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Urban radio in San Diego
- Thread starter WBIMDJ
- Start date
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pattyofurniture
Guest
I don't think Power and Z90 sound that similar. Big Boy is the only similarity. From a music standpoint they're not all that close.
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Bianco500
Guest
Magic ain't UAC, it's Rhythmic Oldies, the Gospel show was added in 2005 to probably appease a few African American activists.
Although I would love to see Steve Harvey's morning show added.
Although I would love to see Steve Harvey's morning show added.
how can anyone compair power 106 to z90.the history that kpwr los angeles has.if you remember back in the days. 72,000 watts of music power!.one of the best station i.ds of all time
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Bob_Hudson
Guest
vonrollskyway1 said:
Jammin' Z90 signed on with its urban format in 1990 and until Clear Channel came along and put a middle-aged white woman in charge as PD, it was a station that clearly resonated in the hood and with all the wanna be gangstas from Scripp Ranch. Stations all over the country put a "Z" in their name in emulation of Z90. It was perhaps the most "street-wise" station San Diego has ever had or will have. But, agreed, it is now a mere shadow of its former self.
Bob_Hudson said:
I agree with you on the sound of Z-90. It became too "white" over time for the reasons you gave. But the "Z" name predates 1990 by nearly two decades. Z-93 (WZGC) in Atlanta in the early 70's was one of them, and there were Z's from Cleveland to Gainsville, FL. I snagged the best calls, WZNT, myself in the late 70's for Z-93 in San Juan!
The #1 station in Mexico City for two decades is also a Z!
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doublecashkgb
Guest
David: Have you ever successfully programmed a station that wasn't Hispanic?
doublecashkgb said:
Yeah, but I hated the environment: WERC (AM AC) and Kix-106 in Birmingham, 1972... #1 AM and #1 FM, and the FM is the station that sent Dees packing to Memphis. And, while doing KWKW in LA, did KENO in vegas (10 share) and KTKT in Tucson (15 share), about 1974.
However, keep in mind that "Hispanic" is a US term, pretty much unused in Latin America. What I have done or do in Latin America is general market... both Mexico City and Buenos Aires are bigger than New York, and some of the other cities I have worked in like Lima and Bogotá are as big as Chcago or San Francisco.
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doublecashkgb
Guest
Why did you hate the environment?
doublecashkgb said:
Birmingham, 1972, two years after Bull Connor. Not a nice kind of place then.
Z90 sounds too white??? Seriously??? That's a really off-base comment. Z90's problem is that it sounds too urban. Z90 should sound more like KIIS and less like Power... especially considering the amount of hispanic audience in SD. KHTS is a little off base too, but out of the 3 Top 40's in the market, it sounds the strongest right now. Lorena... age 24... prefers the music on Channel... hands down. Hip-Hop is becoming a niche format. Remember dance? Big in the 90's... Power 106 and Z90 were once both Dance stations.
Todd said:
I think both of us were talking about the time when Diana Laird was there. Not today.
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Bob_Hudson
Guest
DavidEduardo said:
Right -
Z-90 started out with a "urban" focus and there were a lot of folks inside the station who wanted it to become a direct competitor to XHRM-FM (92.5) which targeted a mostly black audience. Victor Diaz, Z90's owner, had Q-106 in his sites: it was white people's dance music or whatever - but not something they listened to in the hood or barrio.
Z-90 became a success when it started to embrace the young Hispanics who were into rap, hip-hop and all the other labels applied to the music of the streets. "Mark en la Manana" became the morning guy, young Hispanic and black club deejays (or wannabe club DJs) became on air jocks, a young Latina who had been a promotion assistant and bus driver (remember the Z90 bus???) became program director, hid in her office behind closed doors and pretty much let the music director and the club jocks dictate the music. There was no music research - they didn't need research to know what they and their friends and neighbors wanted to hear.
It was a crazy time because Victor Diaz swore up and down that offense and nasty rap lyrics would not be played on his station and even paid some old white people to listen and advise him if they heard any such things (Victor himself was not too good at picking out the lyrics in rap). Well, despite what Victor wanted, Z-90 had some raunchy stuff going on, but never in the daytime because the air staff knew that's primarily when Victor listened (and even then mostly to the morning show). The program director (who had the strong support of Martha Diaz) became adept at stabbing in the back any non-programming staff and consultants who challenged anything that went on with Z90. She made good money, but the top paid jocks made perhaps $30-35,000 even into the late 90's and of course the Diaz family made a nice income from Z90.
I use the term "street" a lot in reference to that period up until Clear Channel bought it because that what drove it. It was somewhat like grabbing a bunch of kids from the neighborhood and saying "Okay here's a powerful radio station: have at it." The closest analogy I can think of is back in the 60's when no one cared about FM radio so they handed stations over to hippies who brought their records from home and played what they like to here. Out of that came KSAN, KPRI, KMET, etc. Like Z-90 they all started as the antithesis of corporate radio but success led to their homogenization (some, like KPRI, were sucked into the world of focus groups and music research earlier than others).
I give Rick Thomas a lot of credit for kick starting Z90 in the early days when he was its first PD (a PD from the old rock format stayed on for a while but he didn't do anything). Rick had no promotion budget but the office had a photocopier that did tabloid size (11 x 17 inch) copies so Rick copied off hundreds if not thousands of makeshift Z90 posters and in the middle of the middle of the night he and the promotion guy would sneak around the county and staple them to telephone poles (and then I'd have to handle the calls from various angry city officials who did not appreciate Rick's guerilla marketing).
Rick was good at what he did but since 1990/91 (the Hispanic focus came long after he left) he has spent a lot of time getting corporatized and I don't think he's ever been really in tune with the Hispanic market so it's not surprising that he has not been able to return Z90 to where it was before CC got it. It's sort of back to where it was in the very early 90's trying to be a black-oriented urban station in a market that has a very small black population, and to top it off, a black-oriented station dictated by old white guys: I look at some of the jock and mixer photos on their website and I can't help but think of Vanilla Ice and Eminem wannabes.
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Bob_Hudson
Guest
Congrats to Rick Thomas - I see he's back at guerilla marketing: I was making a turn onto Emerald Drive at High 78 in Vista, and and there were a bunch of Z90's posters stapled to the No Parking sign. However unlike the ones back in 1990 which were just black ink on colored copy paper, these were full color posters.
Bob_Hudson said:
And Mark en la Manana is now doing mornings at Rhythmic AC KMVA (Movin' 97.5) in Phoenix...
http://www.movin975.com/showdj.asp?DJID=37229
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