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Indy 103.3 debuts in Indianapolis

MarkW said:
In regard to the first point, I was responding to an earlier post regarding how some alternative PDs are "terrified" of adding a new single that's crossed over from active rock.
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It the PD's station is in a market with a significan ethnic composition, the ability of active rock songs to "cross over" locally is limited and those songs are dangerous.
MarkW said:
Yup, 103.3 is certainly playing a lot of mainstream / consensus type music. Plenty of singles that enjoyed crossover runs on Hot AC at various points in time in the past or were smash hits at alternative.
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And I think that all involved are aware that the ethnic influence in Philadelphia is much, much greater and broader than it is in Indianapolis.
 
macattack said:
A lot of iHeart and Audacy people have no faith in current product and are fearful of Active Rock current product overrunning the format like what happened in the 00’s. “Ramon Ayala”, a recent Active #1, will be the Alt #1 this Sunday after some strong callouts boosted it, and that’s terrified a lot of PDs.
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It's not about the Audacy and iHeart "people" but the local listeners. Any PD in that arena that has done research understands how polarized that alternative rock sub-groups are, with very few songs having what might be called universal appeal across all the subgroups.

A "normal" good but not great song in other formats might have a third of the listeners giving it a "love it" score and two thirds a "like a lot" ranking. In alternative, you get, for most songs, a third "love", a third "it's OK" and a third "I hate it".

So PDs are very cautious about adds when they suspect a song is polarizing.
 
In more markets than not, when an Active Rock and Modern Rock station have equal coverage, the Active Rock station prevails (Seattle, San Diego, Detroit, Philadelphia, Phoenix (until the last book, not sure what happened to KUPD), Tulsa, Cleveland, Colorado Springs, Dallas (before KEGL made some head scratching moves); I’m basing this on the 12 plus numbers and I do not have access to revenue data. Is Active Rock that polarizing? It seems the current crop of currents on the Active Rock side is better than the past several years.

In 2002, 98Rock played the Tommy Lee song and that was the only current they didn’t share with 106.5.
 
dlf1 said:
In more markets than not, when an Active Rock and Modern Rock station have equal coverage, the Active Rock station prevails (Seattle, San Diego, Detroit, Philadelphia, Phoenix (until the last book, not sure what happened to KUPD), Tulsa, Cleveland, Colorado Springs, Dallas (before KEGL made some head scratching moves); I’m basing this on the 12 plus numbers and I do not have access to revenue data. Is Active Rock that polarizing? It seems the current crop of currents on the Active Rock side is better than the past several years.

In 2002, 98Rock played the Tommy Lee song and that was the only current they didn’t share with 106.5.
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Active Rock has been struggling with crossing over for a decade plus, and it looks like it’s first potential crossover in along time is from the same band that had the last smash crossover, Shinedown. “Daylight” is charting on Alt and Hot AC right now and I’m told that Atlantic has pop radio ambitions for it too if it can keep rising on both formats. Concord Music Group also has big ambitions for “Mary On A Cross” by Ghost if it keeps climbing on streaming.

It’s not that Active Rock is unviable but it’s in the same position as country music where crossing over is borderline impossible and the general “sound” of the format is greeted by revulsion by significant demographics. Arista, the label that has Maneskin’s US rights, has deliberately avoided servicing the band’s songs to Active Rock radio to keep them from getting the Active “stink” all over them. This hasn’t stopped Active from playing Maneskin on their own, but it shows that there’s a strong stigma Active has to overcome.

Active has a strong fanbase, however, and the Alternative stations that mix Active product with Alternative are doing very well. The labels are concerned that the big radio corporations and the Alt PDs that work for them would rather destroy Alt to save it, however. That they would rather spike the format entirely than play heavier rock again, even if that’s where the trends are going, because the classic product is scoring very high right now and offers an “alternative” to mixing Active Rock crossovers into their playlists.

And BTW the Alt in Phoenix has started mixing Active product into their playlist too, which has juiced their ratings up somewhat. They’re a sister Alt to KPNT in St. Louis so it makes sense.
 
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macattack said:
Independent ones that have found success on Active and have started signing Alternative-centric artists or want to cross their Active hitmakers to Alternative (think Epitaph with Falling In Reverse).
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That makes no sense. Ratings are better at active rock, artists make more impressions in active than alternative. WMMR is #1 in Philly while WRFF is in the middle of the pack. If I'm an artist, I want to get played on MMR. When I come to town, which format will do more to promote my concert? That's the question to ask.
 
