You're still stuck on this bizarre notion that there's only two types of stations: Mass appeal or ultra-niche, and that there is and can be nothing in between.
No, there are tiers. The FMs with full market signals can fall, usually, in the top tier. Even if they are not in the top 5 or 6, they make money. And if they are part of a cluster, the synergy of packaging multiple stations that meet a client's needs is powerful.
Then come the rimshots and other limited signal FMs (such as Class A's in a geographically large market). They can find something to own that the big signals would not find a good ROI on. There are plenty of good local clients, under normal conditions, to make "bottom feeders" quite profitable if run economically.
Then there are the AMs. In the top 100 markets there are less than 170 of them that cover 80% or more of the market day and night. The rest are either relegated to brokered programming, paid religion, hourly time sales or very niche ethnic opportunities... such as Farsi in LA. And at the bottom of that are AM daytimers and the old Class IV stations.
With market revenues off about 40% since 2005 (give or take a percent or two depending on the market) and where that 40% is really about 60% in inflation-adjusted dollars, the lower tier stations have a really hard time. The major stations are not paying costs right now, as the reduction in revenue is greater than their operating margins, even after cutting staff.
My main point is that the "appeal" of a station that matters is advertiser appeal.
What I'm suggesting is this apparently radical idea that you can be mass appeal AND innovative AND entertaining.
OK, name me the programmers who have created brand new formats in the last 70 years since network radio went on its death spiral. Or companies that originated such formats in a collective effort.
An example would be Frank Cody and Owen Leach's "New Adult Contemporary" at The Wave in LA. Different enough from old-line real jazz stations, it lasted the better part of two decades.
Speaking of Seacrest, Bones, and other syndicated hosts...why are they successful? Is it because they're simply cheaper and easier than developing a local morning or afternoon show? That's probably a big part of it for iHeart, but at the end of the day they also provide entertaining and compelling content. If the shows were not good, it wouldn't matter how much of a bargain they were.
John Lund was at the forefront of developing today's AC format at WGAR in Cleveland where he discarded old-line MOR and played adult-friendly Top 40 with lots of gold. That is another example.
Or Frankie Crocker's whose work at WBLS spawned Urban AC, a distinct new format that has been very successful.
How many more are there? The originators of truly distinct and original format are very few.
Or you could just throw up your arms and say "nothing we can do there."
Right now, there is nothing that can be done due to the Coronavirus. There is just no funding, nobody wants to move to a new market for a new opportunity, and there are limited promotional opportunities. Even in music, there are fewer hits in some categories due to slow-downs in production, recording and promotion.
Then of course there's the long-established (or long forgotten?) fact that a compelling, entertaining, and popular local host can "ring the cash register" for advertisers.
That is changing. Much of the content for local hosts is a day old by the time 6 AM rolls around. The news was on the web yesterday, traffic is on an app and so are news and weather. That's why Bones and Seacrest are taking over market after market: they have access to exclusive content that a local jock does not.
But hey, you've got more experience and expertise than me, so let's try a thought experiment. You have just been hired by a company that swooped in and bought up some signals in the market. Not rimshots, either. Maybe they threw a bunch of money at Bonneville or Hubbard. Anyway, they came to you and said "David, we want you to program our stations, and we want one of them to compete with Mix." You don't have an unlimited budget. You don't have the research and resources of iHeart, but you have your marching orders.
Without a budget and research, I would not take the job.
Before my first music test in the 70's, I scored my Hot AC playlist at the #1 18-49 women station in my market. When the test was done, I was more than 20% off on more than half the songs. I had several other program staff members do the same, and they were as off as I was. We could not see the forest. So I don't do playlists without finding out what listeners want. Period.
And if one station is taking on an established one, I need to identify weaknesses. Not my perception of weaknesses... listener perceptions. Yes, there are ways to do research on a budget, but it has to be done.
In one case, I took on a station that was the last of 15 FMs in what is today a top 20 market. It was astonishingly last, even though it had a format that another station was #1 doing. We had little billing, so no professional research. We enlisted a bunch of friends who liked the kind of music we played. We played songs, and everyone did thumb up, thumb down or thumb flat. From a playlist of over 800 songs, we cut way more than half. From over 60 currents we went to 20. We structured the clocks, worked with the existing talent, sometimes painfully. Next book: #1. Next 22 years: #1, usually with double the audience of the #2 station.
There are ways to be creative with a small budget. But radio is one-to-many, so you have to find a consensus and be faithful to it. That may not be exciting all the time, but it gives predictable expectations to listeners.
