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KMPS is now 94.1 The Sound

iamarussianpirate said:
They think they can win a larger share than any competitor, or maybe they think the format is healthier with competition.
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Time will tell. Can't really tell much by the December book, which came out today.

I don't expect Hubbard to short this format change. But if they do, iHeart is ready to jump in. They just flipped a station to country in Denver last week. They'll be one of three in that format there.
 
TheBigA said:
Fine...educate me. Tell me all the dynamics.

Because from my vantage point, this was not a decision made for profit.

I mean if they had well known talent at the Wolf, if Fitz was still hot and doing mornings, I would understand..
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Vlad did a good job in putting things in ratings perspective.

As for the market dynamics, forget it. Those things should be known before making blanket assertions and accusing people of changing things for sh*ts and giggles. Just because you are unable to put two and two together to make a business case doesn't mean what they did was wrong. As somebody else upthread mentioned, at least they're TRYING. Imagine that, a radio owner trying something different for a change.

Your comments and "perspective" make it sound like they drew straws to choose a direction. Do you think Entercom just did this blindly? A publicly traded company made a decision in the 12th largest radio market. You think you know better? The Sound is looking for a PD, go apply and tell 'em what they're doing wrong. Step away from the keyboard and give Field, Hutchison and Richards a call (you can Google who those names are), I'm sure they would love to hear how radio is supposed to be done.


TheBigA said:
Because the format has been done before, and isn't typically a big money maker. That's why it's not being done as much any more.
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Yeah, so what? That doesn't mean it won't work. Do you know Entercom's rationale? Do you know Entercom's overall market strategy? Do you know the competition's history? Do you know what kind of image it has? Do you know what it has been doing lately? Do you know what The Sound is doing to attack the competition?

Will The Sound work out in the long run? Hell if I know, but at least they have the courage to try something different by thinking how they can do things rather than how they can't because "it's been done before."
 
AQH said:
Those things should be known before making blanket assertions and accusing people of changing things for sh*ts and giggles.
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That's not what I said. I said the reason was revenge. They got beat. So they bought the station that beat them, and fired everyone. Not the first time that's happened.

AQH said:
Do you think Entercom just did this blindly? A publicly traded company made a decision in the 12th largest radio market. You think you know better?
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Do you want me to go through the list of what Cumulus, another publicly traded company, did in larger markets?

Entercom made a bunch of format changes with CBS stations in other big cities around the same time. None of them appeared to be well-researched. Several of them appear to be pet projects for the CEO. Won't be the first time for that either.
 
I wonder if knowledge about non-competes figures into the 'revenge' aspect. Get rid of what was your competition, and the staff from that station can't work in the market for a while during the time you build the station you want to be tops in the format.

Does this kind of thing happen?
 
TheBigA said:
That's not what I said. I said the reason was revenge. They got beat. So they bought the station that beat them, and fired everyone. Not the first time that's happened.



Do you want me to go through the list of what Cumulus, another publicly traded company, did in larger markets?

Entercom made a bunch of format changes with CBS stations in other big cities around the same time. None of them appeared to be well-researched. Several of them appear to be pet projects for the CEO. Won't be the first time for that either.
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The only change that didn't seem well thought out to me other than 94.1 here was 104.3 in Chicago. The other markets (Dallas, New York, Orlando, and a rebranding in San Francisco) make sense. From what I understand, rock fans were really upset when WRXP went away, and Entercom filled that gap with its low-rated CHR. Dallas hadn't had an alternative in a year, and Entercom resolved that by flipping the third CHR. Although there's only one CHR in Orlando now, Alternative was a hole in that market.
 
iamarussianpirate said:
Setting aside the question of whether Entercom should have even flipped one of their two country stations or not, I had also been wondering why Entercom chose to keep KKWF over KMPS.

I decided to dig into the ratings, and for simplicity sake I’m looking at A25-54 AQH rating, M-F 6a-7p. Nielsen lets you go back 46 books so this is looking at each monthly from June 2014 – December 2017.

