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NYC does not seem to have a rock station. Why not? Do only WFUV & WFME
air some new rock or alternative / modern rock ?
air some new rock or alternative / modern rock ?
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Because NY can't support a decent rock station. Look at K-Rock. They survived this long because of Howard. RXP version 1 was not bad but Merlin wanted to put News on it. Then RXP version 2 came on and it was just filler to put on the Fan. Unless a company has the patience to put Rock on , I just don't see it coming back.
Unfortunately, rock music niched itself to death. At one time, rock was a unified format, where you could hear ten different kinds of rock played on the same station. Not any more. There is no core to the music, and the audience is way to splintered. The record labels understand this too. This is a music that is best heard on college radio, internet radio, and personal music devices.
One thing to know about urban audiences is they love OTA radio. They aren't big users of Pandora, Sirius, Spotify, or things like that.
Doesn't WNYE also air a modern rock morning show? I know that I heard something of that nature a few months ago...which actually sounded pretty good....when I was DXing WNYE in Albany....when local 91.5-WRPI was off the air...
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Correction---- I meant WFUV & WNYE. (not WFME)
The dial is not "full of" anything. In most markets, there are formats proportional to the listening for specific genres of music and styles of spoken word. When one area becomes too crowded or falls in popularity, stations look for other areas to serve.
The dial actually has lots of AC and CHR options, like Z-100, Now, KTU, Fresh, WPLJ and Lite FM. There are urban options like WBLS, Hot and Power.
Of course, "Hispanic" is not a format... it's an ethnicity. But at 25% of the market, wouldn't you think there would be quite a few options targeting Hispanics, both in Spanish and in English?
The reason that there are not more rock options is that station owners don't see a big opportunity in that area. Were the outlook different, lower performing stations like Fresh and Now might be in different formats.
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You are way off base my friend, the NYC dial is overloaded with Anti-Rock, pro-Ethnic/Rhythmic formats, the AC stations you claim, are over 70 percent Black oriented. Why cater to one ethnic, NYC has the most Italian population of any city in the country, where is the full time Italian station. Answer that mister know it all, you claim just because there is an abundant number of Hispanics, it must be written in stone that they control 40 percent of the radio dial. European ethnics came to the city all throughout the turn of the 20th century, they had their formats at first, Jewish, German, Polish and so on, after a few years they learned to embrace the American ways, the formats reverted back to English BUT it seems this ONE CERTAIN ETHNIC is GROOMED to have their way with the dial, instead of learning English and moving away from THEIR LANGUAGE. Instead the owners are giving in and flipping more English formats to THEIR DEAL, bottom line, like it or not.
In case you had not noticed, even CHRs and Hot ACs in places like Great Falls and Fargo are much more rhythmic and less rock-leaning than ever. Tastes in the whole country have changed over the last decade or so.
And responding to the major partisan groups in any market is not anti-anything. It's just smart programming to appeal to the broadest group possible, and in most markets the different sub-sets of rock can be among the smaller groups.
Besides the fact that your percentage is off, that's nothing new. In fact, you are making the same kind of statement that was often made in the racially-charged era of the late 60's when every other songs was Motown or a Motown wannabee. It's simply taste... and right now, there is lots of very good rhythmic music that has mass appeal.
Liking rhythmic music is not an ethnic issue... it is simply the reality of what kind of music is most appealing today.
There are few first and second generation Italians in New York today. But when there were, we had Fortune Pope's WHOM and WOV programming all or mostly all Italian... WOV even had a "live" studio in Rome!
I did not say that. I said that the market is 25% Hispanic, and it is natural to assume that a proportional number of stations would program to Hispanics either in Spanish or in English with music that has proven Hispanic appeal.
In no way are 40% of the stations in the NYC MSA in Spanish.
Station owners are aware that only about half of all Hispanics are Spanish dominant. That's why there are only 3 ESB FM signals in Spanish and not more.
Like all nationalities (you are confusing "nationality" with "ethnicity") that migrated in large numbers to any place in the US, it takes a couple of generations for interest in "home country" language stations to wane. First generation immigrants in their majority do not become truly bilingual (able to think in both English and the birth tongue) ever; becoming bilingual after reaching adulthood is a mean task. So such people prefer stations that speak their "comfort language" and play the music they grew up on.
But those folks' kids will generally be bilingual, and the grandkids will have moved almost entirely away from the "other" language. In NYC, that's what has happened with the Puerto Rican community... the Spanish dominants are mostly in their 50s and beyond, and the kids and grandkids are native New Yorkers and speak accordingly. Since there has been little Puerto Rican migration to the Northeast since the late 60's, there is no inflow of Spanish dominant Boricuas, either.
