The sad state of Active Rock as a format

[TheBigA]

Real Rock disappeared with the advent of Grunge and hasn't made a significant return. Heavy Metal wounded Rock and Grunge killed it. No innovation. No experimentation. No "music". Just noise.

Not just grunge, but the one-two punch of grunge and rap-based rock, when Aerosmith joined Run-DMC for the remake of Walk This Way. That song broke a lot of barriers, but also started to dilute what rock was. This came right after the rise of punk, power-pop and other sub genres within rock that really split the base into so many smaller groups, and rock lost its core. This is what caused MTV to move away from music, which was dividing its audience, and then focus on reality shows.

 

[88.9 Miracle]

Rock never went away. AOR (or Melodic Rock as it is now known) is still around and now growing like mad. Frontier records is the master of releasing this material and now has distribution in the USA. ClassX is an AOR/Melodic Rock/Classic Rock formatted station in Cincinnati. That's all we play and we are growing. http://classxradio.com.

History does repeat itself. I can't tell you how many teenagers we talk to who are turning their backs on crap formats currently called Rock and looking at the old AOR format. It's quite refreshing and super long overdue.

 

[landtuna]

Rock never went away. AOR (or Melodic Rock as it is now known) is still around and now growing like mad.

The Rock I knew definitely did. And AOR (also know as "drug rock") expired well before that. Although I was never a fan of dru....er, AOR (because it seemed like another version of elevator music punctuated by guitar riffs) I guess I'm glad something is coming back to, at least, bump rap back to the Stone Ages where it belongs.

I've always thought my generation, which suffered through the payola scandals and ensuing girl groups and Motown, had it bad. But the last several decades have been much, much worse in terms of musical experimentation.

I did give a listen to your station. It isn't my thing but good luck with the format. Anything is an improvement over what we have today.

 

[upstate29651]

Active Rock's problems are its overreliance on '90s grunge and classic hard rock music and the qualitative composition of its audience (ie too few female listeners, and too many male listeners with just a high school education).

Active was never intended to hit a female demo. Not sure I'd rely too heavily on your mis-characterisation of the male demo, but ok.

90's Grunge is what built the format, not the 70s-80s arena rockers, despite what you may think & hear. What's killing active rock is not only the insertion of the classic rock acts (yes I know, that was part of the formulation of the format in the first place), but the insistence of the inclusion of female-friendly "wuss rock" (weezer, Blink 182) as well as "formula rock" (rock created by some music exec's to fill a perceived need, such as Skillet & Five Finger Death Punch).

G

 

[TheBigA]

What's killing active rock is not only the insertion of the classic rock acts (yes I know, that was part of the formulation of the format in the first place), but the insistence of the inclusion of female-friendly "wuss rock" (weezer, Blink 182) as well as "formula rock" (rock created by some music exec's to fill a perceived need, such as Skillet & Five Finger Death Punch).

The question you need to ask is: Do you want musical purity or a sellable demographic? In other words, are you in the music business or the radio business? If you're in the radio business, then musical purity isn't as important. Ask the folks who created smooth jazz. The musical purists hated it, but it got great demos until they got too old. If you'll forgive my generalization, radio is willing to alienate a small number of musical purists. That applies to just about every format right now, including oldies, country, and rock.

 

[upstate29651]

What's killing active rock is not only the insertion of the classic rock acts (yes I know, that was part of the formulation of the format in the first place), but the insistence of the inclusion of female-friendly "wuss rock" (weezer, Blink 182) as well as "formula rock" (rock created by some music exec's to fill a perceived need, such as Skillet & Five Finger Death Punch).

The question you need to ask is: Do you want musical purity or a sellable demographic? In other words, are you in the music business or the radio business? If you're in the radio business, then musical purity isn't as important. Ask the folks who created smooth jazz. The musical purists hated it, but it got great demos until they got too old. If you'll forgive my generalization, radio is willing to alienate a small number of musical purists. That applies to just about every format right now, including oldies, country, and rock.

