Re: K.M. -- your thoughts on KRTH?
> K.M, what are your thoughts on KRTH -- as a participant, not
> a moderator?
I've been giving this some thought, off and on, since Jay Coffey left. KRTH, being the market's heritage Oldies station, isn't something I wanted to talk about off the cuff.
I believe that whoever takes the programming rein there needs to make a few tweaks in the format. But, to be realistic, you have to look at the future of KRTH -- and of the Oldies format in general -- in terms of attractiveness to the advertising community. Like it or not (and most Oldies fan are in the latter category), the upper end of 25-54s were in high school 30 to 35 years ago. Which means that even music from the early 70s would have been an oldie to them when they graduated.
The problem is that the hits of the 70s and the hits of the 80s don't co-exist very well in a format. That was the case even in the 80s, when top-40 morphed into CHR. (Think back: How many CHRs in the 80s played any 70s gold?) So KRTH is going to have to make a decision to either stay 70s focused and risk losing the low end of the demo as the high end ages out of the advertiser target demo, or move very quickly into 80s music, potentially alienate those listeners over the age of 45, but keep the 30-45ers as P1 listeners for more years. I'd probably choose the latter.
The problem with going to an 80s-focused format is choosing the music. Although market #2 never had an "all-80s" station when that was a minor industry darling five years ago, we have always had stations that played certain genres of that decade's hits. KROQ for the longest time (and still occasionally), and now Star and Jack (and Indie, to a degree), play a lot of new wave/modern rock hits; KOST plays the soft ones; Arrow (pre-flip) and KLOS, the rockers. With format fragmentation, the question is going to be whether or not ignoring genres and simply playing all the big hits together -- as CHR was back then -- will still hold an audience.
Also, going genre-specific either creates the same problem KRTH has now (smaller active playlist) or would have to go deep. I can't see Infinity limiting the scope of the heritage Oldies station and going deep, but to keep the small playlist problem virtually ensures that they will have the same problem a year or two from now that they have now.
So, what I would likely do is test the big top-40/CHR hits from 1977 to 1982, take the best testers, regardless of genre, and try to recreate the format of those years. Recreate the formatics and jingles, let the jocks loosen up some and inject their personalities into all dayparts. Carson and Shotgun would be especially good for this. And agree to Dees' terms to bring him in for mornings.
Long-term, start testing the songs from 1983 to 1988 now, and gradually alter the music mix over the next two or three years to be all 80s, keeping to the all-genre CHR approach. If that didn't work as well as hoped, it would be easier at that point to pick a genre within that decade and refocus without losing too many listeners in the "new core" of 25-45.
Not that I believe Infinity would take my advice, mind you ...<P ID="signature">______________
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