I agree, and as I said, this is a music problem, not a radio problem.
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Any Word on a New Alternative Format?
- Thread starter The Rimshot
- Start date
I agree, and as I said, this is a music problem, not a radio problem.
Andy Travis
Leading Participant
This perception has always baffled me and seemed to be more a description of active rock. The alternative music audience is much more educated and locally engaged than this would suggest. Where are advertisers getting this impression of alternative music fans?
The Rimshot
Leading Participant
1) The part where you say Alt-rock numbers do not compare to other formats. Provide numbers to support your argument.
2) In markets where alternative stations are established, such as KROX, KTBZ, etc., the numbers are competitive. I thought I was pretty clear.
The revenue numbers support this. Fairly good to good performance with long-established stations, but poor revenue for most startups from the last decade, give or take.
Successful existing Alternative stations will likely stay with the format. But owners are not compelled to start new Alternative stations.
The problem is that radio listening to Alternative is not growing. In part, this is caused by the availability of new media sources and in part by the fragmentation of the genre into subsets and in part by the declining interest in all forms of rock over the last decade and a half.
I was responding to what you said about Gen X & Y listening to their phones and not the radio as a reason why, as you said "the audience isn't there on a terrestrial basis." That's what you said. I simply said that reason doesn't apply to other formats. I'd refer you to the Nielsen study on radio listening. Lots of Gen X and Gen Y and millennial listening to traditional radio is cited there. In fact the percentages are about the same as they were 20 years ago before streaming. I think they choose online sources because they are only interested in specific groups or songs, and not the genre as a whole. That's why anyone, regardless of age, will chose a personal music device vs. mass media. As I've said, I blame the music and the record labels for this. Compare the way alternative promotes itself on radio to the way it works in the country format. That should be easy in Dallas.
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I've been involved in AMTs for the alternative format a couple of times and in every case, there are very well defined subsets which can be seen with cluster analysis. Group A likes some of the songs from the ones liked by Group B and Group C, but none of the songs from Group D's favorites. And then Group C hates the favorites of Group B and pretty much rejects many from Group A.
Lack of broad consensus means that either a station targets only a couple of the higher affinity Alt listener groups, and gets lower cume... or they try to please everyone and every third or fourth song is one that each listener does not like. On demand services overcome this diversity of taste in Alt music.
This behavior seems pretty unique to alternative, and why few stations seek it for their markets. Maybe non-commercial stations can have more luck. It seems to be working with WFMU and WFUV in NYC. But I believe the behavior of the music fans is driven by the artists and the labels. Other genres are a lot more successful at building tolerance for songs or artists the fans don't like. This behavior of building "likes" and "friends" is reinforced in the entire generation, encouraged by social media. Millennials WANT to like things and make friends. The goal is to make radio a part of that culture. It can work, and I see it in a lot of places.
I agree with David on this. In commercial radio it is important to not only have listeners but to keep them listening. When a listener is always tuning away when they hear something they don't like you have low time spent listening levels. What this means to advertisers is they have to buy bunches of spots to reach the audience. Since agencies work a formula cost based on the market, the difference is what you can charge per spot even if you can get on the buy sheet.
In non-commercial radio, since Underwriting is based on the number hearing the message and since listeners that truly love the station are the only ones that might consider donating, the listener that hears a something they don't like with any level of regularity, does not donate and eventually decides the station is not their cup of tea.
True, long established alternative stations seem to do well, but newer stations in the format seem to struggle and the 'ramp up' time seems to be very long. When you have a 1 share and a TSL of an hour and 15 minutes a week after two years or more, you can bet board members or investors are starting to doubt things. You simply have to hope you have a good small support base to keep working it. Naturally in a top 10 market, a 1 in a lot easier to monetize than a 1 in, say, market #50 because the bigger number you reach, the greater number of those 1% you have.
The real issue for the format is how the audience has splintered. Think back to top 40 in the late 1980s. One group liked Hip Hop but the rest didn't. One group liked Rhythmic but the remainder didn't. One group liked the more rock based tracks but the remainder didn't. The top 40s that survived had to morph away from playing it all to just playing some material and that greatly lowered the numbers they achieved only a few years prior to this. I literally saw top 40 go from a dominant format to almost a non-existent format over about a 5 year period. It was sort of a generational change although top 40 had always been 'evolving' from the pre-British invasion, the rock influence, the Adult Contemporary dominance, eventually with Disco and a few years later with 'New Wave' but there were enough core artists to prevent a full takeover of the format. While there was a group that disliked every change along the way, the idea of playing the biggest selling songs still worked. When the biggest selling songs were so diverse that the core audience did not like a fairly decent percentage of the songs, the heyday of top 40 as we knew it, died. I see the same happening in the Alternative format. The question is if each subgroup is substantial enough for radio to serve them. I suspect it will all pan out in a few years.
In non-commercial radio, since Underwriting is based on the number hearing the message and since listeners that truly love the station are the only ones that might consider donating, the listener that hears a something they don't like with any level of regularity, does not donate and eventually decides the station is not their cup of tea.
