What is the future of KTWV and KIFM?

[SJFAN]

KTWV has been a top rated LA station for year. In the new PPM ratings the station dind't get the best ratings. Could KTWV be getting the death bed? I would hope not.

 

[Bill Harmonic]

With Jones to go buh-bye and the advent of PPM treating SJ stations like dirt, we might finally be on the tail end of the "format" lifecycle. KIFM is the strongest so I would give it's chances of sticking around a pretty good shot. It always amazed me that more people didn't copy this radio station and their success story rather that opt for the druck from BA. It just proves that BA can sell mud to pigs. There are a few others who might make it through but most are probably up for grabs as far as I'm concerned and KTWV and KKSF are two on the line. It will be interesting to see how the BA take over pans out. Will the Jones stations go quietly or will they move to other product? It will be interesting to see if BA now has enough signals to make their complete move to Smooth AC? Or do the 17 new signals give them the reason to move to smooth AC? Is it the time for another version of instrumental radio to rise from the ashes? How tainted is ownership because of the way the format has played itself out? I do believe it's time and there's an HUGE opportunity to get specialty shows up and running. The music is still viable but it does have a ton of challenges to overcome. Personally, I think it can be done but it's going to take a lot of work.

 

[Interstate 78]

another rather experimental, locally produced smooth jazz station is Seattle's. it's much like KIFM. you're right. why aren't these stations copied? this is all so sad, but i'm at the point where i don't even really care anymore. BA is the only future left of smooth jazz, love it or hate it. and when it runs out of gas which won't be long the way the product sounds, it'll be time for a new format, but what? i'm not even sure anymore. the funny thing is, i've talked to some artists and they're not really worried. they said they are doing fine selling albums at clubs, concerts, etc. my theory is that the true c-jazz fans have already gone to the internet, or cable, or satellite and these BA stations don't really mean much anymore. if they bring in a new listener or two to smooth jazz music, so be it. but that's about all it means anymore.

 

[AnotherCat]

Is it the time for another version of instrumental radio to rise from the ashes? How tainted is ownership because of the way the format has played itself out? I do believe it's time and there's an HUGE opportunity to get specialty shows up and running

We have a huuuuggggeee image problem. I am trying to pitch a brunch show and the resistance all has to do with it being "old peoples music" or stuff nobody wants to hear. It's hard to tell someone who has such a heavy preconception that the format as it is now does not represent the actual music. I think part of the reinvention process is going to have to be shaking off a lot of the assumptions that were made in 1987 and don't apply to the audience and potential audience in 2008. That and all the B/EZ affectations have to go away. We used to call it Adult Alternative..now that's what we need..cool music by and for grownups that is not nostalgia driven. That's what created all the excitement before the BA era, that, to me is how to bring the excitement back.

 

[Nock]

Or as my younger brother once put it, "Adult Stoney Music"

Nock

 

[WTUX]

I was a big fan of The Wave back when NAC started and The Wave was on satellite.

Then the format was taken over by the Urban AC programmers. So instead of being Adult Alternative, it became just another Urban format. And Urban formats are not doing well in the PPM days.

We may completely lose the format until we can re-invent it into what it was meant to be: Adult Alternative.

 

[JoshB]

I was a big fan of The Wave back when NAC started and The Wave was on satellite.

Then the format was taken over by the Urban AC programmers. So instead of being Adult Alternative, it became just another Urban format. And Urban formats are not doing well in the PPM days.

We may completely lose the format until we can re-invent it into what it was meant to be:  Adult Alternative.

Yeah I was browsing the web and ran across another forum where they were talking about how the Wave use to play a lot of Adult Alternative, new age, and world music versus what they play now.  The music selection was awesome, I was blown away at how good some of the selections.  Two tracks that got my attention were Laurent Voulzy "Le Soleil Donne" and Peter Manning Robinson "Temple Jamaica".  I've been trying to track down an old playlist for The Wave, but haven't found one.  It's ashame that you can't find good music played like that anymore on the net.

As far as the future of KTWV, it's looking bleak.  I honestly don't think the industry is going to change.  It's a money driven business, and these companies are going to do everything in their power to make (and in this case save) money, which means less variety, smaller playlist, and more pop music which appeals to a mass audience, versus having a niche format.

KIFM (and KWJZ in Seattle for that matter), maybe good for right now, but I think they will eventually fall into the same category as KTWV and eventually began to lose appeal.

 

[davideduardo]

Then the format was taken over by the Urban AC programmers.

Allen Kepler is an urban AC programmer?

So instead of being Adult Alternative,

It's never been adult alternative.

it became just another Urban format. And Urban formats are not doing well in the PPM days.

That is why The Box and Majic are top 4 or 5 in Houston in the PPM?

 

[AnotherCat]

Gavin called it Adult Alternative, MAC called it Progressive AC, and RnR called it NAC (New AC). Before '95 (The BA takeover) it was an alternative for adult listeners who wanted to hear something other than oldies or ballads that were CHR hits first.

 

[davideduardo]

Gavin called it Adult Alternative, MAC called it Progressive AC, and RnR called it NAC (New AC). Before '95 (The BA takeover) it was an alternative for adult listeners who wanted to hear something other than oldies or ballads that were CHR hits first.

Cody and Leach, who were BA, simply called it "The Wave" when they created the format. The smooth jazz term was developed for a different owner so that WNUA could have an identity that was not covered by a registered mark.

In an NAB seminar a year or so later, Mike McVay called the format "songs you never heard by artists you never heard of."

Just because someone calls a format by one name or another does not mean that the name is fitting or appropriate. Adult Alternative is one of those inappropriate terms.

 

[mock3]

I would have to argue that at one point they were a form of adult alternative. Adult Alternative does describe a lot of the songs those stations used to play. Basia, Everything But The Girl, Sade, Bruce Hornsby, Santana, Pat Metheny, Zero 7, Carly Simon, Steely Dan, etc. All of these are artists that get played on mellow alternative stations and all of these artists used to get mixed in with the c-jazz on smooth jazz/nac stations. I miss those days. It seems that now most of the smooth jazz stations are urban based as opposed to adult alternative based and that's too bad. We already have enough stations to hear the urban stuff. Allen Kepler might not have been an urban programmer in the past; but he is an urban guy now.

 

[WTUX]

Adult Alternative was clearly a good label for the format in the early years. Then NAC was used and it certainly applied. Smooth Jazz? Hardly. The Windham Hill artists, Narada, and the like added a good texture to the overall sound.

Now it is "Urban Alternative"!

 

[AnotherCat]

In an NAB seminar a year or so later, Mike McVay called the format "songs you never heard by artists you never heard of."

And yet now that the format is transitioning to Smooth A/C hes there trying to jump on the bandwagon. Either he or one of his company guys are on the panel at RnR. The panel is supposed to be about the future but the list was all old time/old school guys.? ???

 

[davideduardo]

And yet now that the format is transitioning to Smooth A/C hes there trying to jump on the bandwagon. Either he or one of his company guys are on the panel at RnR. The panel is supposed to be about the future but the list was all old time/old school guys.? ???

That term only shows in the "format identifier" column of Arbitron software... the idea for the change being that smooth jazz had some negative feelings among time buyers who thought of it as a purely ethnic format as well as the new term showing the direction the format is going.