The FCC says otherwise. It still shows KOOL-FM in CDBS.
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A KOOL Change
- Thread starter AceBiscuits
- Start date
When did they legally change calls from KOOL-FM to just plain KOOL?
Dunno. Seeing that there is no KOOL on the Ancient Modulation band, there's no reason to hang the -FM on the KOOL calls which reside only on the Freak Music band.
I like how they are saying “now with more of the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s.” Wait a second, they weren’t playing the 50’s and 60’s earlier this week before the rebrand, those decades were dropped over 10 years ago. The station has been playing and continues to play the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. Not really sure what the point of the rebrand is when they are still playing the same music.
The point of the rebrand is to....rebrand. Fresh coat of paint on a station they didn't know what to do with and probably never really cared about in the first place.
KOOL was for a long time an interesting proposition. An "oldies" station that was nonetheless a top rated and a top billing station. An anachronism. While the rest of the "oldies" stations turned into jukeboxes, KOOL engaged it's listeners. Had live and local talent. Promotions that gave the listeners the opportunity to participate in being "KOOL." Sure, it cost a lot of money, but it made a lot of money.
When Entercom/Audacy took over, they looked at it and said "we don't get it. Why does this oldies station work? Let's turn it into a jukebox like all our other stations in the format. Get rid of all this expensive talent and promotions. We've got formulas that work in other markets!"
When things went south, the figured the real problem was the branding. "Instead of KOOL, let's call it Big! That worked in Philly! Let's copy that formula!"
Rather than look at some of the things that made KOOL so successful for so long, they plugged in the cookie cutter formula that kept their other "classic hits" stations on life-support.
Wow, where do I start. KOOL hasn't been an "oldies" station for years. The personalities associated with the former format have been gone for a long time. The other Audacy classic hits stations are very successful in both ratings and billings. There is no "cookie cutter formula." The music being played is very different from what you'd hear on WCBS and KRTH. The oldies format once played on KOOL can now be heard on two other stations that are jukeboxes with no personalities. While those stations have good 6+ number, they have terrible billings. If oldies jukeboxes are so bad, why do so many people in Phoenix listen to KOAI?
Because even with the ratings, they can't sell the time. Which means no money to hire any DJs. Does it matter? No.
Where to start? Understand that putting quotes around the word "oldies" meant that I wasn't talking about "a station that self-identifies as oldies and only plays music from the 50s and 60s." Call it classic hits if you like, but the music is still old. Mega calls it old school. The Bounce calls it throwbacks. Was KOOL an "oldies" station up until this week? Yes. It still is. It plays older music from two, three, and four decades ago. Call it what you like, but it is still essentially "oldies."
As for the cookie cutter formula, what's the name of the station? Big. What's the imaging based upon? Another Big station. They literally took the format - the "shell" of that other station - and plopped it onto 94.5. Is the music different from what it is in Philly? Of course there's going to be songs that test well in one city that don't in another, but that doesn't mean it isn't a cookie cutter format. How many "Kiss" and "Mix" stations does iHeart have? Does the music vary city to city on those? Yes, but the formula is the same.
Audacy did not build the station from the ground up with everything tailored to the Phoenix market. They applied a formula to save costs and tweaked the music for the local market. Big 94.5, Big 103 in Boston, Big 98.1 in Philly, and they've even got a bunch of "Big" country stations that do the same thing with a twang.
Wake up. It's not the 70s anymore.
Patently false.
Yes, the imaging of WOGL and KOOL are now very similar, as they themselves are replicated from the imaging style of KRTH. But unlike WOGL, KOOL features a majority of local hosts, still is promoting local contests and giveaways, etc. What would make this station more tailored to Phoenix in your opinion?
And to be clear, Big 103 Boston is basically Jack FM, not even the same as what they’re doing here at all, and they own a single country station with said branding and it was inherited from iHeart.
The previous poster is 100% correct. The presentation style you hear on 94.5 originated in the 2010s at KRTH under CBS Radio. KRTH has been successful with it, so that imaging style was brought to WOGL (with a much more liberal playlist) where it seems to have been successful, so it was brought to KOOL. The music on KOOL is quite older than WOGL, and seems a bit older and less rock oriented than KRTH. Audacy’s classic hits stations overall share a similar playlist “framework” (which is different from what you hear from iHeart, Cumulus) and each one is slightly specialized. The main outliers from that are, of course, WCBS-FM, WOCL, and KEYN.
If anyone doesn’t like KOOL as BIG 94.5, I do have a couple of suggestions towards that end of the country - KABG (BIG 98.5) in Albuquerque, and KXKL (KOOL 105) in Denver. Also 96.3 KKLZ in Vegas. All three have unique playlist styles, the first two are locally owned, and quite successful. I find all three more entertaining than KOOL personally. But that’s just my observation and personal taste. We will see how BIG 94.5 catches on.
