The new krth

[semoochie]

Yes. It allowed itself to be held hostage by the older half of the Baby Boomers, who (as a group), rejected most music recorded after 1972. It tried to mitigate the damage at first by identifying with the music of 1956-72 and hoping they could sell "good times, great oldies" to people in their early-to-mid 40s, but it never really worked, and it was less and less effective with each passing year.

The perspective that is most enlightening:

When "Music of Your Life" debuted in 1978, it was aiming for a 55+ audience and it played songs between 20 and 40 years old.

In 2005, the last year before Oldies KRTH became Classic Hits KRTH, it was aiming for a 25-54 audience and it played songs between 33 and 49 years old.

KRTH was heading for a cliff. Jhani Kaye put on the brakes, stopped with the front wheels an inch from the edge, very carefully did a Y (not a U) turn and got the station facing the right way. That took 8 years. Rick Thomas's job now is to put his foot down on the accelerator and get up to cruising speed quickly.

This is what I don't understand. Why didn't they hold the line at 55? If "over 55" isn't viable at all, why would it matter, just because there are more in the demo at the time?

 

[michael hagerty]

This is what I don't understand. Why didn't they hold the line at 55? If "over 55" isn't viable at all, why would it matter, just because there are more in the demo at the time?

I think I need you to clarify what you mean. I'm going to take a shot at answering, but please let me know if I'm addressing what you're asking or not:

25-54 is pretty much impossible to win by targeting 25 year olds or 54 year olds. You need to hit the center of the target and let the ripples spread out 10 years (if you're lucky) in either direction.l

The longer KRTH (and for that matter, a lot of Oldies stations) held onto the 1956-72 stuff, the less appeal they had to the core of the demo. But they were afraid to make the move they needed to make because, since they'd lost much of the interest of the core of the demo, they might blow off the older listeners and have no one to replace them with.

It's fearful thinking, not logical and not helpful. They would need to advertise, promote, and rely on word-of-mouth and incidental listening for exposure to large numbers of the audience anyway...but, like someone trapped in a bad relationship, for a long time, they chose the devil they knew.

Bobby Rich, a great programmer back in the day and today, has a saying:

"Sometimes, you spend all your time grasping at straws when what you really need is one great big drainpipe."

In other words, sometimes, the big bold move is best.

 

[semoochie]

I think I need you to clarify what you mean. I'm going to take a shot at answering, but please let me know if I'm addressing what you're asking or not:

25-54 is pretty much impossible to win by targeting 25 year olds or 54 year olds. You need to hit the center of the target and let the ripples spread out 10 years (if you're lucky) in either direction.l

The longer KRTH (and for that matter, a lot of Oldies stations) held onto the 1956-72 stuff, the less appeal they had to the core of the demo. But they were afraid to make the move they needed to make because, since they'd lost much of the interest of the core of the demo, they might blow off the older listeners and have no one to replace them with.

It's fearful thinking, not logical and not helpful. They would need to advertise, promote, and rely on word-of-mouth and incidental listening for exposure to large numbers of the audience anyway...but, like someone trapped in a bad relationship, for a long time, they chose the devil they knew.

Bobby Rich, a great programmer back in the day and today, has a saying:

"Sometimes, you spend all your time grasping at straws when what you really need is one great big drainpipe."

In other words, sometimes, the big bold move is best.

It seems to me that if you moved forward one year at a time, word of mouth would take care of the situation. At some point, promotion might be necessary but it would avoid shaking everything up, for those under 55. This would be far preferable to what happened, tossing out almost everything before 1964 and lots of mid-60s, when I was only 51! I thought I had at least four more years to go.

 

[Bob Hudson]

None of these address my question, which is: where does KRTH get its new audience? Which station now has the kind of listeners the new KRTH hopes to attract? They will have to compete with someone, who is it?

Here's what you need to understand:

No one who buys advertising looks at overall 6+ numbers.

If the listeners in the unsalable demos leave:

a) It has no effect on the salable demo.

b) The salable demo is now a larger percent of your overall audience (looks impressive with side-by-side pie charts in your sales materials)

c) Your average listener age drops and becomes a lot closer to the center of the demo.

As to how they get more of the new listeners, the same as every other station that makes a format adjustment: Advertising, promotion, word of mouth, second-hand exposure in businesses and other public places and by listeners tuning around looking for a song they like. People still use the "Scan" button.

One of the things that has always amazed me is people's tendency to write people younger than themselves off as kids.

While it is true that many high-school and college students don't own radios, KRTH is targeting 40-year-olds.

These are grownups...Moms and Dads with Tweens and Teens and jobs and mortgages.

And radios.