Both points taken. As far as sellable demos go, not everyone can corner the females. That's who everyone is after, but at the end of the day, not everyone can have them. Period. Folks seem to write off rock as the land of tattoo parlors, beer, clubs & "smoking accessories". However, 18-34M do buy groceries, eat out, and....SHOP!

On musical purity, I know you have to play what moves meters & inventory, and sometimes what may sound like a "core" artist gets left out, save for some specialty lunchtime show or late nights.

G

 

[TheBigA]

As far as sellable demos go, not everyone can corner the females. That's who everyone is after, but at the end of the day, not everyone can have them.

I think people at OTA radio stations would love to reach men 18-34, but know they're not loyal. Men will go where they can get what they want with minimal interruption (ie, commercials). Women aren't as picky. Forgive my over-generalization, but they love the simplicity of OTA radio, and don't care as much about musical purity. The major radio groups are also heavily invested in new media, so they'll try to get the men there. Call it the Jack Welch approach. You put your marbles where you're most likely to be #1 or #2. If not, get out of it.

 

[scottsvb5]

Active Rock is an Oxymoron... programmed for morons with a very limited scope of music preference.

Your retarded! You don't know good music!

 

[scottsvb5]

The problem is that there's not much activity in active rock.

Active Rock's problems are its overreliance on '90s grunge and classic hard rock music and the qualitative composition of its audience (ie too few female listeners, and too many male listeners with just a high school education).

Yet it seems like the active rocks that play a wide spectrum including hard classic rock and 90s do better than the stations that are more current based. KRXQ/Sacramento does well for example with a wider range. In PPM markets where cume is especially important playing familiar music is vital.

Here is what I think the biggest problem Active Rock has. In the 70s and 80s the biggest rock bands were household names "Superstars" as the Burkhart/Abrams format was called at the time. The music and artists were familar to a wide range of radio listeners.
Today rock is too much of a niche. Outside of rock listeners, the wider universe of radio listeners are unfamiliar with most of the formats core artists.

Also it seems like much of the newer rock has a darker, more negative vibe than rock used to have in it's heyday. While this may be what the active rock audience wants, it may turn off other potential listeners who can get their fix of "feel good" music from other formats.

Wrong ..everything you posted is 100% Wrong.

1st.... Active Rock beats out Modern Rock stations in most markets unless they have a great morning drive in personalitys!

2nd... There are only about 2 dozen Active Rock stations that really support "New" Active Rock.. which is harder rock than Modern Rock alternative. Bands like 5 FingerDeathPunch,Avenge Sevenfold,Disturbed,All That Remains,Volbeat, Bullet For My Valentine,Shinedown,Sevendust.. I can go on and on draw on not only 12-21 year olds, but also in the 21-39 age groups.

3rd There is no darker side Today than when there was in the 80s.. and the 90s alternative scene was just a welcome change "At that time" when Hair Bands were all the same old same old.

Active Rock.. like KHTQ,WJJO and many others lead their way in mid markets.. but they even beat out Country,Hip-Hop and even Adult AC... but it's cause of the "New Music" that people want to hear when they have that 20 min drive.. New Music Rules with the Listener... Recognizable Music gets turned off cause of the amount of Airplay they get.

In all.. the sad state of Active Rock? Its just not done correctly. If Radio Stations that play Active Rock plays more Active Rock, instead of only 3-4 songs per hour and play more like 6-7 songs that are "New" like KHTQ,WJJO and other midmarkets... higher ratings will happen elsewhere.

BTW I know a couple of them stations mentioned above.. 1 was not really Active Rock..more Alternative.. the other in Miami never played New Active Rock.. more like 1 song every hour.. rest was 2-10 years ago music... of course they won't get #s and cume.. people want "New Music"... I will assume other stations that were active rock died cause of the lack of New Music they played.

