Or maybe because the music was less vital and the audience was less loyal to the format. The problem continues now. Howard was the attraction, not the music.
I do not dispute that claim. In fact, your statement is the idea to which I was alluding. As an outsider, I still question why? My ideas continue around the notion that where modern pop, R&B/Hip-Hop, and Country stations play new and current; FM Rock and Alternative Stations are "stuck in the 90s" for a lack of a better term. Even the new songs played are songs by the top billing bands from the 90s (Foo Fighters, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam, etc.). Great acts, to which why people still are dead set on seeing them live. But, there is little wiggle room for newer bands.
I discussed this with several people on the Boston Board as well. The rebuttals of the insiders have been that the songs and bands from the 90s are what is known to draw in the listeners. I cannot debate that, but only speak from my perspective. My perspective is that as Nu-Rock movement of the late 90s and Early 2000s took full steam, listeners did flee the ship in several markets. So, the stations stayed with the 90s acts. It made sense. However, as the Limp Bizkit, Korn, Godsmack, Creed era of Rock faded away, the stations continued to block out new, in favor of sticking with "what works". New is mainly from acts that have been around since the 90s, at least on the CBS Stations (before Entercom).
In the markets that could sustain the format, such as Boston and Philadelphia, we saw, with CBS Radio specifically, a watering down of the content. How is it that at the same time, MMR continued on in Philly and AAF continued on in Boston (well really the burbs North and West of the city)? Look at places like Orlando, where they killed off O-Rock pretty quick, but iHeart has WJRR down there going strong. My deduction that it wasn't only the listener being loyal. It was the stations playing a tight playlist and sticking to overplayed acts. Why was it that CBS struggled to keep a rock station on in pretty much every Eastern market, yet competitors were successful in many of the markets? Was it the listener, or was it part the company? To me, this is a bi-product of a suit in New York, making decisions for Philly, or Washington, or Boston, and so on. I don't blame the company completely, but the same should be held true for the listeners. I feel that CBS had no use for the format, and purposefully watered down the content to make flipping stations like WYSP and WBCN easier. Hence why, I was on a rant back in 09, when WBCN was flipped, that the problem was the playlist and that the only two new acts that CBS seemed to know and care about were Silver Sun Pickups and The White Stripes. Everything else was Bush, Nirvana, Green Day, etc.
