105.7 Tweaked Their Format

[dave00]

After the latest round of ratings, it seems iHeart has abandoned trying to appeal to former CD92.9 listeners and has pivoted 105.7 towards men and Blitz listeners.

At midnight last night, 105.7 significantly shifted their playlist away from the contemporary alternative charts - abandoning big hits by Noah Kahan, Rosa Linn, etc - and instead shifting towards hard rock “alternative” hits from the late 90s and early 2000s.

Bands like Nickelback, Cold, Disturbed, Three Days Grace, Audioslave, Alien Ant Farm, Staind, and Puddle of Mudd have now taken center stage. Outside of Paramore, No Doubt, Evanescence, and one Alanis track, women have been dumped.

Like many CHR/Top 40s, sister station WNCI, has struggled significantly in the ratings and has lately relied on crossover alternative hits to shore up the lack of CHR product. This move likely protects WNCI from being cannibalized by its sister station.

An interesting response by North American, to protect The Blitz, might be to add more Modern AC and lite alternative hits to Star 94.1. Now that 107.9 abandoned the 90s for “2K to today”, 105.7 dumped women, and CD92.9 is online-only, North American might have a niche to differentiate Star from Sunny - all while protecting The Blitz.

 

[stevenNOLA]

Finally, although I'm currently hearing New Radicals so maybe a phased approach?

Similarly, Audacy's 104.3 The Shark WSFS Miami/Ft. Lauderdale did the same about a week ago.

Seems like this is the new classic rock format.

 

[dave00]

Yea, I heard “Closing Time” earlier and it feels weird on a station that also plays “Down with the Sickness”. They debuted within just a year or so of each other on alternative stations and yet feel light-years apart.

I do think a modern, classic rock format that spans 90s to 00s with guitar rock, and maybe a few new songs, has potential. That’s essentially what QFM was in its heyday.

But the issues with it working are multifaceted:

1) On one hand, the audience (40 year olds) isn’t culturally ready for the format to be actually called what it is: Be it classic rock, modern classic rock, classic alternative, rock hits of the 90s and 2000s, anything that implies it’s old music. So I get why iHeart is trying to position this under “alternative”, for now.

2) On the other hand, the word “alternative” carries even more baggage and blurred lines today than it did in the 90s. The “Jewel to Tool” conundrum was tough in 1997, but today, trying to cover close to 50 years of alternative music (That spans all kinds of rock but also EDM, singer songwriter, pop, alt-country, and hip hop) seems impossible. Even if you cut out currents, which I think most alt listeners still see themselves as wanting, it’s really hard to draw lines that balance between broad-enough, sustainable, and yet niche-enough.

3) Classic rock, as a format, had so many more advantages than this potential, modern version of it. There were clear demarcation points in the world of rock, especially once alternative blew up in the 90s. A modern interpretation doesn’t have the same agreed-upon cultural fault-lines. And that’s just the format side of it. We haven’t even touched on consumption habits of 40 year olds today vs 40 year olds, 30 years ago.

TL;DR - There’s a huge risk that a bait and switch of this classic rock-ish format under the guise of “alternative” (In a market that had two current-based alternatives just a few months ago) might not work much better. But hey, if it protects WNCI from an in-house competitor.