Of those 46 books, KMPS had a higher rating than KKWF 17 times. KKWF won 20 times, and they tied 9 times.

All of KMPS’ wins came after November ’15, however the majority of those weren’t blowouts. Only 5 of the 17 KMPS victories were by more than a tenth of a point. Looking back over the past 24 books, KMPS and KKWF were within a tenth of a point 20 of 24 times.

KKWF had won the war each month from June ‘14 – October ‘15 and they did so more convincingly, averaging over two tenths of a point better than KMPS.

Here’s what I think Entercom’s rational was:

1) KKWF had won the battle in a convincing manner for years until Nov ’15 when all of a sudden the rating was cut in half. This coincided with a 10% churn of KKWF panelists, which represented 20% of KKWF heavy listening. Entercom’s conclusion: It wasn’t us. The panel change screwed with our ratings.

2) Most compliant panelists are in the panel for 18-24 months. If you go 24 books from Nov ’15, you’re at Aug ’17 which coincides with the month KKWF stopped a 4 book slide and had their best rating of 2017. Entercom’s conclusion: It wasn’t us. The panel change screwed with our ratings again, but now those panelists are gone and things are looking up.

3) We (Entercom) know KKWF. It’s our baby. We have set partnerships, we know how to program it, we know how to sell it. We don’t know KMPS. Entercom’s conclusion: Advantage KKWF.

4) Even when we were losing to KMPS, it wasn’t by that much. Do we think that we can beat whoever ends up flipping to country (iHeart with a syndicated morning show or Hubbard who hasn’t programed a country station in this market)? Entercom’s conclusion: Yeah, we can beat either or both of those two. We’ve programmed country radio in this market for 10 years and for the majority of those years we beat the heritage country competitor. A new unknown country station in the market shouldn’t be hard to beat.

5) We have a brand new morning show on KKWF. We have a new PD on KKWF. Those are our people that we hired just recently. Entercom’s conclusion: We don’t know the KMPS staff. We know our guys. Advantage KKWF.

6) Billing wise, KKWF had been beating KMPS each month until just recently. Entercom’s conclusion: Ratings are getting better, we have the relationships with the direct country clients, we’ll be fine.

My conclusion: If Entercom was set on flipping one of their country stations, KMPS did in retrospect make the most sense. At the very least, it should be fun to watch a newly invigorated country battle.
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Valid points, and all still stand after this post, but Entercom has been programming country in this market for 12 years, not 10. KKWF shares my birthday.
 
bobdavcav said:
The only change that didn't seem well thought out to me other than 94.1 here was 104.3 in Chicago. The other markets (Dallas, New York, Orlando, and a rebranding in San Francisco) make sense. From what I understand, rock fans were really upset when WRXP went away, and Entercom filled that gap with its low-rated CHR. Dallas hadn't had an alternative in a year, and Entercom resolved that by flipping the third CHR. Although there's only one CHR in Orlando now, Alternative was a hole in that market.
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A shrinking hole, as Hispanic is a rapidly growing part of the audience in the Orlando market, and interest in non-rhythmic genres among those listeners is nearly non-existent.
 
bobdavcav said:
From what I understand, rock fans were really upset when WRXP went away, and Entercom filled that gap with its low-rated CHR.
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There's a reason why WRXP went away: No money. Same reason why no one did country in NY for 15 years. Entercom's embracing of the "Alt" branding isn't particularly new or different. In fact, it's being done in Field's home town of Philadelphia. It gets good ratings, but it's underperforming its ratings in revenues. Field says he's going to do more research than CBS. Great idea. I suspect a lot of these format changes will evolve once we get closer to the spring.
 
CTListener said:
A shrinking hole, as Hispanic is a rapidly growing part of the audience in the Orlando market, and interest in non-rhythmic genres among those listeners is nearly non-existent.
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A very shrinking hole. The aftermath of Hurricane Maria has brought nearly 250,000 more Puerto Ricans to the Orlando / Central Florida area. Nielsen will probably need to make some kind of adjustment to the population, even if the ACS data does not keep up. That will make the market nearly 45% Hispanic, and will influence everything from radio programming to concert events and even the movies shown in theaters.

