a monopoly on the format and which already has six Country stations! They used to have several hundred more FB friends than KJMK (93.9) does now, and their FB page exploded with dozens and dozens of angry listeners! They played ftballfan's songs ("Would This Playlist Work" thread) plus every song I've ever listed on this forum, as well as all the bigger hits. I would hang on every song and never turned the radio off, because it was exciting! The only downside was that they occasionally interspersed the following songs. To me, this was just going a bit too far, but I still loved the station:

Fleetwood Mac - The Chain (dnc, '77)
Fleetwood Mac - Gold Dust Woman (dnc, '77)
Billy Joel - The Stranger (dnc, '77)
Billy Joel - Scenes From an Italian Restaurant (dnc, '77)
Billy Joel - New York State of Mind (dnc, '76)
Huey Lewis & the News - Bad Is Bad (dnc, '83)
Lynyrd Skynyrd - Gimme Three Steps (dnc, '73)
James Brown - Get Up Offa That Thing (#45, '76)
Frank Zappa - Dancin' Fool (#45, '79)
John Lennon - I'm Losing You (dnc, '80)
Lobo - She Didn't Do Magic (#46, '71)
REM - It's The End Of The World As We Know It (#69, '88)
The Babys - Tough World (#77, '79)
Marshall Tucker Band - Can't You See (#75, '77)
Tom Petty - American Girl (dnc, '77; #109, '94)
Talking Heads - Once In A Lifetime (#91, '86)
REO Speedwagon - Ridin' The Storm Out (#94, '77)
George Clinton - Atomic Dog (#101, '83)
Randy Newman - I Love L.A. (#110, '83)
David Bowie - Heroes (dnc, '77)
Loggins & Messina - House At Pooh Corner (dnc, '71)
Kenny Loggins - Mr. Night (dnc, '80?)
Kenny Loggins - Angry Eyes (dnc, '72)
Bob Marley - Jammin' (dnc, '77)
Bob Marley - Stir It Up (dnc, '73)
Bob Marley - Could You Be Loved (dnc, '80)
Oingo Boingo - Dead Man's Party (dnc, '85)
Ozark Mountain Daredevils - Thin Ice (dnc, '75)
Police - Walking On the Moon (dnc, '79)
Pretenders - Tattooed Love Boys (dnc, '80)
Bob Seger - Turn the Page (dnc, '73)
Styx - Crystal Ball (dnc, '??)
Elton John - Madman Across the Water (dnc, '7X)
Howzat - Sherbet (#61, '76)

To me, these are the stiffs of stiffs. And still, they had a tremendous audience for the market! Come to find out, even songs like these couldn't kill the station. The owners (MyTown Media) actually couldn't have cared less about having twice as many listeners. They weren't even completing their Arbitron paperwork properly. They decided they wanted to shipwreck the station just to get a sliver of the local Country advertising pie. Joplin then had to do without a Classic Hits station for a year, across the time of the tornado.

 

[michael hagerty]

First of all, FB friends mean zilch. It's ratings, but ratings are trumped by revenue.

Second, the list above suggests to me that it was not so much a Classic Hits as a very eclectic Classic Rock. Perhaps because of the small market size, they felt the need to be broad (which kills more small market stations than you can imagine).

Anyway, given that, I'd (as usual) blow off the chart numbers as well. They're irrelevant, especially if you're targeting an audience that has always viewed these songs as being from a big record with a little hole instead of a little record with a big hole.

 

[oldies76]

Perhaps because of the small market size, they felt the need to be broad (which kills more small market stations than you can imagine).

Superhits 106, Hippie Radio, WLNG, countless AM's, ....etc... They are still around, last I checked. Play them on KRTH or CBS-FM, then there could be some issues I suppose.

 

[michael hagerty]

Perhaps because of the small market size, they felt the need to be broad (which kills more small market stations than you can imagine).

Superhits 106, Hippie Radio, WLNG, countless AM's, ....etc... They are still around, last I checked. Play them on KRTH or CBS-FM, then there could be some issues I suppose.

