YOU'RE THE PD OF 99X

[puddingpop]

With all of the people who miss 99X...and all of the people who said the station had lost its way long ago...I got to thinking. What, if anything, COULD have been done?

Here's your project. Instead of killing off 99X, Cumulus hires YOU as the new program director, and you have one year to return the station to respectable ratings. You are not allowed to dump the format, but you can skew it or lean it however you see fit. You can hire and fire whoever you want on your staff. You not only get to decide the musical and promotional direction of the station, but you are also given a modest budget with which to advertise your changes to the market. You're even allowed to decide what demo you're shooting for...18-34, 25-54, whatever. (And no, you're NOT allowed to resign!)

Remember, your goal is NOT to make the station YOU want to listen to; your only goal is to get decent ratings for the station. (Obviously, under this scenario, Rock 100.5 doesn't exist.) With all the ground rules laid out...how do you fix 99X? What would you try?

 

[louisNatl]

Not in any particular order...

Fix the playlist! As Sean explained, 99X was playing mostly 90's music to capture the ratings of the 90's but wanted a young audience. Play more currents that resonate with younger people and their loyal listeners. 99X listeners do not want to tune in to hear Jeremy by Pearl Jam, Cumbersome by Seven Mary Three, and Tomorrow by Silverchair everyday. 99X needs to return to it's roots by breaking out new music that listeners will appreciate. There is plenty of new music from Beck, The Bravery, Radiohead, M.I.A, The Editors, Modest Mouse, Wolfmother, Paramore, and Shiny Toy Guns just to name a few. New music from artists such as these took a backseat on the 99X playlist and was replaced with pop music from Fall Out Boy, Lifehouse, Nickelback and much of the 90's alternative hits mentioned above. Instead of just giving up on the alternative format and trying to apply a cookie-cutter "classic hits" (a la 97.1 The River) type playlist to alternative, spend more time and effort into building a good music rotation.

Be where your listeners are! As people continue to migrate away from radio and to other forms of entertainment and music sources, you have to go to them. The days of listeners sitting in cars pressing the seek or preset buttons are over and 99X can no longer take the listener for granted! Be on the social networking sites. Build a more interactive website. Instead of simply streaming the 99X feed, have an interactive music channel where listeners can vote on songs (a 99X version of Last FM or Pandora).

Continue specialty shows such as the Retroplex, Sunday School, and Organic X. Podcast these shows! The younger generation expects to listen to whatever they want when they want it. The days where captive listeners were held hostage to a Cumulus-researched playlist are gone. 99X needs to be on every listener's iPod.

Accept the fact that the "alternative" format is not the same today as it was in the 90's. With artists such as Linkin Park, M.I.A, Lily Allen, Gorillaz, Coldplay, LCD Soundsystem, and Feist, the format is far more diverse and the 99X playlist should reflect that. This will take some time to fine tune, but we must resist the urge to skew the playlist and a direction that fragments the audience as we did in the early 2000's with the nu metal.


Fix the morning show! Have a show where personalities relate to the listeners. Remember the target audience is male ages 18-34. All of the jocks will be personality driven.

 

[MRFLASHPORT]

I think they are trying to do just this with 99X.com. I've been listening for a few hours, and it sounds like the 99X I used to hear on the old FanFare on 99.7MHz. I don't see where 99X wasn't involved with their audience, maybe more so in the 90's, but as Sean and others have pointed out, we are living in a much more connected time indeed. Even 8 years ago, the wireless phone penetration was only at 38 percent. Nowadays, 7 year old kids have crackberries. Being social does mean having an internet presence, and thus what 99x.com is supposedly all about.

I wish they weren't so reliant on Wincrap Media Player and had a basic MP3 or MP4 Opticodec higher quality stream so I could listen on other devices besides my desktop/laptop PC. I would love to listen on my mobile phone with something like MobiRadio over my nice 5.99/mo T-Zones (ha ha ha, still aint fixed that glitch I see!) or at work where we don't have access to WMP but have WinAmp.

I even setup a stream and fed the output to my Ramsey FM-25 (part 15 FM) and set it to 98.9 (clearest freq close to 99.7 and don't want to interfere with anyone wanting to listen to the dribble that is Q100) for old times sake. Something about hearing radio on the radio I guess, call me old but at 32 going on 40 I was raised on radio.

 

[RadioCurmudgeon]

The catalyst for all this was the emergence of 105.3 The Buzz, once on the air 96 and 99 were trying to re-invent almost weekly. Then 105 SOLD OUT and merged, 96 played music in the morning for a LITTLE while but then they introduced the big turd show and now we listen to the DJs bash the music and how many times they've had to play it.

If I was the king at 99 I would have flushed the morning show when Barnes left. Leslie Framm's departure is about three years overdue, she is the sole reason 99x failed, instead of getting current and an edge they became an oldies station, RIP house of rectal pontification, but I digress. Once 105.3 was absorbed and it was clear that 96 was only interested in stifling the competition I would have copied 105.3's format to the T. I would have made it look like I was trying to rip it off, there is no more alternative there is only the Buzz. Its kinda sad that the best week in 99x's post Barnes history was their last week OTA. Now not only do we have no alternative radio we have no current rock radio either and 96 is NEVER going to give up the geezer rock.

There is now a huge vaccuum in radio land and it will be exciting to see what comes next! I hope they hurry, I grow weary of the rifraff. 99x.com? Someday, maybe, probably NOT, I'd rather watch the history channel, or listen to XM since they're also an option on the web.

RadioCurmudgeon Out

 

[Inside your head]

bring in 4 or 5 of us actually IN the 18-34 demo and let us play what we want when we want. And upper mangement would be locked out of the building and have no control over the studio. thats what they could have done to get better ratings. and if i was PD i wouldnt fire Leslie or Axel or Steve C, they r all cool and they know what bands r cool but the bosses didnt let them do what should have been done. still 99x was still better then the crap 100.5 is now. how great we can hear aerosmith and van halen on 5 stations now but not 1 alt station anywhere. i mean its not like atlanta is a big city or anything rite? and its not like theres any1 under the age of 40 living here that might actually want to hear a NEW band.