 

[scottsvb5]

Rock never went away. AOR (or Melodic Rock as it is now known) is still around and now growing like mad. Frontier records is the master of releasing this material and now has distribution in the USA. ClassX is an AOR/Melodic Rock/Classic Rock formatted station in Cincinnati. That's all we play and we are growing. http://classxradio.com.

History does repeat itself. I can't tell you how many teenagers we talk to who are turning their backs on crap formats currently called Rock and looking at the old AOR format. It's quite refreshing and super long overdue.

You guys do play some good hairbands/rock bands from the 80s-90s.. but if you go after "New Active Rock"... say the top 20 Active Rock chart songs and rotate them every 3hrs..it will greatly increase your ratings in the 12-39 targeting age.

Play 6-7 songs that are "New" per hour
Play 1-2 recurrents/yesterday from 6months-few years ago
Play 3-4 songs from 80s-00s from Hair-Grunge-Metal

You will get people to listen. Also do a show or 2 with requests to get the listener involved.

 

[88.9 Miracle]

Rock never went away. AOR (or Melodic Rock as it is now known) is still around and now growing like mad. Frontier records is the master of releasing this material and now has distribution in the USA. ClassX is an AOR/Melodic Rock/Classic Rock formatted station in Cincinnati. That's all we play and we are growing. http://classxradio.com.

History does repeat itself. I can't tell you how many teenagers we talk to who are turning their backs on crap formats currently called Rock and looking at the old AOR format. It's quite refreshing and super long overdue.

You guys do play some good hairbands/rock bands from the 80s-90s.. but if you go after "New Active Rock"... say the top 20 Active Rock chart songs and rotate them every 3hrs..it will greatly increase your ratings in the 12-39 targeting age.

Play 6-7 songs that are "New" per hour
Play 1-2 recurrents/yesterday from 6months-few years ago
Play 3-4 songs from 80s-00s from Hair-Grunge-Metal

You will get people to listen. Also do a show or 2 with requests to get the listener involved.

We are not about ANY of the new rock formats or their new rock tunes. In fact, we have found that the younger teenage audience is becoming fed up with what Rock has become and they are finding us and loving what we play. All we do is try to stay true to the original sound of AOR by playing some oldies and some new music from the bands that created the classic rock sound and new European bands that are still following that tradition. "Feel Good" music at http://classxradio.com is what we do.

As to requests, we very seldom get requests for any of the new forms of Rock, but rather music from the bands that we play. Go to a Classic Rock band concert and you'll see what the crowd wants to hear. McCartney in Cincinnati was packed, Journey was packed. Interestingly enough, the audience had just as many young adults as there were old adults.

 

[scottsvb5]

Well gl with your station.. Most kids like Hip-Hop or Todays Harder Rock.. if you see the top grossing concerts and merchandise over the past 3 years.. it's been with the Harder Rock/Metal bands.. like Mayhem Festival-UpRoar and others. Rock music over the past few years has well out done Modern Rock except a few bands like Rise Against. Even more 90s Modern Rock bands like Staind, Jane's Addiction have grown into a Harder Active Rock scene cause that's where the $$$ is.

Anyways.. I do like the hairbands you play from the melodic rock scene..but to mix it with Steve Windwood,Steve Miller Band,Cold Play,Robert Plant.. I cant handle it.. but gl to you

 

[vchimpanzee]

Anyways.. I do like the hairbands you play from the melodic rock scene..but to mix it with Steve Windwood,Steve Miller Band,Cold Play,Robert Plant.. I cant handle it.. but gl to you

I would agree with that. Since I actually sort of liked Coldplay the last time I heard them on The Grammys, they probably don't work.

I was listening to this commercial for a concert that includes such names as Theory of a Dead Man and other really loud and evil-sounding bands. It's hard to believe this format is in trouble.

 

[landtuna]

I was listening to this commercial for a concert that includes such names as Theory of a Dead Man and other really loud and evil-sounding bands. It's hard to believe this format is in trouble.

I think you just answered your own question.