"Kills more than you can imagine" doesn't mean they're all dead. Yet. As David's pointed out several times, WLNG is a community radio station. The audience loyalty is based on the station's service more than on like and dislike of music they play. They're in an enviable position.

Superhits 106 actually illustrates the rationale behind the station in Joplin flipping to Country...there are four Country stations doing better than Superhits 106, which is tied for 9th in overall audience and getting its transistors kicked by an AM Adult Standards station (7.0 to 2.5).

Hippie Radio is in Nashville, which is Market 45 and it's not showing up in the ratings. That can't last.

 

[deltas69]

Hippie Radio is in Nashville, which is Market 45 and it's not showing up in the ratings. That can't last...Hippie's problem is not so much content..but power..and they just don't have enough..plus they little if any promotion..got to give them credit for keeping it up over a year..and the sound is better than it was at the start..I still don't hear a lot of repeats every morning and afternoon when I get back in range...It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if they had been able to get Coyote..or another jock with strong ties to Nashville...

 

[davideduardo]

Two years ago in this market we had a tremendous Classic Hits station (KHST, STAR 101.7, Pittsburg KS) which played 1970-1989 for several years with incredible variety and a wildly popular lunch hour request show on weekdays, but abruptly changed format and went Country. This is in a market where they had a monopoly on the format and which already has six Country stations! They used to have several hundred more FB friends than KJMK (93.9) does now,

KHST suffered declining revenues after switching from classic rock to classic hits in 2007. While the recession did not help, the station was way off in billings.

They are doing much better with country.

They weren't even completing their Arbitron paperwork properly. They decided they wanted to shipwreck the station just to get a sliver of the local Country advertising pie.

They obviously did the paperwork (such as it is... just a short form) as they showed in the ratings in every book in Joplin.

This is a "classic" case of a station wanting to be a participant in two markets it does not cover, Pittsburg and Joplin. It's 65 dbu truly only covers about 36,000 persons, so it's really not a player... being country in its own county may be better than trying to do a more "citified" format in a rural area.

 

[davideduardo]

Hippie Radio is in Nashville, which is Market 45 and it's not showing up in the ratings. That can't last...

They do show in the ratings, but as an apparent non-subscriber, they are not listed in the public 6+ ratings rankers Arbitron gives out.

 

[firepoint525]

There is also a "Hippie Radio" in Chattanooga. Not sure if the name is franchised, or what, but their logos seem similar to me.

 

[theprp]

Perhaps because of the small market size, they felt the need to be broad (which kills more small market stations than you can imagine).

Superhits 106, Hippie Radio, WLNG, countless AM's, ....etc... They are still around, last I checked. Play them on KRTH or CBS-FM, then there could be some issues I suppose.

"Kills more than you can imagine" doesn't mean they're all dead. Yet. As David's pointed out several times, WLNG is a community radio station. The audience loyalty is based on the station's service more than on like and dislike of music they play. They're in an enviable position.

Superhits 106 actually illustrates the rationale behind the station in Joplin flipping to Country...there are four Country stations doing better than Superhits 106, which is tied for 9th in overall audience and getting its transistors kicked by an AM Adult Standards station (7.0 to 2.5).

Hippie Radio is in Nashville, which is Market 45 and it's not showing up in the ratings. That can't last.

You said it earlier...revenue trumps ratings. You used the 12+ arbitron ratings on a classic hits station and the AM Standard is actually more of a news and information than standards, with a different demo. Plus Superhits 106 is employing 3 full time bodies, not bad for a small market Classic Hits station (something that should be celebrated!).

Also I have to disagree with what you and David say in many of these forums about small market stations. Some of the stations, yes, probably go crazy with the broad playlists, but what is wrong with playing some of the deeper Top-40 hits every few weeks or months as color or flavor to the celebration of the 2 decades of music. Most local programmers know what their listeners want and what responds well with them.

 

[michael hagerty]

Perhaps because of the small market size, they felt the need to be broad (which kills more small market stations than you can imagine).

Superhits 106, Hippie Radio, WLNG, countless AM's, ....etc... They are still around, last I checked. Play them on KRTH or CBS-FM, then there could be some issues I suppose.

