This is why we need dance stations on the FM dial!

[nd2023]

I was talking to someone from middle of nowhere, Pennsylvania. She really enjoys dance music, and she had discovered that dance appealed to her when she was driving home from Long Island and stumbled upon 87.7. She had listened to pulse87.com online ever since. She is what Tony would classify as a core dance fan.

However, she did not know about the existence of other Internet dance stations or the fact that Pulse 87 got replaced by Party 87, so when Pulse 87 went bankrupt, she stopped listening to dance radio. In fact, she never knew why Pulse 87 went off the air till I told her that they went bankrupt.

Now that 87.7 is for all intents and purposes, off the air, we won't get any more new dance listeners that way. Listeners like her are one of the hundreds of thousands of the cume that aren't on the Pulse 87 Facebook page, and have no other connection to dance music than Pulse 87.

Instead of converting people into liking dance music, 87.7 will be converting people to their religion.

 

[Morpheux]

No Kidding dude! That's why we need more unity in the dance community. All this nitpicking bs gets us nowhere. I can deal with hearing a ke$ha or pitbull if it means that it will allow for more edgier dance sounds to be played on a radio station. There are no pure stations in radio. Not in country,rock,rap,tropical,chr,regional mexican,urban,spanish ac,oldies,rhythmic,hot ac,classical.....you name the format. There are no pure stations.That's what they invented the ipod for.It's great to be idealistic until you face the politics of the real world.

 

[Alan_Freed]

An excellent point, Nick.

During my three years at XM (plus one at WorldSpace) I can't begin to tell you how many people discovered dance music (and liked it) because the dance channels shared the platform with everything else, availing the various genres on the four channels to those who may never had otherwise looked for it or found it. Further, one may be surprised to learn of the wide spectrum of people who are fans. Suffice to say that it's FAR broader and expansive than the typical stereotypes.

I enjoyed the same experience while running the 10-station Beat Radio Network in 1998. Similar to XM, it was on a platform that, despite the less-than-ideal AM band it was on, put it in an established shared environment with other content, somewhere easy where people were likely to find it, whether intentionally or as a ray of light while scanning the dial. I'd like to think that the presentation of both BPM, during my time there, and Beat Radio was inviting, accessible and inclusionary for newcomers.

Long before I arrived at XM and two years before going national with Beat Radio, my opinion had been formed about the symbiotic potential for dance and FM - in 1996 when the original Beat Radio was pumping out a whopping 20 watts from 11 stories above downtown Minneapolis. This was at a time when people were complaining about the sterility of FM; here was lil' ol' Beat Radio livening up FM and *gasp* drawing people to radio...people who in large part had abandoned the medium. People who were far more likely to, once they had turned their radios back on, check out the rest of the dial again and possibly find something else they liked.

The same concept is perhaps truer today than 14 years ago: in an era of uber media fragmentation and survival, FM needs more ears than ever. Dance can help achieve that goal while the exposure generated on an established platform, as Nick related, can help dance.

 

[TonySantiago]

I was talking to someone from middle of nowhere, Pennsylvania. She really enjoys dance music, and she had discovered that dance appealed to her when she was driving home from Long Island and stumbled upon 87.7. She had listened to pulse87.com online ever since. She is what Tony would classify as a core dance fan.

However, she did not know about the existence of other Internet dance stations or the fact that Pulse 87 got replaced by Party 87, so when Pulse 87 went bankrupt, she stopped listening to dance radio. In fact, she never knew why Pulse 87 went off the air till I told her that they went bankrupt.

Now that 87.7 is for all intents and purposes, off the air, we won't get any more new dance listeners that way. Listeners like her are one of the hundreds of thousands of the cume that aren't on the Pulse 87 Facebook page, and have no other connection to dance music than Pulse 87.

Instead of converting people into liking dance music, 87.7 will be converting people to their religion.

I was going to refrain from posting my thoughts for awhile, then I see this and have to explain something for the sake of moving forward.

I still believe in FM in terms of media outreach of any music (not just dance). However, and Morpheux said it best, we have to stop the nitpicking BS about things. While that wasn't the main reason PartyFM left 87.7, all of the negative comments didn't help. It's up to me, leading the coalition and taking whatever heat that comes with it, to STOP the negatives.

Alan's words have always been SPOT ON! I was a fan of Beat Radio and only WISHED I had XM radio in my car to follow him there when he ran "BPM". I do believe he is right, but at the same time based on what I've heard in the radio industry, we're being labeled as "crazed fanatics" that are all too critical and damaging for our own good. That's in part why radio outlets are apprehensive about doing a contemporary dance format on terrestrial radio based on our likes. I think dance music CAN work on the FM and would love to see it happen again in New York. But we have to ALL change from within (meaning the dance music community) and stop thinking "we know it all" and bash the littlest things that, at the end of the day, doesn't really matter. We can all be accused of that in one way or another (I used to do that with 'KTU back in the 90's and regret doing so now.)

I'm doing my own "conversions" of sorts, getting people to start accepting Internet broadcasting as our dance music reference. There are TONS of streamers out there with shows and full-time operating stations that cater to every dance fans whim and need. Does that mean we should stop listening to FM. NO.

Support the few outlets out there. For that matter, support the rhythmic A/C's such as a 'KTU. My 106.1 or a 93.9MIA. It may not be everyone's "cup of tea", but they are doing something. Support the Top 40/CHR outlets as well. But more importantly, be positive. We have to fix things within our community so that we can stop being so dang critical of everything, especially this whole artist argument of whether or not they are "dance".

If unity is going to happen within our community, we have to stop "hating" within ourselves and become more supportive. Let the radio folks, record labels, advertisers, promoters, do what they have to do. Whether we agree with them or not, they are in the forefront of the "game". And as far as message boards are concerned...STOP POSTING NEGATIVE STUFF UP!! In that sense you are hurting than helping. With the new "refocus" on the coalition, I am now looking for members to gear towards the positive aspects of our music as a whole and become more acceptant of what we have going on now, with the hopes that things can grow......NATURALLY, not by "force". I cannot have critics or those with "personal agendas", and if there are those that are going to do that, then I can't have them along with us.

Okay, now back to "fishing"