The listeners who grew up during Top 40’s early ’90s fragmentation and “extreme” music cycles aren’t just in the Hot AC demo now; they’re already moving into mainstream AC’s research screener. So far, few programmers have found the right way to handle the listener whose high school memories could include Snoop Dogg, Brooks & Dunn, Guns ’N Roses, Hootie, or Pearl Jam. But as two new format approaches show, they’re trying. Alan Burns’ new “Movin’” format combines today’s adult rhythmic crossovers and the late ’80s/early ’90s. Cary Pall’s WQFM Wilkes-Barre, Pa., is more traditional AC but more ’90s based.
The recent attempt by Columbia University researchers to predict the hits through a “decision market” succeeded, they say, only in showing how hard it is to pick the hits, and that peer pressure exists. And yet, sufficiently large, diverse groups make good choices all the time. That’s the message of 2004’s “The Wisdom Of Crowds” and the result of every well-executed, well-implemented music test. “The Wisdom Of Crowds” also gives encouragement to anybody who thinks that mass-appeal is an untenable concept in an era of 200-plus satellite channels and proliferating HD multicast channels.
Bonneville’s decision to move WTOP Washington, D.C., to the current 103.5 home of WGMS on January 4 took the industry by surprise. So much so in fact that you would have thought that WTOP hadn’t been simulcasting its News format on FM for many years. Or that D.C. hadn’t had two commercial N/Ts for a while. Or that Bonneville hadn’t done the same thing in Salt Lake City a few months ago, simulcasting N/T powerhouse KSL on former Hot AC KQMB. If the format flips of each January are any indication of the hot format, News and Talk on FM aren’t just becoming less remarkable, but the format du jour.
Just as Jack- and Bob-FMs dominated the radio programming headlines in 2005, a lot of last year’s format innovation went into creating new variants – a Country version, an older leaning version, a Spanish version, a Rock version, and so forth. So whatever the long-term fate of Reggaeton, it was encouraging to see some stations riding a new movement. This week’s Ross On Radio looks at the Most Intriguing New Stations Of 2005 – whether gold- or current-driven.
Every year Edison Media Research’s Sean Ross looks at the records that reflected radio’s changes in the year just ending-not just the biggest records of the year but the ones that showed how different formats were evolving. And while there’s a lot to talk about this year-from R&B’s resurgence to Rock’s best year at Top 40 in a while to the reggaeton boom-the bellwether records in 2005 were often old ones, particularly the unusual oldies that showed up around the country when the success of Bob- and Jack-FM sent everybody back to their library.
Top 40 radio was declared dead by the industry in 1982 and 1992, but it remains with us today. Country was pronounced dead by the consumer press in the late ’80s and again in the mid-’90s. Now Country is booming again and it’s Rock radio’s turn to be whispered about. But any student of format cycles knows that no format ever entirely loses its audience-even if owners freak out and move on to something else. But formats can become so fragmented in a given market that it looks like they’re faltering. Or the coalition audience that powers most format booms can move on.
For just a moment last spring, the American buzz around Jack FM, Bob FM and their brethren was strong enough that a lot of programmers were in a hurry to throw out the radio rulebook altogether, which often meant substituting a just as rigid set of new rules. Now, it’s clear that the Classic Hits/Hot AC hybrid will be successful in some markets and less so than others, and that there’s no one right way to do the format.
Recently New Jersey’s statewide paper, the Star-Ledger, opened up its comics pages to listeners–letting them vote on which strips should stay and go, then running a fascinating series of articles explaining the decision to keep or drop every single strip in the newspaper. Seeing inside the Star-Ledger’s editorial process was a lot like watching a radio station’s music meeting. More important, it rekindled my passion for the comic pages that I used to love but hadn’t followed closely as an adult. So what would happen if a radio station decided to tell listeners why records are on the radio station? After several years of consumer press stories about tight playlists and payola investigations, is there an advantage to making your music process transparent?
Check out a Hot AC library test and you’ll likely find at least a few Hip-Hop titles at the top. Open up an Active Rock test and you’ll find Classic Rock titles at the top, sometimes performing better with younger demos. And any lingering perceptions about older listeners and edgy music have been pretty well shattered by seeing Green Day’s “Holiday” become a bigger hit at Hot AC than at Mainstream Top 40. So if there’s so much openness among different age groups, why is the parents/kids coalition still so elusive, except at Country?
Disregarding, or worse yet belittling the efforts of people who take the time to write about your station (for good or evil) is missing a golden opportunity to build a relationship with a segment of your audience that you can’t get to any other way. You could also be damaging your search engine rankings in the process.
Whatever your thoughts on the long-term viability of HDRadio, one concern is that the need to deploy large numbers of multicast channels quickly could make radio more like the jockless Internet and satellite channels it competes with. So if you believe that radio will be providing additional channels in some form down the road, would it be better off using those channels to showcase stations from other markets? Or create national brands?
Should your station even have a blog? To long-time bloggers, the question is ludicrous–of course you should be blogging. Let’s face it, however, even the most widely-read blogs are frequented by a few thousand people a day, while your station might reach a million listeners each week. Conversations are happening on the web about your station, however–and if you haven’t developed a strategy to monitor and participate in these conversations, your brand is being redefined whether you like it or not.
