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It's unfortunate that WYRK has ditched a solid local personality like John LaMond for a syndicated show out of Nashville. To me, the bigger problem with that station is the program director Wendy Lynn. Why is it that songs that receive national airplay such as Florida Georgia Line "Cruise," which was being played on Sirius in the spring time, take months to appear on WYRK? If I'm not mistaken, it didn't appear until September on that channel. I'd love if there was another country station in town, preferably that focused on the "New Country" format, but I doubt that will ever happen.
DJ Hukhers Roll Call said:It's unfortunate that WYRK has ditched a solid local personality like John LaMond for a syndicated show out of Nashville. To me, the bigger problem with that station is the program director Wendy Lynn. Why is it that songs that receive national airplay such as Florida Georgia Line "Cruise," which was being played on Sirius in the spring time, take months to appear on WYRK? If I'm not mistaken, it didn't appear until September on that channel. I'd love if there was another country station in town, preferably that focused on the "New Country" format, but I doubt that will ever happen.
The universe for music discovery and exposure has changed. Radio has abdicated that role to others.
Actually, 'YRK's known for being pretty early on product. I don't remember FGL showing up on the radar at my current station until September or October.
There are currently two classes of hits in the Country format:
1) The automatic adds that fly up the charts (Kenny, Brad, Carrie, etc.)
2) The "work records" that require upwards of a year to build consensus until they blossom. Florida-Georgia Line is in that latter category.
funny it is a trend....when wyrk is ahead of the curve
BUT it is annoying when dj's have a .....
lets call it an arm race of when who played it first,
my theory has always been... I know I didnt break it first,
but am enjoying/playing it now for the crowds..
BUT it is annoying when dj's have a .....
lets call it an arm race of when who played it first,
my theory has always been... I know I didnt break it first,
but am enjoying/playing it now for the crowds..
Radio_bored-Op said:funny it is a trend....when wyrk is ahead of the curve
BUT it is annoying when dj's have a .....
lets call it an arm race of when who played it first,
my theory has always been... I know I didnt break it first,
but am enjoying/playing it now for the crowds..
I still think there's a bonus for a current-based station who can establish themselves as the music authority in their format/market. Done right, the mindset (albeit a subtle one) is "It's not a hit until it's a hit on WYRK". Not that you should ever...EVER hear that from the station itself...that would be the very height of arrogance. Instant turn off.
These days, "doing it right" means hosting/presenting all the big concerts in your market that pertain to your format. Being up on what's happening with the core artists, buzz acts and legacy acts...in that order. Maybe doing a trip giveaway to a major awards show.
It's true that you can't credibly own a position of music discovery/exposure these days. SiriusXM, the video channels, YouTube usually beat terrestrial radio and the people who care about such things know it. But there's also a lot of crap on those channels. By playing the right music at the right point in a song's life, you give that song credibility while reinforcing your credibility as a hit maker.
That sucks to hear about john!! He is probably one the coolest radio guys out there...
Townsquare has a definate motto: "Jump on board or drown"
It is run ruthlessly, with no regard for personality or creativity. It is appearent with the slow decay of "joy-fm". If there ever was a trainwreck it was 96.1 , and you can see the rot eat into Jack fm. The souless march of these two station down the rating tubes as the personality and creative drain opened up. You canmake money running a barebones station, but you can only make barebones money.
It's nice to see that upper managment does not care and are willing to cut out the last of the "hold-outs". I say hold out because everyone who has been "quit_fired" was on a short list. The rebels of the 12th and 13th floor...Many looked for jobs over the past years, and probably should've taken ones that were offered. Instead they clung on in hopes that they could change the perverse corporate culture.
Be free my friends!! Unshackle the oppression of the RAND building and shout with a voice you could never use on-air...live well. I wish you all the best
Townsquare has a definate motto: "Jump on board or drown"
It is run ruthlessly, with no regard for personality or creativity. It is appearent with the slow decay of "joy-fm". If there ever was a trainwreck it was 96.1 , and you can see the rot eat into Jack fm. The souless march of these two station down the rating tubes as the personality and creative drain opened up. You canmake money running a barebones station, but you can only make barebones money.
