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Today's Warm 106.9 tweaks format

D

discjockeyj1964

After several hours of listening this morning, I see Warm is not the NEW Warm 106.9, but Today's Warm 106.9. The station is basically playing about 50% current, 50% 80s/90s. It is also going from up tempo to down tempo pretty frequently. A bit jarring, but I am sure they'll work on the sound over the next week or two. Trying to outdo The Sound's 94 minute commercial free start to the workday, Today's Warm starts a two hour commercial free music block at 7:45 am. Have heard quite a bit of 80's music this morning from the likes of: Air Supply, Toto, George Michael, INXS. The morning DJ seems to be filler, I suspect bigger news for a morning show in the next month or two.

The Christmas music swapped places and is back on KRWM 106.9 HD, with the caveat of no ads for the next few days. Those still wanting the holiday tunes, can rejoice.
 
Tried to edit the previous thread, but couldn't get it to allow me to do so. The Christmas music is on 106.9 HD2, with KIXI 880 still on 106.9 HD3.
 
Yeah, small sample size but you can see a difference if you compare the playlist to 12/26/17. Looking at Mediabase, from Midnight to 11am last year KRWM’s average year was 2002.7. Same time frame this year the average year is 1999.14.

They’re playing songs from the 00’s and 10’s about 25% less, and playing songs from the 80’s about 50% more.

On top of that, it looks like they’re throwing in some 60s/70s “oh wow” records like Brown Eyed Girl (a song they haven’t played since 2012), We Are Family, and Margaritaville. This is something new.

The thing that surprised me was the lack of 90’s songs, not just on KRWM but in the AC format in general. In looking at the most played AC golds over the past year countrywide, there is only 1 90’s song in the top 100 – Goo Goo Dolls Iris from 1998. I understand how it could be jarring for listeners to go from 80’s to 00’s to 80’s to 10’s. I’m not an AC expert by any means so maybe someone can explain to me why these stations aren’t playing more music from the 90s.
 
iamarussianpirate said:
Yeah, small sample size but you can see a difference if you compare the playlist to 12/26/17. Looking at Mediabase, from Midnight to 11am last year KRWM’s average year was 2002.7. Same time frame this year the average year is 1999.14.

They’re playing songs from the 00’s and 10’s about 25% less, and playing songs from the 80’s about 50% more.

On top of that, it looks like they’re throwing in some 60s/70s “oh wow” records like Brown Eyed Girl (a song they haven’t played since 2012), We Are Family, and Margaritaville. This is something new.

The thing that surprised me was the lack of 90’s songs, not just on KRWM but in the AC format in general. In looking at the most played AC golds over the past year countrywide, there is only 1 90’s song in the top 100 – Goo Goo Dolls Iris from 1998. I understand how it could be jarring for listeners to go from 80’s to 00’s to 80’s to 10’s. I’m not an AC expert by any means so maybe someone can explain to me why these stations aren’t playing more music from the 90s.
Click to expand...

Is this what it's come to? We now live in a radio world in which "Brown Eyed Girl," "We Are Family" and "Margaritaville" are "oh wow" songs?
 
Brown Eyed Girl, on KRWM? Interesting! They are definitely going after The Sound. It will be a battle of the Celine Dion's, Michael Bolton's and Phil Collins's in 2019, between 94.1 and 106.9!
 
"Brown Eyed Girl" was often panned as the ultimate example of an overplayed oldie, but it gets very little play these days.
 
crainbebo said:
Brown Eyed Girl, on KRWM? Interesting! They are definitely going after The Sound. It will be a battle of the Celine Dion's, Michael Bolton's and Phil Collins's in 2019, between 94.1 and 106.9!
Click to expand...

Told you all it was going to be a pillow fight.
 
Ironically, Van Morrison has publicly stated he hates Brown Eyed Girl. Even in concerts he plays an alternate arrangement like a slow jazz version. With the switch at WARM are there more 80s songs being played today than in the 80s on Seattle radio? KWSD, KRKO, KJR, KJAQ, KZOK, and KWRM. Not to mention KISM and KAFE out of Bellingham.
 
seatownmedia said:
And a fight that could doom both. Or not. Fighting for this audience seems to be somewhat futile, but I could be wrong. Didn't Oldies stations die in the late 90's?
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Stations were mostly jettisoning the format in 2004, sometimes by updating it by adding 70s. It still seemed pretty healthy in the late 90s.
 
seatownmedia said:
And a fight that could doom both. Or not. Fighting for this audience seems to be somewhat futile, but I could be wrong. Didn't Oldies stations die in the late 90's?
Click to expand...

You can't always judge the future based on the conventional knowledge of this time two years ago. If someone said Soft AC was making a comeback in 2016, they would have been laughed off this board. Not anymore.

Is it a fad? Or a course shift? Time will tell. But there's no iron clad rule in anything these days. It always takes just one renegade from the conventional logic to shake everything up. And when that happens, it isn't the renegade's fault for not sticking to the script, it's everyone else's fault for being too self assured to think outside the conventional norms.
 
