What exactly is Free Fm?

[ChancellorDukat]

I was reading some posts about everybody's opinion on Free FM 'brand' but what exactly is it? I know that it replaced the K Rock moniker in NYC and in other citys after Howard left and its a brand of talk stations (a brand like Jack FM) but what type of talk is it? Political? Entertainment?

Thanks

 

[Radio_Realist]

This is from the Free FM website:

"FREE FM is a new format created by Infinity that features an eclectic mix of personalities whose distinct creativity, perspective, sense of humor, intellect and unpredictability do not fall under the guiding principles of any particular narrowcast theme or ideology. An entertaining hybrid of provocative, political, pop culture, news, music and lifestyle formats, Infinity's next generation of FM stations are personified by their conviction, passion, originality, fearlessness and innovation, which are not heard anywhere else on the radio."

You can visit their website yourself at:

http://www.infinitybroadcasting.com/freefm/index.php

Sounds to me like it's an excuse for lazy local program directors to simply plug into something where someone else has done all the work instead of coming up with a format exactly tailored to the local market. What's more, by plugging into a format that someone else developed, if it fails the local suit can always claim it wasn't his fault the format failed. So, if you're responsible for programming a local station, but are lazy and have no cojones, signing on with a branded format like "Free FM" eliminates most of the work and most of the risks.

Then again, if you're an employee of Infinity Broadcasting and your boss orders you to use the corporate format on an Infinity owned station, then you gotta do what the guy who signs your paycheck tells you to do. In that case, you aren't taking the easy or safe way out. You're just following orders. You can't fault an employee for doing what his boss tells him to do.

 

[FreddyE1977]

This is from the Free FM website:

"FREE FM is a new format created by Infinity that features an eclectic mix of personalities whose distinct creativity, perspective, sense of humor, intellect and unpredictability do not fall under the guiding principles of any particular narrowcast theme or ideology. An entertaining hybrid of provocative, political, pop culture, news, music and lifestyle formats, Infinity's next generation of FM stations are personified by their conviction, passion, originality, fearlessness and innovation, which are not heard anywhere else on the radio."

...so they are basically going back to what everybody was doing on their college campus station in the 70's, and trying to package it as a commerically viable format? How lame is that!

 

[Radio_Realist]

"...so they are basically going back to what everybody was doing on their college campus station in the 70's,"

I wouldn't know. I wasn't in college in the 1970's.

But what I do know is that how a format is executed is a lot more important than how it sounds in a brief description. Describing music format radio as "they play some records, and some guys talks in between them" makes it sound pretty lame.

The description, "They have a bunch of amateur singers compete for a prize" sounds pretty lame, but American Idol was inexplicably popular.

The description, "Some pompous guy pontificates about his political philosophy" sounds pretty lame, but it's an accurate description of Rush Limbaugh and most of his competitors, both the conservatives and the liberals.

So whether or not Free FM works would depend, as I see it, entirely on how well they execute the format, not on whether or not the format itself is all that great. The truth is there is no such thing as a bulletproof format that is so compelling, so perfectly formed, that it will succeed no matter how well or badly it is executed.