KRTH has a lot further to go than, say, AMP, before they run into the "what's radio" problem. Actually, if you buy that particular prevailing wisdom AMP and KIIS should be gasping for air by now. Clearly not happening.

Finally, your "nostalgic gringos" comment.

KRTH's current sound has decent ethnic appeal. Yeah, the music probably is still a little old...but now, they're in a better position to evolve it steadily over the next few years, with a group of listeners who will perceive it as KRTH getting better.

 

[michael hagerty]

None of these address my question, which is: where does KRTH get its new audience? Which station now has the kind of listeners the new KRTH hopes to attract? They will have to compete with someone, who is it?

No one station takes from one other station anymore. People in the demo listen to between 6 and 9 stations on a regular basis...what you're looking to do is get a bit of their time. 40-year old women being the dead-center target, you're probably looking at a liitle from My104.3, a little from KOST, a bit from Hot 92.3...but the game is no longer about wholesale switching of allegiance.

 

[davideduardo]

None of these address my question, which is: where does KRTH get its new audience? Which station now has the kind of listeners the new KRTH hopes to attract? They will have to compete with someone, who is it?

Unless a station debuts doing essentially the same format as another station already in the market (such as AMP vs. KIIS) then it will attract listeners from just about anywhere.

In the PPM world, listeners are seen to be using six or seven stations each week on average. And that is a hint for you that every station shares part of the finite 100 shares in the market. Seemingly surprising sharing, like KOST with KLAX is actually quite common.

So if KRTH is continuing to keep its age appeal centered on about age 40 to 45, then they compete with every other station that has some appeal to that group... whether it be KFI, KNX or KRCD on one side or KLOS, KOST, KTWV and such on the other.

The stations that KRTH shares at least 3% of its cume with include KBIG, KIIS, KOST, KAMP, KCBS, KYSR, KPWR, KHHT, KLOS, KSWD, KROQ, KTWV, KLVE, KKGO, KNX, KRCD, KLAX, KXOL, KSCA, KDAY, KBUE, KLAC, KFI, KPPC, KSSE, KLYY, KUSC, KKJZ, KXOS, KSPN, KHJ, KQIZ, KCRW, KDLD, KFSH, KWKW, KABC, KFWB and KTNQ.

The issue is not "which station" but "what is the competitive array and the musical preferences within that group?"

 

[michael hagerty]

No one station takes from one other station anymore. People in the demo listen to between 6 and 9 stations on a regular basis...what you're looking to do is get a bit of their time. 40-year old women being the dead-center target, you're probably looking at a liitle from My104.3, a little from KOST, a bit from Hot 92.3...but the game is no longer about wholesale switching of allegiance.

It seems to me that if you moved forward one year at a time, word of mouth would take care of the situation. At some point, promotion might be necessary but it would avoid shaking everything up, for those under 55. This would be far preferable to what happened, tossing out almost everything before 1964 and lots of mid-60s, when I was only 51! I thought I had at least four more years to go.

Don't think like that. 25-54 is really about 35-44. They're concerned with getting a big chunk in the middle of the demo, not with whether they throw off people who are four years from aging out.

 

[mighty met]

At least bring back the top of the hour ID. "K-R-T-H Los Angeles!" sounds so much better than this re-recorded "K-Earth 101" version.

 

[Thomps2525]

So KRTH shares 3% of its cume with five hundred other stations. If it was possible for KRTH to find 1000 classic hits that appeal to their target audience and are not being played on any other Los Angeles station, would KRTH be guaranteed of a larger audience and a higher TSL? When Art Laboe programmed KRLA, they always prefaced songs such as Angel Baby, Darling Baby, A Thousand Stars, The More I See You and Baby You Got It with the message, "Here is a song that you won't hear anywhere except on KRLA." What if KRTH played a thousand songs that couldn't be heard anywhere except on KRTH?

 

[michael hagerty]

So KRTH shares 3% of its cume with five hundred other stations. If it was possible for KRTH to find 1000 classic hits that appeal to their target audience and are not being played on any other Los Angeles station, would KRTH be guaranteed of a larger audience and a higher TSL? When Art Laboe programmed KRLA, they always prefaced songs such as Angel Baby, Darling Baby, A Thousand Stars, The More I See You and Baby You Got It with the message, "Here is a song that you won't hear anywhere except on KRLA." What if KRTH played a thousand songs that couldn't be heard anywhere except on KRTH?

1. No. Exclusivity counts for zilch.

2. Art Laboe programmed KRLA last more than 30 years ago and didn't win then.

3. Playing 850 songs your core wants to hear is infinitely better than playing 1000 songs that aren't being played (likely for a reason) elsewhere.

