It's not a theory.
KROQ did exactly that for basically ten years, with two currents an hour, and the rest was gold. It didn't help.
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What’s wrong with KROQ 106.7 FM, and what can be done to fix it
- Thread starter Sean Cocca
- Start date
KROQ did exactly that for basically ten years, with two currents an hour, and the rest was gold. It didn't help.
Again, you seem to be trying to present your own preferences in musical performance styles as stone tablets containing eternal truths that you're bringing down to the ignorant from some sort of Alt Mount Sinai. Who are you to make absolute pronouncements on what is or isn't "fun" or "edgy" or whether a return to that style would restore alt to its "great heights" (4.0 shares? Great?) given all that's happened to the moving target that is the potential audience for alt in the past 20 years -- the increasing preference across racial and ethnic lines for rhythm, rhythm and more rhythm, often created without the use of musical instruments, over the snarling guitars that have propelled rock for more than 50 years. Could it be that what you hear and dislike today is the only real option radio has to make alternative rock interesting to a generation that is rapidly moving on to other sounds that you don't like or maybe don't understand?
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The music scheduling on KROQ was just flat out lazy under Kevin. Not enough variety or song turnover. Lots of good stuff from the harder rocking era of KROQ was ignored or seldom played.
Seems I touched a nerve with CTListener. Not sure why he or she is so bent out of shape regarding one man's opinion. Great current music with consensus appeal fueled the format's success from 1994 thru the early 00's. That ingredient is missing from the current iteration of the format. No one in three years will care about AJR, for example.
By the way, a 4 share in L.A. that is probably closer to a 5 in A25-54 definitely qualifies as great in my book, especially if sustained for a lengthy period. Many stations in the format today across the country cannot even muster a 2 share.
Seems I touched a nerve with CTListener. Not sure why he or she is so bent out of shape regarding one man's opinion. Great current music with consensus appeal fueled the format's success from 1994 thru the early 00's. That ingredient is missing from the current iteration of the format. No one in three years will care about AJR, for example.
By the way, a 4 share in L.A. that is probably closer to a 5 in A25-54 definitely qualifies as great in my book, especially if sustained for a lengthy period. Many stations in the format today across the country cannot even muster a 2 share.
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This subject has come up before. It's pretty obvious the station is aiming at a younger demo. The era you're talking about would attract men 35-45. Audacy is looking for people in their 20s. The problem is that in LA, the demo KROQ would want is currently listening to KYSR. KYSR has been #1 18-34 consistently for the last four months.
Regardless Audacy has been pursuing this strategy for about ten months, and they appear to be sticking with it.
How are in demo numbers at KROQ compared to, say, 18 months ago? My gut feeling is they are no worse now, perhaps modestly improved compared to then.
Going back to a much earlier post, I actually liked a good amount of the Lillith Fair music, for the record! It's artists such as Len, Everclear and Third Eye Blind that I don't like.
Going back to a much earlier post, I actually liked a good amount of the Lillith Fair music, for the record! It's artists such as Len, Everclear and Third Eye Blind that I don't like.
Alternative is often hard to define, but inaccurate to define it exclusively as a subgenre of Rock. Alternative has always been left of center/quirky Pop and Rock. The 90s ushered in an era of guitar based Alternative (Grunge and beyond), which provided the format with its most significant ratings from a radio standpoint. However, if you look at the history of Alternative, the format is not tied directly to Pop or Rock. At one point, 'Alternative' embraced sounds from Jewel to Tool. In the late 90s, the format became a Nu-Metal format; when that failed, the format moved back to the center, before becoming a very Pop driven format in 2020-2021. With that said, 'the format' seems to be chasing streams and has lost its identity for the most part.
But historically it grew out of the post punk rock period of the 80s. So in that way it's a subgenre of rock.
The fact that a pop element of it has emerged doesn't change the origins of the genre. But that's why I say it's splintered even further from where it was 30 years ago, creating further sub-genres.
Much worse in all sales demos and splits.
Absolutely. If you run factor/cluster analysis on songs in an OMT, you see that no songs, except maybe the top 100 or so, score well overall. Then, they all score mediocre because for every song, one group likes it, one finds it tolerable and another hates it.
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Punk Rock definitely set the table for Alternative, as did Depeche Mode, Erasure, and New Order. Alternative is a melting pot of many sounds and can not/should not be relegated a subgenre of Rock or Pop exclusively.
Point taken, but through the 1990's and 2000's Alternative (a.k.a. "Modern Rock") was one of the three rock formats of that period (the other two being Mainstream and Active). At least that's what I saw in the radio press at the time. So for at least two decades what we generally call Alternative was a Rock format.
Obviously, as with any format, there were crossovers.
Sounds like the programming gurus at Audacy have a LOT of work ahead. Thanks for the info.
I would've taken the station in an opposite music direction texturally. Most past & present alternative stations achieved their highest numbers in the late 90s & early 00s when the format collectively rocked a lot harder. I would've reshaped KROQ much more in the image of KPNT and much less in the image of KNRK.
At some point, Audacy will decide it needs a sports radio brand on FM in La-La Land and will kill either 106.7 or 97.1.
Which makes it a terrible radio format.
Then why are you commenting on a discussion on Alternative radio if you think it's that inherently flawed?
There is nothing wrong with a variety of sounds being on a format. Hell, the concept of CHR is that it's a blend of all kinds of genres (even though it fell away from that a bit in the 2010s).
Really, the core sound of Alternative has been indie rock - with a flanking genre or two that hangs around with it for a few years. The most consistent of these genres has been pop-punk, which has been a fixture with some ebbs and flows since Green Day broke out in 1994 (though other versions of punk, such as punk rock and post-punk, have also had their moments). Indie rock has had its transformations and iterations, but if you go from the early 1980's to today, you'll see indie rock bands as the centerpiece of the format. I feel like as long as indie rock continues to hang around Alternative will always have an identity.
I feel like Audacy trying to cut indie rock out is basically cutting Alternative off from its core identity and that's why their stations, including KROQ, are in crisis and feel directionless, desperately searching for the latest trend to latch onto. Right now, pop-punk revival is a salve, but Audacy has been extremely selective with what's emerging from that scene (genre mainstay The Maine has finally achieved a breakout single, "Sticky", and Audacy has been ignoring it, for example), so despite pop-punk being a fixture of the Alternative format they aren't leaning into it as much as they probably should.
This is a discussion of Los Angeles radio stations.
As long as the audience is interested in that variety rather than specific groups. Other formats, such as CHR or country, the audience primarily listens for the format. In that way, they're open to new songs or artists that the format presents. In the case of alternative, the audience is primarily interested in its own core groups or artists, and gets their new music from their friends or social media. So each individual listener comes to radio with a different, narrower cultural experience. That makes it hard for a mass medium to reach them.
We're seeing the same thing with rock stations that try to meld two types of rock on one station. In pop music, it works because people are open to the broader range of music. In rock, it doesn't, and those stations are getting very low ratings. There was a time 30 years ago when alternative was a concise format with a clearly defined audience and life group. Not any more. Alternative stations can still get good ratings trying to program to that core group of people, but that's not what Audacy is aiming at right now.
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In other words: 'They don't play enough artists or titles that I prefer when I'm listening, therefore they're lazy and they suck?'
Have heard that same complaint on this board many times.
Time to sign up for ITunes and build your own playlist.
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