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Small town stations with a more personalized sound.
- Thread starter tall_guy1
- Start date
A station you might find interesting is KGAF www.kgaf.net
There's a wide variety of music, from AC hits to 1960s and 1970s, plenty of local info and one minute state and national network news to create a more music intensive full service station.
It's 100% local with air talent 24/7 (but mostly voice-tracked but you might not be able to tell)
There's a wide variety of music, from AC hits to 1960s and 1970s, plenty of local info and one minute state and national network news to create a more music intensive full service station.
It's 100% local with air talent 24/7 (but mostly voice-tracked but you might not be able to tell)
I have to go with my favorite station in the nation, Plymouth, MA's Easy 99.1. https://www.easy991.com/
It is local, does not use voice tracking, and has the best variety of music I have ever heard.
It is local, does not use voice tracking, and has the best variety of music I have ever heard.
They no longer focus solely on Boston. Their liners mention "Boston, Providence, and Cape Cod" or just "Southern New England" in general. Their advertisers tend to come from the South Coast, Plymouth, and Cape Cod rather than Boston. I have heard more Rhode Island advertisers, in fact, than Boston ones.
So given the focus, I think it is fair to call them "small town."
I work for two
Hits 106 KLMI Laramie, WY. I VT afternoons there after 2 years full time living locally. The station has a very upbeat overall presentation, flows well and very smoothly.. and were all about albany county wyoming.. if its going on, we likely know and mention it
and KSKO 89.5 McGrath alaska where i manage and work full time. When were local 8 to 9 and 12noon to 4pm, well.. we talk about loose dogs, i give a shout out to people who i see driving by in their car past the station
Hits 106 KLMI Laramie, WY. I VT afternoons there after 2 years full time living locally. The station has a very upbeat overall presentation, flows well and very smoothly.. and were all about albany county wyoming.. if its going on, we likely know and mention it
and KSKO 89.5 McGrath alaska where i manage and work full time. When were local 8 to 9 and 12noon to 4pm, well.. we talk about loose dogs, i give a shout out to people who i see driving by in their car past the station
A really small town with a BIG signal.
KTNN 660 50 kw Windowrock AZ.
The Navajo Nation. Big on local programming.
Their FM 101.5 does a nice job filling in the AM's null to the east.
KTNN 660 50 kw Windowrock AZ.
The Navajo Nation. Big on local programming.
I can
I often hear KTNN 660 around sunrise and sunset here in Salt Lake City.A really small town with a BIG signal.
KTNN 660 50 kw Windowrock AZ.
The Navajo Nation. Big on local programming.
Their FM 101.5 does a nice job filling in the AM's null to the east.
Yes, these stations still exist. They likely are owned locally and probably the owner has just one station. They do what they want. Many have very loyal listeners and advertisers. Put this all together, they make money. I find these mostly in smaller areas, not near large metros. Additionally these stations are more interesting to me as they are kind of “off the grid” so to speak.
WMOA-AM in Marietta, Ohio (with an FM translator) is such a station.
God bless Steve Eberhart and what he does for the people in Cooke County. The station has been #1 in the county for years, and the stereo translator at 92.3 really helps. Probably on the intercoms in many Gainesville businesses. They go all Xmas around 12/18 or so, much later than the Dallas stations.
KMGK 107.1/Glenwood MN is another example. Steve Nestor, the PD, runs the station as one with "no format". He says 2,200 songs are in the playlist. 1950s-2000s soft AC and more, with a lot of oh wow's. You're certain to hear Billy Joel mixed with Doris Day, James Taylor and Coldplay, Sade mixed with Andy Williams, and Carole King mixed with Jon Secada. In addition, there are TV theme songs and smooth jazz as filler here and there. I've heard the Gunsmoke, Law & Order, Newlywed Game and Donna Reed theme songs among others. Often they air at the bottom of the hour before the WX forecast.
TONS of high school sports coverage, Minnesota Twins, Minnesota Wild, NDSU Bisons football, BirdNote, a couple of Sunday church services, old-time radio from 10-midnight every night, even classic Paul Harvey segments, are all on KMGK. They also have a long-running "tradio" show called Value Plus Shopping, every Saturday at 9AM. Locals can pick up certificates for various businesses at the station.
KLTZ and KLAN-FM in Glasgow MT are yet another example of friendly small-town radio. They even do 1-minute graduation spotlight segments at the end of the school year. Each graduate is highlighted with extracurricular activities they did, the college they plan to go to, and their favorite hobbies. They also have a big playlist, KLTZ's country format and KLAN's Hot AC format. Lots of 1970s-today with tons of oh wow's. John Waite is on KLAN right now...and it's NOT 'Missing You.' "If You Ever Get Lonely" from 2011! Which was later covered by Love & Theft. KLTZ-1240 just played Barbara Mandrell's "Tonight My Baby's Coming Home" from 1971. Imagine that. A country station, that also plays Florida Georgia Line and Morgan Wallen...also mixing 1970s country hits. AND 1980s, 1990s!!
KXO-AM in the Imperial Valley (CA)..pop music from the 60s and 70s, local announcers, CBS news TOH, followed by Imperial Valley-oriented news. And the wait times at the Border POEs.
Once you get below the top ownership groups and the top markets there's a good chance of one of two things:
1. The station runs syndicated programming around the clock -or-
2. The station runs whatever the PD/owner (often the same person) wants.
I guess the latter category is a "personalized sound" ... it is personalized to the station management.
