What are Johnie Kayes plans for THE WAVE in LA?

[majaman78]

Corporate radio's incessant pursuit for familiarity and mass appeal in the 1990s

Familiarity and mass appeal produce numbers and results. As long as radio is ad-supported, and not subscription based, the focus will be on familiarity and mass appeal. Subscription based models, like Pandora, can operate around uniqueness and originality. Sure, smooth jazz has passionate fans. So does bluegrass. But we're talking about a mass medium, so the goal has to be mass appeal. If that kills off a format, or moves it to subscription media, so be it. But don't blame "corporate radio" and consultants for what's happening to this format. Corporate radio and consultants were responsible for its establishment in the first place. At least some of the problem was the music itself, which lost its focus as record labels collapsed under their own weight.

Whether you want to hear it or not...terrestrial radio is and continues on a steep decline. Has been for the past decade. And you can stop using "the current economic collapse" as your crutch, as the decline started way before that.

You'll be left with Rush and the rest of the riff-raff that terrestrial offers. The bright and innovative left terrestrial long ago.

So keep patting yourselves on the back with the "sensational" jobs you've done as you're shown the door. I personally could care less.

 

[TheBigA]

What would be refreshing is some sort of acknowlegement of responsibility from corporate radio and their high-priced consultants that trying to make the format something that it NEVER was also contributed to its demise.

Is this some sort of trial where you want radio programmers to be declared guilty for crimes against music? This is a business for the programmers, the owners, for the labels, and the musicians. They're ALL guilty for wanting to make money instead of art. You want art? Take the money out of it. Maybe you already have. But don't go into a situation where people are making lots of money and expect some sort of responsibility. That's not their job.

Do what you do and be happy with what your doing. Don't look for or expect justification for the path you chose to take by demanding someone else take responsibility. If this format was never supposed to be a ratings winner, it never would have made it on the air. I was there in the early days, and I can tell you that it was sold to radio stations as a ratings winner, and Broadcast Architecture made sure it worked for a lot of high powered companies. Then it stopped. It's not cheap or easy to blow up a station and replace a format. It takes courage and money. Their loss is your gain. Be happy and quit demanding justice. It's a waste of your time. Don't worry, be happy. You could be selling insurance.

 

[recto101]

Here's my take, as someone who worked at a classic jazz station for a few years:

Jazz is about improvisation, and doesn't have to be strictly instrumental. Smooth jazz as a format had lost its swing in the last few years, and the format, by definition, should allow programmers to improvise around various formats to come up with a sound that suits their audience.

I believe that means lots of vocal music that could be considered Urban AC. I think it was about 12 years ago that Toni Braxton had a huge crossover hit with Unbreak My Heart, and it found a lot of airplay on stations like WJJZ. Same with Anita Baker earlier in the decade.

This format needs to redefine itself quickly or it'll be gone by the end of the year. The age has to come down a few years, the music has to crank up a notch, and the presentation needs to become more dynamic. That may mean they will lose their current audience. Oh well. It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing, and if they add some swing, they may find a new audience that will more than replace those they lost.

Look Dave Koz, Kenny G and Rick Braun should rebrand Smooth jazz as Soft Instrumental R&B because most of todays Smooth Jazz artist do their music in soft R&B form then the Wave does not have to go through a format change. Then the UAC's can keep their format with Brian McKnight in the mix too. Look the Smooth Jazz format got their start off of the Quiet Storm stations like KBLX in 1979 until they migrated into the Chill, New age and NAC stations in the 1990's with KKSF as the first station

 

[AnotherCat]

Actually my feeling re Brading is Adult Alternative Instrumental..or pop instrumental, which is what the music was acutally called before "smooth jazz" A lot of it is not soft and when you shift your focus from 45-64 back to 35-54 you need to go beyond soft. I was never big on the "J-word" cause it implies improvisation and kind of an elitist/brainiac thing and "smooth" basically sends us to the rocking chair known as B-EZ so never liked that much either.

I was a CHR/AC jock/APD/MD for 20 years (most recently with Cox but they lay everybody off eventually..so it goes) so when someone gives me the standard "you don't understand the realities of commercial radio" riff I just kinda roll my eyes. My "thing" was never to be eclectic or progressive. It was that you don't need to dumb down and you don't need to base your approach solely on nostalgia. People orignially came to this music because it was contemporary music created by adults for adults. I do brunches on commercial stations..if the show doesn't make money it gets cut. That is a big consideration when doing the playlist but so is the fact that they come to get away from the "same old same old" and, again, listeners are not dumb. Conditioned to settle for less, maybe, but that just means they really light up when you give them more instead of less.

 

[Nock]

Nostalgia was it's death.

Nock