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the argument here about the alternative/rock audience is being disproven in market after market, though it was once true about 5-10 years ago. We have again returned to extensive amounts of alternative crossing over to top 40/chr, so inversely, stations with a tight modern alternative sound are finding success capitalizing on that hand-full of artists and more alternative artists who sound similar, wrff, ktcl and the new wkqx among many others.
The reason it's crossing over is by necessity. It's like southern rockers who can't get airplay anywhere else crossing over to country. There isn't enough of an audience in the alternative/rock audience to build an entire radio station around it, so artists and labels adjust the music to fit the formats that can work.
Just get an HD radio.
92.3 WNOW-HD2 is running a great alternative format as "K-Rock", including lots of songs that probably wouldn't make the cut if it were on a more focus group driven main FM channel. I don't know who programs it but the music is up-to-date, and it's a really good listen. There are no jocks but maybe that's a blessing in disguise.
104.3 WAXQ HD2 is airing iHeartRadio's "The Alternative Project". It's a little more mainstream, slightly harder edged than K-Rock and includes Clear Channel's (voice tracked) jocks if that's more to your taste.
90.7 WFUV HD3 is running TheAlternateSide.org, a college alternative rock format that's very local to NYC and extremely well executed. Last time I checked they had live (not voicetracked) jocks 12 hours of the day and then that programming repeated during evenings/overnight.
All of these stations have reasonably-to-very broad & interesting playlists, and few to NO commercials. If a rock station came along to a main FM channel in NYC now, at least 2 of these HD channels would probably go away and then you'd be stuck with a much narrower playlist and 20 minutes of commercials per hour. Remember the old K-Rock where all you'd get was Alice in Chains or Beastie Boys at the top of every hour? Be careful what you wish for.
92.3 WNOW-HD2 is running a great alternative format as "K-Rock", including lots of songs that probably wouldn't make the cut if it were on a more focus group driven main FM channel. I don't know who programs it but the music is up-to-date, and it's a really good listen. There are no jocks but maybe that's a blessing in disguise.
104.3 WAXQ HD2 is airing iHeartRadio's "The Alternative Project". It's a little more mainstream, slightly harder edged than K-Rock and includes Clear Channel's (voice tracked) jocks if that's more to your taste.
90.7 WFUV HD3 is running TheAlternateSide.org, a college alternative rock format that's very local to NYC and extremely well executed. Last time I checked they had live (not voicetracked) jocks 12 hours of the day and then that programming repeated during evenings/overnight.
All of these stations have reasonably-to-very broad & interesting playlists, and few to NO commercials. If a rock station came along to a main FM channel in NYC now, at least 2 of these HD channels would probably go away and then you'd be stuck with a much narrower playlist and 20 minutes of commercials per hour. Remember the old K-Rock where all you'd get was Alice in Chains or Beastie Boys at the top of every hour? Be careful what you wish for.
Would love to have those two Alternative formats here in Center City Philadelphia, I listen to them (92.3/104.3) when I am up in NYC and both are fantastic. The only thing that comes close to anything full blown Alternative on the HD sides here is Rock Nation on WRFF HD-2 which stinks.
"niched itself to death". I do not believe that to be true anymore. Classic rock, is essentially an oldies format, older demo and there not much of a market for Active rock I would agree. Alternative I would say is the fresh mainstream rock format that is crossing over frequently and appeals to both males and females. If there was a problem with Alternative you would not hear so much cross-over.
I agree with a couple of the posts here, the demographics of NY radio are specifically targeted to minority groups and females. They under serve white males under 54 except for sports.
Why target only females in NY when you could reach both males and females with mainstream Alternative like WRFF. They are leaving money on the table.
If you had ever conducted an music test, you would know that there is no overwhelming broad acceptance. There are multiple subsets of listeners, each of which hate part of what the other subsets love. They are the greatest candidates for much more niche streams than any other format I've ever seen.
But it is still rock.
The problem is that, aside from a few heritage alternative stations like KROQ, most alternative stations have low to very low power ratios and are, thus, not favored by station owners unless there is nothing else that can be done with an underperforming cluster station.
That should read ...conducted an Alternative Rock music test...
What would you expect from this guy, read all his posts, he is so anti-any form of Rock and so pro-Urban/Dance its pathetic.
Maybe, but I agree with him, and I was once a rock DJ.
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