 

[vchimpanzee]

I was listening to this commercial for a concert that includes such names as Theory of a Dead Man and other really loud and evil-sounding bands. It's hard to believe this format is in trouble.

I think you just answered your own question.

I thought loud and evil sounding was what today's young people wanted.

 

[RFLA]

Here is what I've been finding (My opinions):

Yes some kids do like the older rock (in fact there was a newspaper article on it about 2 years ago of some kids dropping new rock and rap for Clapton), these are the same people who would probably venture to AAA with it's expermintation and I do miss some AOR which most of the old groups are outputting new material but seems to almost never get adds except on some mainstream heritage stations.
However I know you are doing good as you say on the internet, remember that the internet allows it to go many places, most of this conversation is about terrestrial active rock and I'm curious how the before mentioned internet AOR station would do in today's market with newer kids as most I meet won't listen to their father's (and now grandfather's) rock other than say Ozzy, Led Zep, Pink Floyd...They won't listen to say Night ranger IMO as remember kids are creatures of peer pressure and many times go after what their peers are listening to..hince we have rap still here on the top of the list even though it really hasn't had any real defining movement or even anything new and special and defining in 7 years itself IMO


The sad point is, most classic rock stations bang the same hits as that is what tested so well cause you got some people who will only go for tried and true. The stuff they remember even though most of the "deep Classics" we advertise were big hits, just that it wasn't run into the ground like the "Back In Black" album. So we get the calls for the same stuff day in day out.

New Active rock I do like , however as someone said it's become too formulaic as we have theory of a deadman running the same chords into the ground even though I love them and after some time the listeners say the same thing.. come on but it sells cds and Itunes singles so....

Everyone is hopping on the ipods.. unless they are going into debt, scanning the music sites, or stealing off of bittorrent, they have to hear new songs from somewhere. Actually the people I know still on unlimited internet on the smartphones or stealing wi-fi from somewhere at work are streaming sites such as pandora due to the fact that they can tailor the music to what they want to hear.. However after awhile for most it does get tired and it's where the content of local radio needs to come in and grab them.

I'm at a loss except for PPM when it comes to what listeners really want as people know males in the aimed for age bracket of active rock under report, and we don't really promote to the older age groups who also listen as classic rock has turned them off with the same repeats over and over again.

One of the trends I am noticing as classic rock is aging out, new rock stations are falling to make new format stations, we are re-blending the music once again in mainstream stations that if they stay almost 50/50 can keep a lot of generations happy it seems IMO

 

[RFLA]

Here is what I've been finding (My opinions):

Yes some kids do like the older rock (in fact there was a newspaper article on it about 2 years ago of some kids dropping new rock and rap for Clapton), these are the same people who would probably venture to AAA with it's expermintation and I do miss some AOR which most of the old groups are outputting new material but seems to almost never get adds except on some mainstream heritage stations.
However I know you are doing good as you say on the internet, remember that the internet allows it to go many places, most of this conversation is about terrestrial active rock and I'm curious how the before mentioned internet AOR station would do in today's market with newer kids as most I meet won't listen to their father's (and now grandfather's) rock other than say Ozzy, Led Zep, Pink Floyd...They won't listen to say Night ranger IMO as remember kids are creatures of peer pressure and many times go after what their peers are listening to..hince we have rap still here on the top of the list even though it really hasn't had any real defining movement or even anything new and special and defining in 7 years itself IMO

I will apologize to Rock Nuts! as I am checking out his site and thought he was like most that come on here hyping a internet station and not one that actually has to worry about a terrestrial station .
I did my research and notice now he is a station owner (He has 2 class As and a C3) and I do apologize as I believe personally internet only stations should not be compared to terrestrial stations sorry as you can more narrowcast on the internet than


But I am curious what kind of popularity you are getting with it locally on the terrestrial market? And what is your opinion then of most of the new rock coming into the mainstream (not active) market as personally I think not as much as the melodic rock songs but some of the newer rock such as black stone cherry, pop evil, alterbridge actually are a extension of the 80s rock and early 90s non grunge rock that came out and personally I see something like this with your format being a lot more successful to a mass audience IMO.