If anyone doesn’t like KOOL as BIG 94.5, I do have a couple of suggestions towards that end of the country - KABG (BIG 98.5) in Albuquerque, and KXKL (KOOL 105) in Denver. Also 96.3 KKLZ in Vegas. All three have unique playlist styles, the first two are locally owned, and quite successful. I find all three more entertaining than KOOL personally. But that’s just my observation and personal taste. We will see how BIG 94.5 catches on.
Man, you're really taking all this personal and lashing out. I'm guessing you work there and/or were part of this change?
Nope not me. Never.
You know, after I asked that question I thought...maybe I'm wrong about this change. Maybe everything ya'll are saying about it being the right move is right. And so I gave the station a chance. Listened for a good long while waiting to hear a station that was fresh, engaging, that really stood out and said "this is a huge improvement."
I tried to find a word to describe what I heard, and I couldn't quite pick one. Then two words came to me:
Low effort.
Oh, I'm sure a lot of meetings were had, some research was done, some "hard choices" made and the sales staff was told how great this was going to be, but...I didn't hear anything special in the presentation or the music. Anything that said "we really put a lot of work into this product."
It's just kinda...there. Nothing that would make me put aside a preset, or listen over a streaming service, or even over another station playing similar music.
Compare that with a station I do have a preset for and does sound like some effort was put into the product...101.1 The Bounce. Yes, it's a rim-shot, and yes I know there are other "The Bounce" stations (the PD had one in Detroit), but what they've done with that signal is impressive. It used to be one of those rim-shots that was lucky if it got a 1 share. According to the 6+ numbers from August it is sitting at a 4.1...good for #7. According to what I see in the July ratings thread, they were sitting at #2 18-49, and in a 3 way tie 25-54.
That shouldn't be happening, but it is. They've managed to overcome their weak signal and lack of big budget with a fresh, engaging, frankly great sounding station. Are they billing in line with those numbers? If they're not, then whomever is advertising on the station is getting one helluva deal.
How can a local company with a station that never really amounted to much pull that off, while Audacy can't get a full signal with decades of heritage into the top 10, and have to blow it up?
The station was refreshed on 9/28, it is now 5 days later. Other than that is too small of a window to write off their effort, regardless if you think they could do more or not, the station does not currently have air staff to differentiate itself from a personality standpoint (despite the bulk of the air staff being holdovers). I’d come back and have that discussion in a month or two.
Take yourself out of the "radio people discussing radio" mindset for a moment and put yourself in the shoes of a listener. A person in the target demo...say, a 42 year old woman with a couple teenage kids and a medium size SUV who lives in Gilbert.
What does this new station offer her? Let's say she divides her listening between a few sources. She had a preset for KOOL, one for The Mountain, one for Mix, but more often than not she streams music from Spotify. She doesn't know the first thing about the 6+ numbers or TSL. She just knows what she likes.
Is she going to catch the change at 94.5? Is she going to say "OMG this is what I've been looking for all along!" or say "huh...that's weird" and hit the button for the other stations or go back to streaming? I would argue that if you're launching a brand new station (or an old station with a new brand), you've got to get her to say something closer to "OMG" than "huh..." and you need to do it sooner than later.
People like what people like. That same company owns The Wow Factor, a station that's an oldies jukebox with no DJs, that's #3 in 6+ and beating The Bounce. No effort there at all. Just put a bunch of titles in an automation system and press "play." It's all about personal taste, and has nothing to do with "effort." Both The Bounce and The Wow Factor are being beat in the ratings by KJZZ, an NPR station that mainly runs news programming produced on the east coast. Very little local content. Yet it's #2 in Phoenix. How much effort do they put into what they do? They're beating heritage news stations owned by big companies. How is this possible? People like what people like.
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Have you ever been to the KJZZ studios? It's been a few years since I was there, but their news room is pretty impressive, and it is filled with a news staff of almost 40 people. Yes, like many NPR affiliates their schedule is filled with national shows, but they have a great local news operation that does some serious work. When long time national NPR host Diane Rehm retired, KJZZ was the only station - and they confirmed this for me - that replaced that national show with a locally produced news program.
They're putting in quite a lot of effort.
But as you say, people like what people like. It seems - based on just the ratings - that people like what "low effort" KJZZ is doing, what The Wow Factor is doing, and what The Bounce is doing quite a lot more than some of the "stations owned by big companies."
If I were an executive at one of these companies, I'd be looking at the Phoenix market and asking my highly paid programmers and brand managers how it is that a jukebox station with two weak signals, a rim-shot hip hop station, and an NPR affiliate were taking up spots in the top ten rather than our carefully researched brands.
Maybe those big companies are simply wrong about what people like?
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