True, long established alternative stations seem to do well, but newer stations in the format seem to struggle and the 'ramp up' time seems to be very long. When you have a 1 share and a TSL of an hour and 15 minutes a week after two years or more, you can bet board members or investors are starting to doubt things. You simply have to hope you have a good small support base to keep working it. Naturally in a top 10 market, a 1 in a lot easier to monetize than a 1 in, say, market #50 because the bigger number you reach, the greater number of those 1% you have.
The real issue for the format is how the audience has splintered. Think back to top 40 in the late 1980s. One group liked Hip Hop but the rest didn't. One group liked Rhythmic but the remainder didn't. One group liked the more rock based tracks but the remainder didn't. The top 40s that survived had to morph away from playing it all to just playing some material and that greatly lowered the numbers they achieved only a few years prior to this. I literally saw top 40 go from a dominant format to almost a non-existent format over about a 5 year period. It was sort of a generational change although top 40 had always been 'evolving' from the pre-British invasion, the rock influence, the Adult Contemporary dominance, eventually with Disco and a few years later with 'New Wave' but there were enough core artists to prevent a full takeover of the format. While there was a group that disliked every change along the way, the idea of playing the biggest selling songs still worked. When the biggest selling songs were so diverse that the core audience did not like a fairly decent percentage of the songs, the heyday of top 40 as we knew it, died. I see the same happening in the Alternative format. The question is if each subgroup is substantial enough for radio to serve them. I suspect it will all pan out in a few years.
This is exactly why MTV stopped playing music videos in the 90s and instead went to reality shows. The channel that had begun as a consensus music station found that the music itself was causing tune-out. They didn't have this problem with BET or CMT. They thought that siphoning some of the older music off to VH1 would fix the problem, but it didn't. The music was splintering, and so was the audience. Once again why I say this isn't a radio problem. There's nothing radio can do to fix it.
Ouch!
This came out today... From left to right... Dec 2016 Holiday 2016 January 2017
KDGE-FM
Alternative (not anymore but I guess there is no category for crap)
3.3 7.7 2.8
Too bad for them they can't play Christmas music year round. LOL!
I also think that this is JACK's first time as high as #6.
Dallas-Ft. Worth (#5)
SUBSCRIBER
FORMAT
DEC 16
HOL 16
JAN 17
KPLX-FM
Country
5.2
4.7
5.9
KHKS-FM
Pop CHR
5.7
4.8
5.8
KLUV-FM
Classic Hits
5.4
6.8
5.2
KZPS-FM
Classic Rock
4.9
4.7
4.6
KLNO-FM
Mexican Regional
4.7
4.4
4.4
KJKK-FM
Adult Hits
4.2
3.5
4.0
This came out today... From left to right... Dec 2016 Holiday 2016 January 2017
KDGE-FM
Alternative (not anymore but I guess there is no category for crap)
3.3 7.7 2.8
Too bad for them they can't play Christmas music year round. LOL!
I also think that this is JACK's first time as high as #6.
Dallas-Ft. Worth (#5)
SUBSCRIBER
FORMAT
DEC 16
HOL 16
JAN 17
KPLX-FM
Country
5.2
4.7
5.9
KHKS-FM
Pop CHR
5.7
4.8
5.8
KLUV-FM
Classic Hits
5.4
6.8
5.2
KZPS-FM
Classic Rock
4.9
4.7
4.6
KLNO-FM
Mexican Regional
4.7
4.4
4.4
KJKK-FM
Adult Hits
4.2
3.5
4.0
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BBontheRadio
Leading Participant
It wasn't so much that they did play Christmas music, but what they didn't play (commercials).
Ouch again... still at 2.8 despite all the TV ads featuring Maroon 5 and Michael Jackson. http://us6.campaign-archive1.com/?u=78b390ff9f5b002e3f050238c&id=f55a8762b7&e=6e4323d397
Ouch!
This came out today... From left to right... Dec 2016 Holiday 2016 January 2017
KDGE-FM
Alternative (not anymore but I guess there is no category for crap)
3.3 7.7 2.8
Too bad for them they can't play Christmas music year round. LOL!
I also think that this is JACK's first time as high as #6.
Dallas-Ft. Worth (#5)
SUBSCRIBER
FORMAT
DEC 16
HOL 16
JAN 17
KPLX-FM
Country
5.2
4.7
5.9
KHKS-FM
Pop CHR
5.7
4.8
5.8
KLUV-FM
Classic Hits
5.4
6.8
5.2
KZPS-FM
Classic Rock
4.9
4.7
4.6
KLNO-FM
Mexican Regional
4.7
4.4
4.4
KJKK-FM
Adult Hits
4.2
3.5
4.0
Will_H_69_9
Star Participant
yeah, Iheart went with the wrong format for 102.1 after the flip from the Edge. i bet if this format fails, they should give a Country music format a try in this market to challenge the Cumulus DFW country monopoly and also the rimshot country stations across the listening area.
i wonder if the new format has better ratings then the Edge in it's final months not counting the first few months aka give it a chance phase of a format change (Late November-late February) as they were going from alternative rock to Christmas music to the permanent real format of AC.
i wonder if the new format has better ratings then the Edge in it's final months not counting the first few months aka give it a chance phase of a format change (Late November-late February) as they were going from alternative rock to Christmas music to the permanent real format of AC.
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