Alt, as a music genre, has never had much of a foothold in PR, so the potential for such a format being used by Hispanics is pretty near zilch.
 
Gotta love the wannabies
 
KMPS was outbilling KKWF by a big margin in recent years.

Sorry, but the decision to kill KMPS was a stupid one. There's little likelihood KSWD + KKWF on a combined basis will outperform what KMPS + KKWF has done (and would've continued to do) on a combined basis. Seattle is more than capable of supporting two full-signaled, full market Country stations.

I appreciate the perspective provided by iamarussianpirate; his or her deduction (as to Entercom's rationale) is likely correct. I still disagree with the decision Entercom made, though.

As for WRXP, it went away only because Emmis was desperate for cash to appease creditors. Hence, the deal with Merlin Media. The station was billing $16 million on an annualized basis without a big morning show budget. That was below average for a Big Apple FM stick at the time, but certainly not horrible (especially for a young station).

BTW, the CHR/Pop format that Entercom chose to ditch in NYC was only billing about $11 million annually. I completely agree with Entercom's format decision in New York. I am not so sure they made a wise decision in Dallas, though.
 
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MarkW said:
As for WRXP, it went away only because Emmis was desperate for cash to appease creditors. Hence, the deal with Merlin Media.
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You're talking about the first incarnation of WRXP. Merlin brought it back after the failed attempt with FM news.
 
If I understand right, the news format was a money loser for Merlin. Had they not been so focused on pushing that out to every market, I think they might still be in business. To me, the only reason that WRXP and WKQX were blown up was because Randy Michaels believed that all news radio had a place on fm, and imo that's no reason to blow up a brand that is doing well as it is. When they realized how much money they were losing with the all news format, they decided to go back to Alternative while a buyer was found for the station. The buyer ended up being CBS, who should have kept the Alternative, but wanted to get WFAN to fm. How is potentially $16 million plus whatever WFAN is pulling in now by keeping the Alternative format on 101.9 better than $11 million plus WFAN for what they went with on 92.3? My argument was then and still is today, that if they wanted WFAN on fm that badly, they could have blown up 92.3.
 
94.1 sounds like a soft-rock version of Jack-FM. Oh yea, and they just played a certain Beach Boys song...
 
swhyde1980 said:
94.1 sounds like a soft-rock version of Jack-FM. Oh yea, and they just played a certain Beach Boys song...
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Aruba, Bahama, come on pretty mama ... Detested by oldies geeks, fans of the Beach Boys' '60s sounds, and a large proportion of male listeners -- none of whom are in the target demo of this station.
 
CTListener said:
Aruba, Bahama, come on pretty mama ... Detested by oldies geeks, fans of the Beach Boys' '60s sounds, and a large proportion of male listeners -- none of whom are in the target demo of this station.
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Credit Mike Love for adding the "Aruba, Bahama" lines. That was his idea.

It's one of the few songs with no involvement from Brian Wilson. He was unable to make it to the studio that day. Otherwise, that's Carl & Mike singing lead, along with Al Jardine and Bruce Johnston. Probably closer to the original band than "Oh What a Night" by the Four Seasons.
 
TheBigA said:
Credit Mike Love for adding the "Aruba, Bahama" lines. That was his idea.

It's one of the few songs with no involvement from Brian Wilson. He was unable to make it to the studio that day. Otherwise, that's Carl & Mike singing lead, along with Al Jardine and Bruce Johnston. Probably closer to the original band than "Oh What a Night" by the Four Seasons.
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Since no one but Frankie Valli ever sang lead for the Four Seasons, who'd even notice that the backing vocalists were different?
 
I notice they do not have a playlist yet. It's still stuck on the Christmas format from early December.
 
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