TheBigA said:
That makes no sense. Ratings are better at active rock, artists make more impressions in active than alternative. WMMR is #1 in Philly while WRFF is in the middle of the pack. If I'm an artist, I want to get played on MMR. When I come to town, which format will do more to promote my concert? That's the question to ask.
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Crossing over means more ears plus potentially a pathway to pop because pop will still open for an Alternative artist but won’t do so for an Active artist. It’s not so much as trading Active ears for Alternative ones as it is maximizing your audience and coverage.

A lot of big markets don’t have an Active but they do have an Alternative. You gotta get in those markets somehow.
 
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Arista, the label that has Maneskin’s US rights, has deliberately avoided servicing the band’s songs to Active Rock radio to keep them from getting the Active “stink” all over them. This hasn’t stopped Active from playing Maneskin on their own, but it shows that there’s a strong stigma Active has to overcome.
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As an active rock P1, I do not at all want to hear Maneskin on any station with that format! Up here in Michigan, I'm pleased to report that I'm unaware of any active rock station that plays Maneskin.

So far, the only Active Rock outlets I've monitored who've played any of that band's material are all owed by iHM.

Getting back to Indy 103.3:
- Why change the name if the station is shifting from alternative to exclusively gold alternative? Was the "Alt" brand truly that toxic?
- The song choices definitely seem to lean Modern AC (but certainly not exclusively Modern AC).
 
macattack said:
Crossing over means more ears
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Only if its successful. Typically, crossing over alienates the purists. We saw it a few years ago in alternative. Music fans are critical of the music industry's attempts to homogenize music to the point where there are no genres and all music sounds alike. That's the downside of what you're talking about.
 
TheBigA said:
Only if its successful. Typically, crossing over alienates the purists. We saw it a few years ago in alternative. Music fans are critical of the music industry's attempts to homogenize music to the point where there are no genres and all music sounds alike. That's the downside of what you're talking about.
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I agree with you there. 2018 was the peak of when the major labels music industry tried to homogenize everything, which is what empowered some indie labels such as Epitaph, Sumerian, AWAL, Roc Nation, etc. because they were offering something different to bored listeners. We’re feeling those ripple effects now.

However, a few years ago, Active/Alternative crossovers were at an all time low, which either shows Active’s resiliency to trends or that Alt was really banking on playing the quirkier kind of homogenized trap-pop that had completely taken over. I don’t think the small increase in Active/Alt crossovers we’ve been seeing as of late is a cause for alarm. Maybe when the two formats are sharing over half the songs again like 2003 we can get worried?

I think the radio industry, from a music perspective, is in a better place from 2018. More variety on the formats, different sounds are getting popular, TikTok is blowing up artists as diverse as Steve Lacy and Ghost. And a lot of artists who were betting on the 2018-era sound becoming permanent like Maroon 5 are fading. It’s quite interesting as a music lover.
 
macattack said:
However, a few years ago, Active/Alternative crossovers were at an all time low, which either shows Active’s resiliency to trends or that Alt was really banking on playing the quirkier kind of homogenized trap-pop that had completely taken over.
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Keep in mind you're talking about the period during the pandemic when basically new releases came to a standstill, crippling a lot of currents-based formats
 
I've been noticing significant resemblance between this station's music choices and the PopRocks channel on SiriusXM, although overnight, it does appear 103.3 is (finally) playing a few crunchier / harder rocking artists from the genre (RATM, Alice in Chains, Incubus, System of a Down).

The station has overindulged on The Fray and Fall Out Boy since the rebrand.

93.9 plays much of the rock I like, although I do question why they play so much Tom Petty. He sticks out like a sore thumb on that station. Save him for 107.9.
 
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MarkW said:
The station has overindulged on The Fray and Fall Out Boy since the rebrand.

93.9 plays much of the rock I like, although I do question why they play so much Tom Petty. He sticks out like a sore thumb on that station. Save him for 107.9.
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Tom Petty is beloved in Indianapolis and in many Midwestern cities for that matter. He gets played on stations you would never expect to hear him on. In my market (Chicago) at least five stations keep his hits in rotation. I’ve even heard him on KPNT (the Alternative in STL) before which is truly wild.
 
Cumulus stations WEDG Buffalo, KCJK Kansas City and WZRH New Orleans are each doing their own all-90s marathons this weekend. All three have featured some impressive song selections.

Q101 in Chicago, oddly enough, is not doing one.
 
Alt 103.3's - I mean Indy 103.3's - playlist is a trainwreck.

It's not surprising to me that the station, once again, is struggling to grab even a 2 share.
 
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