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Why are big hits "lost?"

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TheBigA said:
There are lots of them out there. It's just that they have no impact. If a single station in a small or medium is playing the crap out of some off-beat song, nobody knows. Unless one of the trades notices and writes an article about it. Here's an example with a country song that's #1 on the streaming chart, but #32 on the airplay chart:

www.countryinsider.com

What’s The Future For Zach Bryan And ‘Something In The Orange’ At Country Radio?

Zach Bryan had one of country music’s best streaming years in 2022, but his rise at radio has only begun. Bryan’s raw and haunting “Something in the Orange” had 432.1
www.countryinsider.com www.countryinsider.com

The PD they interview runs KUZZ in Bakersfield CA, a non-corporate station owned and run by the family of Buck Owens. So you have outliers who champion songs. But the goal is to have an impact, which is why you have group PDs. Radio companies have been doing that since the 70s, and it wasn't just Sklar. Any group that owned 5 stations had someone trying to game the system and show they could deliver spins and hits to record labels. It didn't matter if it's iHeart or Malrite.
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"Something in the Orange" is being played on three country stations up here on the VT/NH border. But they're all owned by relatively small regional chains: Pamal, Binnie and Great Eastern Radio. I'll have to give a listen to a few stations on the iHeart and Audacy apps to see if any of them are spinning it yet.

Pamal, incidentally, has a station in the Albany market that competes with WGNA, owned by much bigger Townsquare Media. I assume WKLI is on the Bryan song; I wonder if WGNA, which has been the market's No. 1 country station (and often No. 1 overall) for years, is as well.
 
CTListener said:
I'll have to give a listen to a few stations on the iHeart and Audacy apps to see if any of them are spinning it yet.
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Looking at the top spinners on All Access, I see Audacy's WDAF Kansas City and several Cumulus and Summit stations. No iHeart yet.

www.allaccess.com

Login to All Access | Breaking Radio News and Free New Music

Login to the free members section for All Access Music Group. If you are not a member of AllAccess.com you may become one for free. Members of All Access receive up-to-the-minute breaking news on the latest changes in the music business and radio industry. Additionally, you will receive the...
www.allaccess.com www.allaccess.com
 
kevtronics said:
A fan gives a passionate defense of why Dr. Hook should get more radio airplay:

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I mean...we can start with why almost anything from the years Dr. Hook was making hits (1972-1980) isn't getting played anymore---demographics.

And then, if we had to, we could focus test their two highest-charting singles and see if any 40-year-old wants to hear them: "Sylvia's Mother" and "Sexy Eyes."

Dr. HOOK? Apart from a pretty good novelty with "Cover of the Rolling Stone"( which was appropriate for the time but has zero relevance today), which Shel Silverstein wrote, they're so lightweight if you tied lead weights to them, their feet still wouldn't touch ground.
 
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michael hagerty said:
The question is---and I don't have an easy answer for this---how early is too early?

Part of what dragged AOR down in the early 80s was a perception that it was stale. By 1985, there was an audience that was missing the 60s/70s music that became Classic Rock. But I'm not sure that appetite was there as early as '82, which is when KMET's fortunes began to slip.
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Btw, it's refreshing to have a factual conversation in these forums in contrast to participants who are all about their own emotions and feelings who then get frustrated when they step into hypocrisy and dishonesty traps of their own makings, so thanks for that.

So, in Winter 1984 KMET had a 3.9 and KLOS a 3.3.
Spring 1984 KMET was 3rd 18-34 and 18-49, and #2 behind the monster KIIS men 25-34.

So I would say that late 84 early 85 was the time to transition to Classic Rock as their ratings were beginning to slip and yet they still had positive rock heritage.
KLOS had a better product in that time so KMET was getting the listeners, they were just losing tsl to 95.5 and yes 102.7 as KIIS with the height of top 40 was getting everyone.
KLSX was the nail in the coffin in 1986, maybe even 93.1 but they would have had an extremely minimal part.
Also, young males were being taken by strong chr product and then it got worse with KPWR that young males liked even more than KIIS.

I was surprised that KMET was still pretty strong into 84 too. They pretty much were the 2nd rock station to KLOS by 83, even if they won a book or two, but really up until 1985, both stations were in a good battle where they both were getting very good numbers, just KMET was no longer the dominating force that they were before 83.

Hindsight is not totally fair. KMET could've spent millions in research and that wouldn't guarantee them the ability to foresee how it would all play out. But, I think the writing was on the wall and it was a biased wish that we were always on the verge of a new rock revolution that KMET wanted to play a part in. Funny, those old tracks they didn't want to be totally defined by back then are still viable and popular today, with people who love them today who weren't even alive in 1985. LMFAO 🤣
 
DOB said:
Btw, it's refreshing to have a factual conversation in these forums in contrast to participants who are all about their own emotions and feelings who then get frustrated when they step into hypocrisy and dishonesty traps of their own makings, so thanks for that.

So, in Winter 1984 KMET had a 3.9 and KLOS a 3.3.
Spring 1984 KMET was 3rd 18-34 and 18-49, and #2 behind the monster KIIS men 25-34.

