Crazy question - if all of the accusations are false and you are able to defend every single one of them and prove that they are false, why not hire any one of the hundreds of employment attorneys in Atlanta and file a wrongful termination suit against Entercom? If my employer attempted to terminate me for something I didn't do and ruin my reputation in my industry, I'd be at a lawyer that afternoon.
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The End of Star?
- Thread starter Radio_Alex_1990
- Start date
Getting fired is just part of the business. There are a limited number of major market operators. If you sue I doubt any "corporate" broadcaster will hire you for fear of being sued. After things “cool down” somebody will need a good programmer and will hire despite any “sins of the past”. Just like several NFL players who have had personal issues (wife or girlfriend beating), if you can perform somebody will hire you.
I was listening to an Entercom Alternative station and I find them not much different than ALT 105.7. Lame if you ask me.
If Star will be flipped which I think they will sometime this year (mark my words; because they can't do a 180 and jump in the ratings) they really should go head to head with B98.5. I simply don't know what they have to lose. The last time they were in the 4.0+ book was Christmas. They would get much better numbers than where they are now.
If Star will be flipped which I think they will sometime this year (mark my words; because they can't do a 180 and jump in the ratings) they really should go head to head with B98.5. I simply don't know what they have to lose. The last time they were in the 4.0+ book was Christmas. They would get much better numbers than where they are now.
I was not a fan of the way Alt 105.7 was ran. Their playlist and most alternative playlists are stale these days. Iheartmedia does have an alternative/active rock hybrid in Houston called 94.5 the buzz and their playlist is much better than the one Alt 105.7 had. I think a station with that type of format would do alright here in Atlanta. 94.5 in Houston does pull around a 4.0 rating there.
You guys keep expecting big commercial radio stations to program alternative stations like they're college radio, and that's not going to happen. These stations are advertising platforms, and the music is just there to run between the spots.
No, we just want some effort put into music selection, we want more than a 350 song playlist, and we would like gold titles to be turned over every now & then instead of burnt to a crisp for many months on end.
But keep defending iHM. I mean - they're clearly smarter than all of us. Their brilliant programming strategy chased away more than half of Alt 105.7's AQH listeners in about 18 months' time!
The Star 94 brand deserves a mercy killing at this point. It is damaged goods.
But keep defending iHM. I mean - they're clearly smarter than all of us. Their brilliant programming strategy chased away more than half of Alt 105.7's AQH listeners in about 18 months' time!
The Star 94 brand deserves a mercy killing at this point. It is damaged goods.
As pointed out in another thread this is not strictly an Atlanta problem, and it's not strictly an iHeart problem either.
The problem is that for at least a decade and a half it has been very hard to find the right music for Alt.
As an example, KROQ was sustained by the morning show, even in its decline. When one of the partners left, it fell even more and it cause AQH, TSL and cume losses for the whole rest of the day. But even before that process, the music on KROQ was losing to its competitor. And even then, the two of them combined in music dayparts did not equal KROQ's numbers from a decade or so ago... the Alt total audience has been in a gradual decline for a loooong time.
I've watched or seen the results of a number of Alt music tests. I've mentioned often that there is no consensus, and the music is fragmented into a number of subsets and the subsets are even fragmented within themselves. It' hard to find mass appeal Alt songs that can give enough variety and provide good listening for such a diffused group.
This is a format that is disintegrating. Some of the heritage stations are surviving by appealing to the older portion of the Alt followers. But the shares are declining, perhaps because there is not enough newer music to keep the format fresh.
Or when they play the newer music, it alienates the older, larger, more loyal base. It goes back to the music, and the fact that the music industry is releasing music that isn't designed to appeal to a consensus, it's not designed to build a community, it's designed to create a fan base for specific groups. I go to music seminars, and that's what the speakers are teaching. How to use social media to build a loyal following for your band. That is the antithesis of building a genre or building a community around multiple groups. It's about building a silo. That is bad for radio.