It's nice to see that upper managment does not care and are willing to cut out the last of the "hold-outs". I say hold out because everyone who has been "quit_fired" was on a short list. The rebels of the 12th and 13th floor...Many looked for jobs over the past years, and probably should've taken ones that were offered. Instead they clung on in hopes that they could change the perverse corporate culture.
Be free my friends!! Unshackle the oppression of the RAND building and shout with a voice you could never use on-air...live well. I wish you all the best
Fall 2012 Arbitron: WYRK midday is #1 Persons 25-54, up nearly 2 shares from Summer 2012, up nearly seven shares from Fall 2011; and five shares ahead of WBLK, which placed second. WYRK midday is #1 Women 25-54, up three shares from Summer 2012, up more than seven shares from Fall 2011 and six shares ahead of #2 WTSS. WYRK midday is #1 Men 25-54, up about a share from Summer 2012 and up more than five shares from Fall 2011; eight tenths of a share ahead of #2 WBLK. So WYRK Town Square management puts a bullet in the midday guy's head and tells him they "want to go in a different direction." I'm guessing that would be down.
Before 9's post gets spiked for "illegal content", would somebody explain to me why the daypart that arguably has the greatest number of total listeners (mid-days) constantly gets downgraded by corporate radio? No other daypart has as many people tuning in from beginning to end, yet mid-days is a syndication/VT Hell in a lot of markets, including many that are much bigger than Buffalo. They'll sink money into the drives, but are penny-wise and pound foolish during the middle of the day. I simply don't get it.
SirRoxalot said:They'll sink money into the drives, but are penny-wise and pound foolish during the middle of the day. I simply don't get it.
Not really a corporate radio thing. When I was a teenager at a mom & pop, the PD worked the mid-day shift. He wasn't a jock, he didn't talk much on the air, he handled his mail, took appointments, and ate lunch while baby-sitting the board. I asked about it, and he said "The listeners don't want talk in mid-days. They're at work, or doing other things, radio is on in the background, so they less you interrupt, the better." I never forgot that, and he drank a Michelob in the control room. My introduction to radio.
In fact, now that I think about it, the mid-day shows at most of the stations I've worked at, including two in Top 10 markets, were done by the PD. Now, with VT, there's no need for a baby-sitter.
SirRoxalot said:Before 9's post gets spiked for "illegal content", would somebody explain to me why the daypart that arguably has the greatest number of total listeners (mid-days) constantly gets downgraded by corporate radio? No other daypart has as many people tuning in from beginning to end, yet mid-days is a syndication/VT Hell in a lot of markets, including many that are much bigger than Buffalo. They'll sink money into the drives, but are penny-wise and pound foolish during the middle of the day. I simply don't get it.
Neither do I SirRox. You are absolutely, positively correct.
Jerry Del Colliano has been preaching this for several years. My station's staff has discussed it in PPM meetings. There's even been a thread covering the subject of AM Drive and the encroachment of TV into what was once Radio's domain.
Just checking the FB feedback when my station's midday show is on, is an indicator of the engagement - and the importance - of a great live, local Midday show.
Going back to the 70's, the dayparts seemed far more equal in entertainment value. Dig up the 'KB composite from 1972 for proof.
http://rockradioscrapbook.ca/air1972.html
Danny Neaverth sounds like one of the guys to me. That's pretty much how I remember Harry Harrison on WABC, Dale Dorman on WRKO, or the 2-3 morning shows that passed thru 13Q/Pittsburgh in 1975-76. (That's not to take anything away from these legends!)
But in the 80's the "Morning Zoo" gained a foothold...and highly produced entertainment shows became the order of AM drive. At many stations, all the eggs were tossed into that basket, leaving content after 10AM to consist of liner-card hell...and oh, yeah, recycle listeners back to the AM show.
But now that paradigm has run its course, only many in the business have not gotten the memo.
