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It's Beginning to Sound a lot Like...

It is not unusual when the same company owns both Country stations in a market for one of them to go All-Christmas. That happened a couple of years ago in Kansas City. Country stations usually take a hit during the holidays because the All-Christmas format is appealing to people who often listen to country music. So the younger-skewing station still plays the usual format and the other can take some of those Christmas listeners.

The funny thing is the Kansas City country station did NOT do a Country-flavored Christmas format. It didn't play Willie Nelson or Brenda Lee any more frequently than other Christmas stations. It didn't go looking for a Reba McEntire or Clint Black Christmas album. It just followed the tried and true Christmas format that gets heard on iHeart, CBS, Entercom, Cumulus, etc., with little variation.

There are quite a few markets where one owner owns two country stations, including Kansas City, Spokane and Austin. For a long time CBS owned both Country stations in Houston. To a casual listener their playlists probably sound the same, although a closer examination shows one plays a few more library songs per hour and maybe goes back a bit further than the other. So that will likely happen with KMPS, while KKWF is a bit more current. It usually takes having three country stations in a given market for one of them to go "Classic Country" or for stations owned by Cumulus, one will go with "Nash Icon."
 
Gregg hit it on the head. I highly doubt Entercom is going to take either KKWF or KMPS to a classic country format. My guess is they'll do what Hubbard does such a good job of in Cincinnati with WUBE and WYGY. One will be a "CHR" country - playing the hits, personality driven, tighter playlist, etc. One will be an "AC" country - playing some of the new stuff, and the rest from within the last 5 years - focus on the music and familiarity.

Couple of reasons for this. First, if doesn't leave a lot of room for another operator to launch a 3rd country station in the market. Second, you'll own that country audience completely...if KKWF is playing Luke Bryan and then goes to commercial, and a listener flips to KMPS and hears George Jones, what are the chances they'll stick around? But if they hear Darius Rucker Wagon Wheel or Zac Brown Chicken Fried, country "golds" at this point, then you'll keep that audience. Third, and most importantly, classic country as we think of it attracts an audience well past that 25-54 money demo. Entercom has always been smart about not letting their formats age out of that 25-54 demo. KMPS and KKWF will both be country come December 26th. They'll look and sound a bit different, but not much. That's my guess.
 
I suspected KKWF was going more current, as the voices I noticed back in August are generally CHR voices. That's an interesting proposal.
 
Country gold - Wagon Wheel?? That was 2013. Four years isn't gold. 10 or 15 is. I'm one of the few young folks who has abandoned whatever that 'country' sound is nowadays and only listens to '80s, '90s and early-mid '00s stuff.
 
Gregg. said:
The funny thing is the Kansas City country station did NOT do a Country-flavored Christmas format.
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That's because Christmas is it's own format, and forcing another genre on it (like country) restricts the potential audience.

What KKGO in LA found out is that the Christmas audience is larger than the country audience, even in a market where there are two Christmas stations.
 
crainbebo said:
Country gold - Wagon Wheel?? That was 2013. Four years isn't gold. 10 or 15 is. I'm one of the few young folks who has abandoned whatever that 'country' sound is nowadays and only listens to '80s, '90s and early-mid '00s stuff.
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In the context of a current-based country format, anything that's not either current or recurrent is Gold. So that means 2013 is Gold when played on that station. But I know what you mean, and real classic country is mostly 80s and 90s.
 
crainbebo said:
Country gold - Wagon Wheel?? That was 2013. Four years isn't gold. 10 or 15 is.
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You have a personal definition of what gold is, but when discussing radio programming BigA is correct.

If you look at the subscription-based MediaBase and BDS airplay listings, currents are all within the past 10 months, give or take. Recurrents are all within the past few years... a few more in adult formats, a few less in CHR. Gold is everything else. So in CHR, a song that is 3 years old can be gold... in country a 4 to 5 year old song is generally gold.

There is nothing wrong with having your own classification for you personal playlists. But the way radio does, and always has, classified music into categories is different.
 
Be listening to 103.3 North Sound the next several days
 
bossbill said:
Be listening to 103.3 North Sound the next several days
Click to expand...

What's up? Still country when I was passing through today. Made me crave beer (BURP!).
 
Interestingly, KCMS isn't doing 24/7 Christmas music this year. I'll have to do some more observations, but it seems as if they'll play three songs from the regular format, then one Christmas song. Does anyone remember Christmas 2007? They did something similar back then as well.
 
Nearly all Christian Contemporary stations go All-Christmas, often earlier than the market's AC station... which makes sense considering the format. They play mostly CCR artists, but throw in a Paul McCartney or Nat King Cole song here and there from the secular Christmas song list.

It is surprising that KCMS is passing up this opportunity, unless it will go all-Christmas soon.
 
Gregg, usually KCMS goes all-Christmas on Black Friday. Not this year.
KAFE-104.1 went all Christmas a few days ago, along with CHQM-103.5 up in Vancouver. KAFE didn't use to flip to holiday stuff until 12 days before Xmas. The Ocean 98.5 up in Victoria hasn't flipped but they are usually a bit late. BTW have they been leaning more Hot AC or rhythmic lately? Couple hours ago they played 'Good Feeling' by Flo Rida! You'd never hear that on KXXO or even KRWM during the normal season.
 
Gregg. said:
Nearly all Christian Contemporary stations go All-Christmas, often earlier than the market's AC station... which makes sense considering the format. They play mostly CCR artists, but throw in a Paul McCartney or Nat King Cole song here and there from the secular Christmas song list.

It is surprising that KCMS is passing up this opportunity, unless it will go all-Christmas soon.
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Perhaps, they don't want to lose too much to K-Love.
 
crainbebo said:
Gregg, usually KCMS goes all-Christmas on Black Friday. Not this year.
KAFE-104.1 went all Christmas a few days ago, along with CHQM-103.5 up in Vancouver. KAFE didn't use to flip to holiday stuff until 12 days before Xmas. The Ocean 98.5 up in Victoria hasn't flipped but they are usually a bit late. BTW have they been leaning more Hot AC or rhythmic lately? Couple hours ago they played 'Good Feeling' by Flo Rida! You'd never hear that on KXXO or even KRWM during the normal season.
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I don't think the rhythmic lean on 98.5 is anything new, they've been doing that since at least 2011. I find it a bit of an odd move, especially now that they have CHR Kiss 103.1. In Jack's later years, I noticed a decidedly AC lean to the playlist.
 
bobdavcav said:
I don't think the rhythmic lean on 98.5 is anything new, they've been doing that since at least 2011. I find it a bit of an odd move, especially now that they have CHR Kiss 103.1. In Jack's later years, I noticed a decidedly AC lean to the playlist.
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AC's in Canada tend to lean towards Hot AC. CHFI started the movement close to 10 years ago (with great success), and Rogers implemented the strategy across the country.
 
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