"Kills more than you can imagine" doesn't mean they're all dead. Yet. As David's pointed out several times, WLNG is a community radio station. The audience loyalty is based on the station's service more than on like and dislike of music they play. They're in an enviable position.

Superhits 106 actually illustrates the rationale behind the station in Joplin flipping to Country...there are four Country stations doing better than Superhits 106, which is tied for 9th in overall audience and getting its transistors kicked by an AM Adult Standards station (7.0 to 2.5).

Hippie Radio is in Nashville, which is Market 45 and it's not showing up in the ratings. That can't last.

You said it earlier...revenue trumps ratings. You used the 12+ arbitron ratings on a classic hits station and the AM Standard is actually more of a news and information than standards, with a different demo. Plus Superhits 106 is employing 3 full time bodies, not bad for a small market Classic Hits station (something that should be celebrated!).

Also I have to disagree with what you and David say in many of these forums about small market stations. Some of the stations, yes, probably go crazy with the broad playlists, but what is wrong with playing some of the deeper Top-40 hits every few weeks or months as color or flavor to the celebration of the 2 decades of music. Most local programmers know what their listeners want and what responds well with them.

Nothing's wrong with it, but it's not as safe as some assume. If you're not the only station in the market, a competitor can eat your lunch. If you are the only station in the market, you'll be surprised how quickly those folks will find other sources for entertainment and only tune into you for the local news and school lunch menus. I've seen both scenarios play out. Ugly stuff for the guys who only thought they knew what their listeners wanted...or were lazy and thought they didn't have to work for it.

 

[firepoint525]

REO Speedwagon - Ridin' The Storm Out (#94, '77)

Do you remember if they were playing the live version of this one, or the studio version? Seems like I am hearing both versions of it on Hippie Radio lately.

 

[CTListener]

Second, the list above suggests to me that it was not so much a Classic Hits as a very eclectic Classic Rock.

I don't know what it was. There are tracks in there -- "Can't You See," "Turn the Page," "Ridin' the Storm Out," "Madman Across the Water" -- that were all over AOR playlists as currents and had a pretty decent run at classic rock before starting to "age out" into the "brings too many 55+ listeners into our numbers" never-play-again list. Then you've got "House at Pooh Corner" and "New York State of Mind," which were soft-rock staples. Others are just pure head-scratchers. Were there actually stations going deep on Lobo, Ozark Mountain Daredevils and Huey Lewis?

I can see several songs on that list that would make me look for another station immediately, and given my broad preferences that's not good.

 

[deltas69]

Do you remember if they were playing the live version of this one, A little after 5AM this morning..Live version of Reo. RTSO..

 

[RIN3GUY]

I can see several songs on that list that would make me look for another station immediately, and given my broad preferences that's not good.

The PD told me that he had to watch his DJs closely because they were adding in too many of their personal favorites. After the secret was out about the format change to Country, the owners fired him over the holidays, his very popular noon hour request show disappeared, and then they saw fit to add in more Beatles, Motown & other great '60s material for two good months before the format change finally took effect. Interestingly, the songs on the all-request lunch hour were not the duds on the list above, but were typically the more respectable hits that reached the bottom two-thirds of the Top 40. During that request show, it was anything goes, and it was TONS of fun! They would give the name and town of who called in or E-mailed, and they would play anything once. Certain requested selections would end up in the regular rotation, which was a cool thing. Their motto was, "We want to play what YOU want to hear" instead of, "If we're not already playing it, forget about it."

 

[CTListener]

They were ADDING '60s songs in 2010? Hello, quack medicine, shady investment scheme, and read-the-fine-print insurance ada!

 

[firepoint525]

Do you remember if they were playing the live version of this one, A little after 5AM this morning..Live version of Reo. RTSO..

You live in Nashville, too, don't you Delta? Hippie Radio is playing both versions of that one, I think.

 

[deltas69]

I actually live in Gallatin...work in Nashville..only heard the live version..and only once the other morning..they really do a good job of playing a large variety...if only they had more power...if only Tim the "Tool Man" Taylor were their engineer.. :