So I would say that late 84 early 85 was the time to transition to Classic Rock as their ratings were beginning to slip and yet they still had positive rock heritage.
KLOS had a better product in that time so KMET was getting the listeners, they were just losing tsl to 95.5 and yes 102.7 as KIIS with the height of top 40 was getting everyone.
KLSX was the nail in the coffin in 1986, maybe even 93.1 but they would have had an extremely minimal part.
Also, young males were being taken by strong chr product and then it got worse with KPWR that young males liked even more than KIIS.

I was surprised that KMET was still pretty strong into 84 too. They pretty much were the 2nd rock station to KLOS by 83, even if they won a book or two, but really up until 1985, both stations were in a good battle where they both were getting very good numbers, just KMET was no longer the dominating force that they were before 83.

Hindsight is not totally fair. KMET could've spent millions in research and that wouldn't guarantee them the ability to foresee how it would all play out. But, I think the writing was on the wall and it was a biased wish that we were always on the verge of a new rock revolution that KMET wanted to play a part in. Funny, those old tracks they didn't want to be totally defined by back then are still viable and popular today, with people who love them today who weren't even alive in 1985. LMFAO 🤣
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Thanks for the comment and for the '84 numbers. I forgot that they got a bit of a second wind (and that KROQ hit a real rough patch).

Here's the thing, though. You're the GM of KMET. Even in fall '84, you're still 3rd 18-34 and 6th 18-49, so you're still getting most of the ad buys---yeah, your 25-54 is looking kinda grim, but you've swapped the lead back and forth with KLOS so many times---you're going to have a hard time convincing corporate that you need to make that move.
 
Daryl Lynn L.A. said:
Yes, there were notable exceptions, and yes, heavy metal rock is its own genre. But, my gosh, "Muskrat Love" has to rank right up there with "Honey" as a cringe song that no one wants to hear again. -- Daryl
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I like it. I like everything that the Captain and Tennille made a hit. Then Toni did standards on her own.
 
KeithE4 said:
The end of the Vietnam War, as well as the deaths of Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, had a lot to do with the demise of "psychedellic" (and other) '60s rock as the '70s began. Top 40 started to get rather lame starting in 1973, when the war ended. Not that there weren't some good songs, but the pickings were getting rather slim by then.
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My opinion is that 70s music was better than late 60s music. But then it's what I grew up with.
 
Schroedingers Cat said:
A few observations.

"Waiting For A Girl Like You" was mellower than "Physical".

Foreigner had its biggest hits when they went to mellower material. Those appealed to more Women than the other songs.
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I despise the Foreigner song and yet it's on America's Best Music, so when I would listen to one of its stations I would change or turn off the sound.

I asked a guy if he hated the song back then, figuring most guys like the harder stuff and he loved it.

I later found out Thomas Dolby was responsible for the annoying synthesizer. Now I actually LIKE "She Blinded Me with Science" for some odd reason. I once stood between the speakers in a store in the stereo section. Interesting sensation with that song.
 
I think you are right about 94.7 and 93.1.

Corporate thought that the safe move was to go by past results and national trends.

That's why they didn't make the correct adjustments.
One going Classic Rock and the other going CHR rhythmic.
Others did in the market and they were rewarded, while corporate buried KMET and KKHR.
 
CTListener said:
I can see myself tearing up and down the Safeway aisles just to get my grocery shopping done as fast as possible so I could escape that song!
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This appears to be the last Living Strings album. I want one more---with covers of "I Wanna Be Sedated", "Turning Japanese", "Rock Lobster", "Psycho Killer" and "Rock The Casbah".
 
DOB said:
I think you are right about 94.7 and 93.1.

Corporate thought that the safe move was to go by past results and national trends.

That's why they didn't make the correct adjustments.
One going Classic Rock and the other going CHR rhythmic.
Others did in the market and they were rewarded, while corporate buried KMET and KKHR.
Click to expand...
Remember that at the time, 94.7 and 93.1 were separately owned (Metromedia and CBS). And the only real rhythmic CHR on the West Coast that existed when CBS was launching KKHR (August 1983) was KFRC and it was way off its peak in the ratings a year before.

Frankly, I think KKHR was the better radio station in the battle with KIIS-FM. But KIIS had Wally Clark for a GM, and he believed that 30 percent of your budget was devoted to promotion. He bought space on every RTD bus in L.A. He gave away Porsche 944s with five figures worth of cash in the glovebox. And when he won, and got an even bigger budget the next year, he stuck with 30 percent for promotion, meaning more money to promote than the year before. That's how KIIS became dominant.

KKHR's failing was almost zero promotion budget until too late (Spring '85) and no high-profile morning competition for Rick Dees.
 
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michael hagerty said:
This appears to be the last Living Strings album. I want one more---with covers of "I Wanna Be Sedated", "Turning Japanese", "Rock Lobster", "Psycho Killer" and "Rock The Casbah".
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Working in a restaurant in high school, I distinctly remember the elevator version of "Born to Be Wild" on the sound system.
 
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