Bongwater said:
You can't always judge the future based on the conventional knowledge of this time two years ago. If someone said Soft AC was making a comeback in 2016, they would have been laughed off this board. Not anymore.
Click to expand...

In some ways, the non-industry posters lamenting the increasingly uptempo nature of AC a couple of years ago were ahead of the professionals in signaling the eventual need for this sort of format. The big question now is whether the listeners who enjoy it now will age out of advertiser desirability too soon to allow it to last. The '70s and '80s were the halcyon days of mellow pop and soul.

Big changes started in the '90s, and the new millennium has seen very few softer hits make the kind of impact the chart toppers of the '70s and '80s did, and most of those hits aren't getting played at CHR, which has gone almost totally rhythmic and only marginally melodic. Will there be enough people who were listening to mainstream AC instead of rhythmic CHR in the '00s and '10s as 20-somethings to keep the format going as they age into the 35-54 sweet spot Breeze is targeting? And are there enough songs from those decades that will test well enough to fill out even a tight playlist of 300 songs or so without pushing the format too rhythmic?
 
CTListener said:
In some ways, the non-industry posters lamenting the increasingly uptempo nature of AC a couple of years ago were ahead of the professionals in signaling the eventual need for this sort of format.
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Maybe...it was Sir Isaac Newton who said that for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. That means as these stations go softer, there becomes an opening for another station to go harder and add more currents.
 
CTListener said:
In some ways, the non-industry posters lamenting the increasingly uptempo nature of AC a couple of years ago were ahead of the professionals in signaling the eventual need for this sort of format.
Click to expand...

The non-industry folks have the advantage of real-life, street level observation. Whereas the insiders tend to view it through the corporate prism, which can distort.

I don't think advertising is as big a problem as it's being made out to be, not with all these "Breeze" stations popping up everywhere. That wouldn't be happening if ad agencies were rejecting it. So there's something besides age demos at work here.
 
Bongwater said:
I don't think advertising is as big a problem as it's being made out to be, not with all these "Breeze" stations popping up everywhere. That wouldn't be happening if ad agencies were rejecting it. So there's something besides age demos at work here.
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Agencies aren't going to reject it until they see the hard data, and that's not available yet for the new Breeze stations. The trade-off will be more impressions vs lower demos. Obviously the 6+ numbers are better, but that's not what the agencies buy.

Once again, these are format tweaks, not wholesale format changes going on here.
 
TheBigA said:
Agencies aren't going to reject it until they see the hard data, and that's not available yet for the new Breeze stations. The trade-off will be more impressions vs lower demos. Obviously the 6+ numbers are better, but that's not what the agencies buy.

Once again, these are format tweaks, not wholesale format changes going on here.
Click to expand...

What's happening at 106.9 is a format tweak. What's happening across the country is either a phenomena or a mass delusion. But something tells me they wouldn't go all in like this if there wasn't something there to support it.
 
CTListener said:
In some ways, the non-industry posters lamenting the increasingly uptempo nature of AC a couple of years ago were ahead of the professionals in signaling the eventual need for this sort of format. The big question now is whether the listeners who enjoy it now will age out of advertiser desirability too soon to allow it to last. The '70s and '80s were the halcyon days of mellow pop and soul.
Click to expand...

The pioneer station, WFEZ, began to hit its stride "a couple of years ago" as it figured out how to beat WLYF, the "conventional" AC station in Miami, in 25-54. They hit on the formula but it was not until going into 2018 that they reached dominance in 25-54 over WLYF and went to #1 in that demo. It took, obviously, a lot of tweaking.

By then, Cox decided to change WDUV, formerly the failed model for WFEZ, to the WFEZ formula, adding Jacksonville later. And we got early adopters in San Francisco and San Diego, confident that the format had legs. Later we got Seattle, and now the last 60 days has seen a mad rush to rediscover softer AC from Lethbridge to Buffalo.

Big changes started in the '90s, and the new millennium has seen very few softer hits make the kind of impact the chart toppers of the '70s and '80s did, and most of those hits aren't getting played at CHR, which has gone almost totally rhythmic and only marginally melodic. Will there be enough people who were listening to mainstream AC instead of rhythmic CHR in the '00s and '10s as 20-somethings to keep the format going as they age into the 35-54 sweet spot Breeze is targeting? And are there enough songs from those decades that will test well enough to fill out even a tight playlist of 300 songs or so without pushing the format too rhythmic?
Click to expand...

The core years of this format are about 1983-1990, with nearly nothing pre-1975 and lots of suff up to 2016-2017. There are plenty of Bruno Mars, Kelly Clarkson and Taylor Swift songs to sound fresh without being too "pop" in tempo. KISF has just over 20% of its library in the 2000-2017 period, and 25% from the 90's. So it is basically 50% 80's, 45% 90's to 2017 and 5% late 70's.

WFEZ has a bit over 450 songs in regular rotation (played at least every 2 weeks outside of overnights). KISF has a smaller just under 400 list, same for KYXY. All are 100% gold, with no recurrents of currents (by industry standards).
 
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