We've ruled out drinking. Do you really not get this or what?

 

[semoochie]

Don't think like that. 25-54 is really about 35-44. They're concerned with getting a big chunk in the middle of the demo, not with whether they throw off people who are four years from aging out.

So, you're saying that they threw out 45-53 year olds nine years ago. This means, per my other thread, that everything before 1973 is bound to go at any minute or would, if it weren't for the current 40 year old's strange appreciation of what happened before their time. It also means that they ignored my point of removing the older songs, while adding newer ones, a process that should have begun nearly at the time of the last change, nine years ago.

 

[davideduardo]

So, you're saying that they threw out 45-53 year olds nine years ago. This means, per my other thread, that everything before 1973 is bound to go at any minute or would, if it weren't for the current 40 year old's strange appreciation of what happened before their time. It also means that they ignored my point of removing the older songs, while adding newer ones, a process that should have begun nearly at the time of the last change, nine years ago.

Many oldies stations neglected to notice that their audience was aging with the music, and felt they had to be British Invasion / Motown based.

The idea of dropping the sentimental base was harder to accept than it was for AC stations, which gradually abandoned the Carpenters, Manilow and Chicago and added more contemporary sounds. Perhaps this is because traditional AC's also played currents, so they were less wed to a bygone era. And those mainstream ACs actually appeal to demos very similar to those of classic hits stations.

The slowdown in the radio growth of the 90's to inflation adjusted negative growth in the early 00's made stations that had less salable demos realize that there was not enough billing to continue aging... then the double hit of the recession and PPM finished off the perfect storm that made nearly every oldies station morph into classic hits... or change formats.

 

[michael hagerty]

So, you're saying that they threw out 45-53 year olds nine years ago. This means, per my other thread, that everything before 1973 is bound to go at any minute or would, if it weren't for the current 40 year old's strange appreciation of what happened before their time. It also means that they ignored my point of removing the older songs, while adding newer ones, a process that should have begun nearly at the time of the last change, nine years ago.

Except, Semoochie, that your mileage may vary. You're 51 and not happy with KRTH. I'm 57 and I think it sounds great. But ultimately, they do what they do for people 10-20 years younger than either of us.

 

[Thomps2525]

And if somebody at KRTH decided that 30-year-olds would enjoy hearing Tōne Lōc's Wild Thing, which got played last weekend, then it must be so. The Beatles and Supremes and Beach Boys and Four Seasons are disappearing from the playlist in order to make way for more Madonna, Eagles, Foreigner, Bon Jovi.....and Tōne Lōc.

By the way, Michael, regarding your comment about how KRTH shouldn't play songs that no other station is playing: I got the impression that you think the songs on KRTH's current playlist are the only songs that appeal to their target audience. Perhaps the auditorium tests bear that out, but it's hard for me to believe that there are only 1000 listenable songs that came out of the 27-year span of 1964 through 1990. That averages out to only 38 songs per year. Radio station charts were usually a top 30 or top 40 and never just a "top one" or "top two." There must be more songs that could be played in 2013.

 

[michael hagerty]

And if somebody at KRTH decided that 30-year-olds would enjoy hearing Tōne Lōc's Wild Thing, which got played last weekend, then it must be so. The Beatles and Supremes and Beach Boys and Four Seasons are disappearing from the playlist in order to make way for more Madonna, Eagles, Foreigner, Bon Jovi.....and Tōne Lōc.

By the way, Michael, regarding your comment about how KRTH shouldn't play songs that no other station is playing: I got the impression that you think the songs on KRTH's current playlist are the only songs that appeal to their target audience. Perhaps the auditorium tests bear that out, but it's hard for me to believe that there are only 1000 listenable songs that came out of the 27-year span of 1964 through 1990. That averages out to only 38 songs per year. Radio station charts were usually a top 30 or top 40 and never just a "top one" or "top two." There must be more songs that could be played in 2013.

Steve: First of all, KRTH is aiming at 40-year olds, not 30-year-olds.

Second, the reason 30 song playlists beat 40 song playlists was that there weren't that many actual hits. The very different programmers Rick Sklar (WABC) and Buzz Bennett (KCBQ) eventually settled on 18 to 25 song playlists, and since a third or more of the songs were songs that had peaked and were on their way down, even that didn't mean there were 18 to 25 hits.

Buzzy's belief was that there were really only 7 records that were indisputable hits at any given time...the rest were songs on the way down and songs that hadn't hit their peak yet, and might never actually be one of that group of 7.

If Buzz was right (and Buzz always won...he beat Drake so thoroughly in San Diego that Willett Brown, the man who recommended Drake to RKO, fired him), then there may have been 40-50 hits a year. And not all were able to maintain long-term popularity after leaving the charts.