A, I'm one of those who believes the PD should pull a couple hours airshift. But not like the scenario you describe, which has honestly been my experience at a few early stops in my journey...albeit without the Michelob. Scott Shannon showed it could be done in an entertaining fashion, as he did it at Z100 and now at WPLJ...both in AM drive which is far more difficult.
I see the role of an on-air PD as "being in the trenches" and setting the example. A good on-air APD would take on the responsibilities the PD doesn't have time to do because of his airshift.
But this is my idealized view, which if I didn't already make it clear...is idealized. Back to work!
chas108 said:A, I'm one of those who believes the PD should pull a couple hours airshift. But not like the scenario you describe, which has honestly been my experience at a few early stops in my journey...albeit without the Michelob.
Yeah, I probably outted him here. He was a dedicated alcoholic.
The irony is now the station is all talk. So no mid-day segues. That's what he called it.
TheBigA said:chas108 said:A, I'm one of those who believes the PD should pull a couple hours airshift. But not like the scenario you describe, which has honestly been my experience at a few early stops in my journey...albeit without the Michelob.
Yeah, I probably outted him here. He was a dedicated alcoholic.
The irony is now the station is all talk. So no mid-day segues. That's what he called it.
If you outted him it wasn't to me. I have no idea who the person is.
And if your journey was like mine A, at least one of these PDs had some silly rule about not sounding better than he did, lest you make him look bad.
And people wonder why the landscape is filled with VT and satellite...
Even in the '80s, there were a lot of very good mid-day jocks who smoothed the transition from the "Morning Zoo" into the rest of the day, which was more music-intensive. Rather than an abrupt "OK, entertainment's over now", stations that weren't "background music" in the first place eased into more lifestyle type content interspersed into the increased music flow. Stations were still entertaining, but in a different manner, and the stations that did it well saw it reflected in the rating books.
Can you do it via local VT? Perhaps, if it's done that day, and the content is timely. Can you do it with out of town VT? Not so well. The content ends up being generic, which means it's much less engaging. And, if you don't thing that engaging matters, then why did listeners tune in your station in the first place instead of the background music station down the dial?
An engaging mid-day show holds listeners into PM drive. Look at the hour-by-hour of the stations that do it well, and the number of listeners in mid-days outweighs any other daypart. It's worth the investment to do it right - and sell it right.
Can you do it via local VT? Perhaps, if it's done that day, and the content is timely. Can you do it with out of town VT? Not so well. The content ends up being generic, which means it's much less engaging. And, if you don't thing that engaging matters, then why did listeners tune in your station in the first place instead of the background music station down the dial?
An engaging mid-day show holds listeners into PM drive. Look at the hour-by-hour of the stations that do it well, and the number of listeners in mid-days outweighs any other daypart. It's worth the investment to do it right - and sell it right.
SirRoxalot said:An engaging mid-day show holds listeners into PM drive.
The idea of the audience turning the radio on at dawn and listening to the same station until bedtime really doesn't exist. People have lives. They listen in short bursts while doing other things. That's the reality of radio programming today.
I predict this change at WYRK will have little or no effect in the ratings of the station.
Gee, that's pretty bold of you considering that there are no other country stations in the market. At least, not yet.
WHY don't people "turn it on and rip off the knob" anymore? Well, the answer is that they do for some stations - the ones that DO engage them. Why would you do that for a station that feeds you canned SPAM 16 hours a day? Where's the loyalty to the LISTENERS? Can't say that I blame them for turning the dial, or punching the button, or hitting seek/scan, or looking toward other media. We spend a lot of time and money trying to get people to tune in. Maybe we should spend a little money trying to keep 'em once we've got 'em.
WHY don't people "turn it on and rip off the knob" anymore? Well, the answer is that they do for some stations - the ones that DO engage them. Why would you do that for a station that feeds you canned SPAM 16 hours a day? Where's the loyalty to the LISTENERS? Can't say that I blame them for turning the dial, or punching the button, or hitting seek/scan, or looking toward other media. We spend a lot of time and money trying to get people to tune in. Maybe we should spend a little money trying to keep 'em once we've got 'em.