Edit: I should add, small stations have historically used consultants. But I think that practice is nearly dead. I can't remember the last time I heard of a small market station bringing in a programming consultant.
A few years ago when I started working more on the East Coast, but was still part owner of several small market stations in the West, the head sales guy/manager started tweaking the format on one particular station in a market of about 18,000 persons. That particular station generally was doing well as satellite delivered classic rock, but our guy started to play around with the recipe by including sports on the weekend, having a local do a evening show of (you guessed it) his rock favorites. Ultimately, he wanted to make the station more local and less formulaic-sounding. When revenue started trending down and without our guy knowing, I stopped by some of the businesses that were regular advertisers to see why they bailed. After several frank conversations with the local's, the opinions about the changes boiled down to comments like: "less professional-sounding", and 'customers stopped listening because they never knew what would be on when tuning in.'
In the interest of arresting this free-fall, we killed the high school sports, mainly because it was costing more to produce than revenue. Killed the evening jukebox show, and went back to satellite classic rock 24/7 six days a week. The only thing remaining of the shuffle, was NFL play by play on Sunday, because we were under contract for two years. After a couple months of stability, local ad revenue started back up, and even exceeded months prior to the changes.
The thing our guy discovered in this exercise; was that if asked, listeners will tell you to your face that they want more variety, think local HS sports play by play is a great community service, blah...blah. When it comes down to it though, the majority of listeners will always gravitate toward researched hits and predictability. Why? Because predictability is comfortable. Listeners like the comfort of knowing when they press that preset on the car radio, they'll hear familiar music or programming.
KCHK New Prague, MN (south of Minneapolis)
www.kchkradio.net
local from 5am-6pm
local news/talk/polkas from 5-9 (live music Fridays)
classic country from 9-11:25
trading post from 11:25-noon
news from noon-1
polkas from 1-3
oldies (50's/60s) from 3-6
Then the classic country satellite format (Westwood One formerly Dial Global)
Saturdays local from 5-1pm
Sundays polkas from 5am-11pm sans 3 church services
www.kchkradio.net
local from 5am-6pm
local news/talk/polkas from 5-9 (live music Fridays)
classic country from 9-11:25
trading post from 11:25-noon
news from noon-1
polkas from 1-3
oldies (50's/60s) from 3-6
Live and Local Programming | KCHK
kchkradio.net
Then the classic country satellite format (Westwood One formerly Dial Global)
Saturdays local from 5-1pm
Sundays polkas from 5am-11pm sans 3 church services
More stations have died over the misunderstanding of the word "variety" than I can count.
If one does one-on-one interviews with real listeners (not focus groups which, unless moderated by an exceptional and rare expert) you find that the word "variety" does not mean lots of songs or more songs. It actually means "my favorite songs and none of the songs I don't like".
The skill required is not knowing how to play more songs, but how to find just the songs that nobody hates and that most people like if they don't outright love them.
When you require all the songs to be well liked, you eliminate most of the material that is available. Commonality in positive appeal reduces the music universe, but guarantees that every time someone stops on your signal, you'll be playing a song they really enjoy.
Anything else also comes with a guarantee: that the chances a person selecting your signal or stream will hear something they truly despise, causing them to move on to the next station. If this happens a number of times, they never come back.
In small towns, I certainly agree with Kelly A: comfortable and familiar is the way to go but add local news and information especially with the poor shape the local papers find themselves. In my town the daily is twice a week now and becoming more and more insignificant. We hold the edge as the only daily source of local news and info in the county.
no, they havent.... none .. none of the small town stations ive worked for did... and ive been at a few of them
WCVR Randolph, VT, is a small-town country/bluegrass/Americana station that's 100 percent local. Its journey to its current status is just as unique as its music mix:
SomeRadioGuy I think PTBoardOp94 is going back to the days before you were in the business. Also, respectfully, just because the few stations you've worked at in the particular markets where you were located in didn't use them, doesn't mean "none" anywhere ever have.
2 stations I worked at a number of years ago brought in programming consultants and both those particular facilities were in smaller markets. It wasn't uncommon back then to open the trades and see at least a few pages of ads for various consultant services. While many were good and known in the industry, many others were crap..Either they were failed PDs or MDs who decided to become consultants as a 'fall back' business, or they worked with a consultant at one or a few stations they'd worked at, and suddenly thought that gave them enough working knowledge to become one themselves.
In one of the cases I was involved in, it was helpful. The guy came to the area and spent at least a few days listening to the station, going out to various gathering spots and informally chatting with residents/listeners, then came in and met with the staff before making tweaks. At that station, jocks were live 24/7 and all music selections were dictated to them via computer generated paper logs. The PD and MD set the programming schedule with few deviations. Both the PD and MD there were doing OK and both were eager to do well and maintain our station at the top of the ratings in that market, but both were also young and green and needed some mentoring by someone knowledgeable. The consultant did help and we did see a bump in the numbers. If I'm not mistaken, the cost of the consultant at that station was paid for by one of our record reps. At another station the consultant came in and tossed out the paper logs completely, put together a more traditional "clock" and had the guys working via index cards that listed all the current hits, gold, recurrents, etc. This worked OK and generally the jocks liked it better as it gave them a bit of flexibility. Unfortunately that station was sold within a few months and began simulcasting another station owned by the same company so we never really got to see how well the changes did.
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