That is a good point. And since the older demos are, I think, less vulnerable to this sort of reverse crowd sourcing of a following, they don't identify or relate to some / much / all of the new music. So they stick with the older "glory days" material, but may start to burn out and listen less.
I don't at all disagree. Still, it doesn't excuse the fact that iHM evidently spent very little time researching what would "work" for 105.7. Boilerplate programming generally doesn't work in Atlanta. A relaxed & mature stationality with no wacky morning show is what Alternative listeners in Atlanta want. Is even that formula capable of attracting big ratings? Nope, but it would probably be good enough for about a 2 share.
So many of the iHM "Alt" stations that follow the KYSR template have terrible ratings. As soon as 103.3 in Indianapolis strayed from that stupid script (they now sound much more like 94.5 in Houston), its ratings rebounded.
Sadly, one of the more promising stations in the format that was starting to sound quite good (Alt 92.9 in Boston) was thrown to the curb just as it was starting to see some ratings traction. I cannot blame Beasley for making the change, though, as Rock 92.9 so far has shown itself to be a successful station and now gives Beasley a dominant market position in reaching middle aged men.
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Groove1670
Guest
My comments were run on sentences. I just decided to make bullet points:
New adds for HAC radio has slowed dramatically.
With core artists not releasing materal, it has been slow.
I would assume labels are are cautious when releasing new singles to radio with the Covid19 cirsis.
Station adds for new singles each week have been sluggish.
I think that's true and could be why the ratings are also sluggish. Contrast that with country, where artists are releasing so much new music that radio has a tough time keeping up. A couple weeks ago, Kane Brown put out a duet with John Legend. He performed it separately/together with John on the ACM At Home TV special. You might think it was his radio single. Nope. A week later he puts out "Cool Again," and in one day, it was #1 airplay. That's what happens when artists, labels, and radio work together to create EXCITEMENT and that's what's missing from Hot AC.
I don't blame COVID for the sluggishness of Hot AC. I blame the sluggishness of the music. Who are you excited to hear right now? Who is making music that you can't wait to hear? If you have to think about it, that's a problem.
Someone mentioned the Buzz in Houston. I’ll also say The Point in STL. An active/alternative hybrid. These two stations (especially The Point) has something Alt 1057 never had and that is a LOCAL focus and a music focus. I’m in agreement with most that true alternative music has no place on commercial radio because then it’s frankly Alt 40 music. At any rate, part of the formula must be the local feel. Alt 1057 had an iheartradio corporate feel. Never felt local. That’s what the 99X (original one) had right. It was an Atlanta radio station. Format wise - I get it, true alternative should stay on HD2 or internet/satellite radio but we need to go back to the local sound. Bring back the peach and do variety hits and load the daytime programming with local djs that still air callers request and sponsor local concerts.
There are still plenty of Hot AC outlets with great ratings in large & major markets.
I think B98.5 found the musical "sweet spot" a long time ago, and that's made it difficult for Star 94 to carve out a viable lane for itself. That said, some of Star 94's wounds have been self-inflicted. In recent years, there've been times where the station had strong ratings in demo where either some/all of the morning show suddenly was forced out, the PD was forced out, or perhaps both without any clear explanation. That all boils down to incompetent management.
As recently as just two or three years ago, the station sounded quite good and had the ratings to match.
Too expensive for the type of audience it would attract at this point. The reason Entercom sticks with Hot AC is they love the demos that station gets. They just wish the audience was bigger.
Great ratings, but as I said, who is making the new music you're excited to hear? A few years ago it might have been Bruno or Post. Who is that artist right now? The thing that drives Hot AC and separates it from traditional AC is the new releases.
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Groove1670
Guest
I agree. I look at the charts while having Satuday morning coffee. Adds out of the box are dismal. I'm not adding much. We're depending on recurrents and gold now, and keeping titles that would have reach recurrent status by now.
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