Company News · September 10, 2008

Why Is It So Hard To Be Today’s Soft Rock?

By sross

When Smooth Jazz WJJZ Philadelphia flipped to Mainstream AC as Now 97.5 on Monday morning, something was readily apparent to most industry observers. Despite positioning itself as “a younger approach to today’s soft rock” and numerous attempts to tag rival WBEB (B101) as old-sounding, Now 97.5’s music was pretty similar to B101’s. In fact it appeared to be essentially like any mainstream AC, with two ’70s songs in the launch hour and an average era that was, in many hours, often only slightly newer than B101 (e.g., 1991 vs. 1993 at 8 a.m. Tuesday morning).
Can an AC station hang its hat on being newer and younger and segue, as Now 97.5 has, from Celine Dion’s 14-year-old “Because You Loved Me” to Boston’s 32-year-old “More Than A Feeling”? Well, throughout the industry, even AC stations positioned as ‘more contemporary’ hedge their bets musically, at least a little. WWFS (Fresh 102.7), the concept’s breakthrough station, has always played the ’80s. KFRH (Fresh 102.7) Las Vegas, one of the first subsequent launches, signed on newer and edgier but has bolstered its ’80s concept in recent months. And B101, which licensed the term “fresh” as a pre-emptive strike, has made its music more contemporary over the years, but it also hangs on to a few ’70s songs an hour. Only Chicago’s Fresh FM, WCFS, is primarily a ’90s and now AC station.
When WWFS launched nearly two years ago, it was the firmest proof to date that “soft and contemporary” was not an oxymoron. Fresh never unseated WLTW (Lite FM), but it did seemingly nudge Lite into downplaying its well-known handle and becoming even more aggressive on new music. In a year of surprise adult hits like Snow Patrol’s “Chasing Cars” and Fergie’s “Big Girls Don’t Cry (Personal),” there was clearly some validity to the notion of renewed adult interest in newer music. You also saw the new adult music emerge in research. Songs from the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s polarized the generations; the new adult music was a surprise presence at or near the top of music preference studies from AC to Triple-A. And, for a while, seeing Daniel Powter’s “Bad Day” at the very top of an AC music test was a regular occurrence.
So why is it so hard to play Today’s Soft Rock? Why does nobody truly want to be soft and contemporary? It’s not that radio is being disingenuous. There are indeed some issues that are likely holding programmers back:
* An AC specializing in the ’90s and now has 18 years of music to work with. If you go back to the late ’80s when still-enduring ballads like “Wanted Dead Or Alive” or “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” represented a generational break, you’d have more than 20 years of music. But the average Mainstream AC is used to 35-to-40 years of music to work with, giving them the true ability to go a mile wide and an inch deep. I have certainly heard some younger-leaning ACs relying heavily on songs that weren’t on the radio much before a year or two ago (e.g., Paula Cole’s “I Don’t Want To Wait,” Janet Jackson’s “All For You”) and you can’t help but wonder whether they’re forced to dig deeper for songs, or else find a much younger, narrower target for whom those songs are as important as “Fire And Rain.”
* Not that many songs have become “Big Girls Don’t Cry” or “Chasing Cars” in the last two years. WLTW, which was willing to be early on a James Blunt or Daniel Powter without support from Hot AC, has reversed course from last year and become more conservative on currents now. And “American Idol” and “Grey’s Anatomy” can jump start only so many songs. Most still have to make their way from Top 40 to Hot AC to Mainstream AC over the course of a year. And while Top 40 is handing down more suitable titles these days, it still plays a lot of music that will never make it down the food chain.
* By dint of reaching AC after a year of heavy exposure elsewhere, the records that populate the ’00s/recurrent category at AC are usually the most burned records on the station, a phenomenon that first became visible with Faith Hill’s late ’90s hits. So if “Bad Day” is now at the top of the list for preference and burn, as is often the case, there’s not always a new record that galvanizes adult audiences coming along behind it. Meanwhile, the ’70s and ’80s material that is being de-emphasized to give the ’90s or now an extra space on the clock, is being rested and refreshed.
* Music from the ’90s doesn’t yet have the same purchase on the affections of the AC audience as ’70s and ’80s music. Much of it was brought to listeners by a relatively weak Top 40 format and didn’t have the same reach as ’70s and ’80s music. It’s also divided among various movements that lasted for one high-school class: Wimpy early ’90s pop; Country (most of which AC doesn’t play); Alternative (much of it too hard, although I do hear Pearl Jam’s “Better Man” on Fresh); Rhythmic (everybody is sure En Vogue will be part of AC soon, but it’s a slow process), and teen pop (still limited to a few Christinas and Backstreets). Only late ’90s Modern AC seems to have become a viable food group for AC.
That said, as time marches on, it’s hard to imagine that a more contemporary version of Mainstream AC won’t take hold. Format trends are often about five years ahead of their time at first inception; the first ’90s and now AC stations are at least three years old (and I expect this column to prompt an e-mail about an even older one). The increased adult success of many Top 40s also suggests that there are adult women searching for new music. And as the Bob- and Jack-FM stations proved about variety, you can’t claim an image without eventually delivering on it. And there was clearly a grain of truth that made the concept of a newer Mainstream AC worth seizing on.
So what can a newer-skewing AC do to make sure it has enough new music? One answer is to keep closer tabs on when CHR hits are reaching their audience. Jordin Sparks’ “One Step at a Time” is certainly a song that sounds like it will play on Mainstream AC for many years to come. But “Tattoo” is still in the AC top 10, meaning you’re likely to wait 6-9 months for “One Step” to kick in. Is that really because adults need the better part of a year to become comfortable with it? Or because many ACs have no mechanism for testing new music except twice a year in a library test, if they’re lucky? And while many mid-to-late ’90s songs may never have acceptable staying power for AC, some will return to playability if PDs continue to look for what new listeners are bringing into the demo window.
Eighteen months ago, there was something very exciting about the prospect of a truly newer leaning AC format – a station that could finally convert those people who walked around saying, “Just because I’m 39, I don’t want to give up on new music” into AC listeners. It’s one of the few things that radio can do that is based in emerging music styles and not in a repackaging of oldies. Recommending today’s music to adults is a franchise that won’t always be up for grabs – Triple-A, Smooth Jazz, Hot AC, and Top 40 all want it, too, and so do Pandora.com, Amazon.com, iTunes Music Store, Internet radio and every TV music supervisor in America. Contemporary soft music is a great image. It will be an even better format if somebody actually does it, and can make it work.

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