I'm asking as I figure some of these groups would compare to the new Chickenfoot song "Bigfoot" you played according to your playlist

 

[scottsvb5]

I also agree with some of what alot of people are saying.

Since the topic is Active Rock... Active Rock contains to what AOR was back in the late 80s-90s.. (more of a Hard Rock-Metal) music that guys 12-39 age group gets into nowadays.

Modern Rock (more alternative from 1993-2000's) does have also some listeners..maybe more female but less men than Active Rock. Mostly College girls who go from Top 40-Rock.. while the guys more less go for the Active Rock of a Harder scene.. really no different than the 80s hard rock band era into the seattle scene.

Problem with Active rock as stated before is the Lack of Active Rock stations playing "New Rock".

Most Active Rock stations play recognizable music that is overplayed in city after city in the U.S. since 1993.. Like seattle bands-recurrents of a year ago. This fails as did in Miami,Philly and a few other markets.. they lacked New Active Rock Bands. People get tired of hearing same old same old in the car for that 20 min drive. Don't you? Think about it.. the testings are not accurate.

Question for the PDs... How is it that "New Pop" Music Works.. but "New Active Rock" wont get the chance to test? Mid Markets like KHTQ,WJJO do very well in the ratings and we cant go by what the geographic location, we have to go by what people are tuning in. We also have to go by what is selling in that market and what is going on nationally.

Remember.. we don't have MTV that made bands back in the 80s from videos. Kids thru Adults nowadays rely on your local radio station to hear what music is out there. They can go to the net and get "New Music" but only a certain % does this.

What people want to hear on a Active Rock station is no different than what people want to hear on a Pop station... it's New Music... If its Pop, Hip-Hop, Country and even Rock... People will Tune in to hear what "New Song" is played.. this hasn't changed since Rock started on the radio. We have to remember when we were kids.. we wanted to hear the New Song from that New Band. But if your local radio station wont promo New Music then the recognizable music you feel safe with will make your station FAIL.. as it does in many markets.

 

[faaradar]

Saturday marked the 20th anniversary of Guns N’ Roses releasing its double album “Use Your Illusion.” My old friend, Rick Sopher, and I went to Turtle’s Records store in Baymeadows for a special midnight opening to buy it.

Guess what album was released the following week? Nirvana’s “Nevermind.” The ground-breaking grunge record would take a few months to erupt in popularity, but it’s amazing to me how music history shifted in the week between “Use Your Illusion” and “Nevermind.” The passing of the rock torch from metal to alternative occurred 20 years ago this week, although no one knew it at the time. And since rock is basically dead now, that was the last significant shift

From Hays Carlyon @ Florida Times-Union

 

[vchimpanzee]

Saturday marked the 20th anniversary of Guns N’ Roses releasing its double album “Use Your Illusion.” My old friend, Rick Sopher, and I went to Turtle’s Records store in Baymeadows for a special midnight opening to buy it.

Guess what album was released the following week? Nirvana’s “Nevermind.” The ground-breaking grunge record would take a few months to erupt in popularity, but it’s amazing to me how music history shifted in the week between “Use Your Illusion” and “Nevermind.” The passing of the rock torch from metal to alternative occurred 20 years ago this week, although no one knew it at the time. And since rock is basically dead now, that was the last significant shift

From Hays Carlyon @ Florida Times-Union

I happened to be listening to a countdown show (not Casey Kasem's) when "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was played, before anyone had heard of Nirvana. The DJ said this was a groundbreaking song on the scale of "My Sharona" by The Knack. It meant the introduction of a whole new era in music. Those are my words. I don't remember his exact words, but they were something like that. It was an interesting and different song to say the least. Before the part where it gets really loud and angry, but even then it was a song that marked a new era indeed.