SirRoxalot said:Why would you do that for a station that feeds you canned SPAM 16 hours a day?
Is that a comment about country music?
That's just one flavor of SPAM. There are plenty of others.
B
Bob1370
Guest
"...would somebody explain to me why the daypart that arguably has the greatest number of total listeners (mid-days) constantly gets downgraded by corporate radio? No other daypart has as many people tuning in from beginning to end, yet mid-days is a syndication/VT Hell in a lot of markets."
A lot of front offices still think we're in the old diary days, when a lot of midday listening/sampling got consistently missed by Arbitron and its predecessors (we can go over the reasons for that at another time). It's taking ime for radio manage,ment to wake up to some new realities, among which are. 1) midday listening is a lot bigger (and more potentially lucrative) that we realize; 2) music without personality presentation leaves you offering nothing more than an iPod with commercial interruptions, and you have to offer value added beyond the music or someone else will do it and eat your lunch; 3) the current bunch of syndicated acts on spoken-word radio are getting stale and it's time to refresh your sound, by taking a chance on a new act who isn't doing and saying the same old, same old.
A few savvier groups and individual clusters within bigger groups offer strong live acts in middays (CBS pretty consistently nationwide, and Clear Channel's Los Angeles cluster, come to mind) but most of the biggies are really inconsistent even within their own corporate ranks in this regard.
A lot of front offices still think we're in the old diary days, when a lot of midday listening/sampling got consistently missed by Arbitron and its predecessors (we can go over the reasons for that at another time). It's taking ime for radio manage,ment to wake up to some new realities, among which are. 1) midday listening is a lot bigger (and more potentially lucrative) that we realize; 2) music without personality presentation leaves you offering nothing more than an iPod with commercial interruptions, and you have to offer value added beyond the music or someone else will do it and eat your lunch; 3) the current bunch of syndicated acts on spoken-word radio are getting stale and it's time to refresh your sound, by taking a chance on a new act who isn't doing and saying the same old, same old.
A few savvier groups and individual clusters within bigger groups offer strong live acts in middays (CBS pretty consistently nationwide, and Clear Channel's Los Angeles cluster, come to mind) but most of the biggies are really inconsistent even within their own corporate ranks in this regard.
Bob1370 said:music without personality presentation leaves you offering nothing more than an iPod with commercial interruptions, and you have to offer value added beyond the music or someone else will do it and eat your lunch;
Maybe someday, but not now. The main issues for music consumers are: Free, convenient, and the songs I want to hear. When we interview music consumers, very few talk about human presenters, except in the negative. The reason midday listening is so high is because of people listening at work. They want background music, not distractions. I was just at my local post office, where they rotate different OTA radio formats daily. I asked what the criterion was, and they said music. Not personality.
Strange. Your results contradict a number of widely published studies, including Scarborough, RAB, and Arbitron studies that listeners like relatable personalities.
I know, you'll want an example. Well, try this one on for size:
http://www.sandiegoradio.com/07/12/12/USC-Study-Confirms-Listeners-Feel-Connec/landing.html?blockID=620300&feedID=10194
"A study conducted by the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism that examines the unique relationship between broadcast radio listeners and on-air personalities is the first to confirm that listeners feel they have a genuine relationship with their favorite radio personalities."
Then again, you've repeatedly expressed disdain for those pesky personalities. Seems that others disagree with you about their value.
I know, you'll want an example. Well, try this one on for size:
http://www.sandiegoradio.com/07/12/12/USC-Study-Confirms-Listeners-Feel-Connec/landing.html?blockID=620300&feedID=10194
"A study conducted by the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism that examines the unique relationship between broadcast radio listeners and on-air personalities is the first to confirm that listeners feel they have a genuine relationship with their favorite radio personalities."
Then again, you've repeatedly expressed disdain for those pesky personalities. Seems that others disagree with you about their value.
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