So let's go to the high number of 50 and say half (generous) have legs for decades.

That's 25 songs per year.

1964-1990 (though that's way too broad for what KRTH is doing) is 26 years...times 25 songs a year is...650 songs.

And KRTH plays 200 more than that from a narrower time window.

I'd say they're playing absolutely every record that won't hurt them.

 

[semoochie]

Except, Semoochie, that your mileage may vary. You're 51 and not happy with KRTH. I'm 57 and I think it sounds great. But ultimately, they do what they do for people 10-20 years younger than either of us.

No, actually, I was 51 nine years ago, when they took away the first half of the traditional Oldies playlist and a ton of other songs from the mid to late 60s. What I found though, was that I didn't particularly care to hear the same handful of 70s songs over and over infinitum, was never particularly fond of Classic Rock and began looking for something else. At this point, I rediscovered "Pop", realizing that the "Hip-Hop" content was greatly reduced and that I actually liked just about everything else! (It also made it possible for me to listen to AC again. The newer music had seemed completely incompatible with the old, for quite sometime.) That was over four years ago and I like the idea of time passing at a fairly normal speed.

 

[bigtom101]

As someone who always loved the Drake style sound of K-Earth (and the traditional 55-72 playlist), it makes me very sad to see the last of it go - but "tempus sure does fugit", and hopefully all of the jingles and imaging that were on 101.1 migrate to the HD-2.

That being said, at least they are evolving the station to keep it relevant, making money, and thus the very talented people on and off air employed. As has been pointed out in this thread, radio stations aren't meant to be museums. And with the plethora of internet radio stations, I don't think anyone should be hurting for their 60's Motown or British Invasion fix (then again, there are only a handful of decently programmed stations out there).

Michael & David - do you see a point in the future where the brand will have outlived the ability to evolve, or will continual changes make it so that K-Earth doesn't end up ossifying like many others did from 2000-2005?

 

[michael hagerty]

As someone who always loved the Drake style sound of K-Earth (and the traditional 55-72 playlist), it makes me very sad to see the last of it go - but "tempus sure does fugit", and hopefully all of the jingles and imaging that were on 101.1 migrate to the HD-2.

That being said, at least they are evolving the station to keep it relevant, making money, and thus the very talented people on and off air employed. As has been pointed out in this thread, radio stations aren't meant to be museums. And with the plethora of internet radio stations, I don't think anyone should be hurting for their 60's Motown or British Invasion fix (then again, there are only a handful of decently programmed stations out there).

Michael & David - do you see a point in the future where the brand will have outlived the ability to evolve, or will continual changes make it so that K-Earth doesn't end up ossifying like many others did from 2000-2005?

If Rick's doing what I think he's doing, "K-Earth 101" will mean "songs I really like from the past" for multi-ethnic people in their mid-30s to mid-40s for years to come. He and Jhani are lucky that they weren't saddled with a confining name like "Oldies 101". "K-Earth" isn't automatically locked to an era or genre (in fact, the calls and name were chosen when Drake intended to take KHJ-FM album rock)...it means (especially when you have new blood making up your core listener base) whatever KRTH wants it to mean.

 

[Bob Hudson]

And if somebody at KRTH decided that 30-year-olds would enjoy hearing Tōne Lōc's Wild Thing, which got played last weekend, then it must be so. .

Rick must have a thing for Wild Thing - I recall that 1989 hit was being played in 1990 when I worked with Rick at what was then his first California gig: programming Victor Diaz' Jammin' Z-90 in San Diego. Of course Rick later programmed WILD 107 in the Bay Area which kicked off its format by playing Wild Thing for 3 days straight.

 

[Thomps2525]

I always assumed that when KHJ-FM in 1972 decided to become KRTH (K-Earth), the new call letters were inspired by the first Earth Day, which took place in 1970, and the popularity of Earth Shoes (with the thick soles and thin heels), which went on sale in 1970. In response to semoochie, I'm guessing that, thirty years from now, when classic hits stations are playing music from the early 2000s, there won't be many songs from 2002-06, when hip-hop was so dominant. But I could be wrong---perhaps listeners in 2043 will want to hear Nelly, Eminem, Missy Elliott, Chingy, 50 Cent, Ja Rule, The Game, Ludacris, Ciara, and Kanye West.

Michael, 1964 through 1990 is a 27-year-span, not 26. You have to take all those years inclusive, not just subtract 1964 frrom 1990. I know you think I don't understand much about formats and playlists...but I do know my 'rithmetic. But the issue will soon be moot because I think KRTH will soon be 1970s-80s-90s the same as KOLA.