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PLJ SOLD
- Thread starter leethalweapon
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I'm not advocating for Freeform. I'm saying that Freeform allowed for the boom of what is now heratige classic rock. Since the late 90s, rock as a format went into a funk because of cookie cutter playlists. Here we are in 2019, and most "modern rock" stations play the same songs, by the same 90s acts with a minimal amount of what I refer to as "payola" acts peppered in. As a format, between hard rock and alternative, there are numerous acts that get regular airtime on Satellite, but FM won't touch them.
As for PLJ, I honestly think that as long as PLJ remained Cumulous owned, it wouldn't have survived as a rock station. I think it is all based on finance.
Will they play the Genesis song "Jesus He Knows Me"? That song exposes these frauds for what they are. It defies common sense that these operations are legal...
Obviously you are of a different belief set from traditional Christians and Evangelical Christians. Again, just like the music you like, that's a personal matter.
But suggesting that operations like EMF are illegal or frauds is taking it a bit too far.
That's crazy. The format went into a funk because the music sucks and the record labels aren't supporting it.
If record labels spent more time promoting rock the way they promote pop and country, the music would be more successful. It all comes from the top. If you want to complain about the music, blame the record labels.
"Suck" is purely subjectiver. The objective fact is that rock has lost much of the millennial generation of Caucasian males that it needs to be relevant to country, rhythmic pop and hip-hop. Bands like Dawes were getting exposure on a couple of Sirius XM channels, The Spectrum and The Loft (since discontinued), but most of the subscribers who were liking what they were hearing were in their 50s and older, the last generation of rock fans before rap went mainstream (and white, and suburban) and changed everything. I've said it before, I'll say it again. Rock had a nice, long run, but we are living in an increasingly rhythmic world. Melody and instrumental virtuosity are not the factors they once were in making an act popular. Nothing is going to bring rock back to radio prominence. The changing tastes and demographics of America are working against it more and more every passing year.
Sure. There are two types of music: The music people like, and everything else. Lately rock has fallen into the second category.
Record promotion departments can make a difference. They can draw attention to great music and musicians if they get a chance. They're not doing it now, and that's why rock is in the state it's in.
I'm not a fan of CCM myself, but at least they have a mission. What commercial outfit has a mission that isn't "maximize profits at the lowest cost"? Large "commercial" operators have long ignored the public interest they are supposed to serve, and any station that still does so is because of remnants left from when they were owned by companies that "Got it". ABC knew how to run a radio station, they knew it would take investment, and they were OK with a reasonable profit margin to make that happen. Then, the Clear Channel/Cumulus/Entercom/etc's came in, bought stations at 20X cash flow, and gutted them. So, if the local community engagement is gone, and the "public interest" is more a punchline, then why would me, a listener, put up with it? Services can do a better job of introducing me to music. I'll miss the local flavor, but that is largely gone anyway. Jocks aren't allowed to be creative anymore, just read the liner card, and move on.
So, what service is my local rock station providing me that Spotify can't, aside from playing the same tired songs that "tested well" AKA are as safe as can be, and ever-increasing commercial loads? They have no connection to the community they serve, and offer very little to differentiate themselves from a service I can customize to my liking.
J
Joylovepulse967
Guest
With WPLJ/NEW YORK now permanently in radio's Hall of Fame of heritage call letters, a lot of fine, high-quality talents are now on the beach, ready and willing to find their next opportunity. Check them out:
MIKE ALLAN, Multi-format APD (WPLJ, WNSH and WNBM) and WPLJ night host, [email protected]
ANNEMARIE, Morning show co host, [email protected]
EUTOPIA, Weekends, [email protected]
ALINA (FLORESCU), Weekends, [email protected]
DAN KELLY, Creative Services Dir., [email protected]
JOEY KRAMER, Swing/weekend talent, [email protected]
PHIL MICARI, Commercial Productions Dir., [email protected]
JOE “MONK” PARDAVILA, Morning show Exec. Producer, [email protected]
SKYWALKER, Weekend, [email protected]
RACE TAYLOR, Afternoon host, [email protected]
MELONY TORRES, MD/middays, [email protected]
MIKE ALLAN, Multi-format APD (WPLJ, WNSH and WNBM) and WPLJ night host, [email protected]
ANNEMARIE, Morning show co host, [email protected]
EUTOPIA, Weekends, [email protected]
ALINA (FLORESCU), Weekends, [email protected]
DAN KELLY, Creative Services Dir., [email protected]
JOEY KRAMER, Swing/weekend talent, [email protected]
PHIL MICARI, Commercial Productions Dir., [email protected]
JOE “MONK” PARDAVILA, Morning show Exec. Producer, [email protected]
SKYWALKER, Weekend, [email protected]
RACE TAYLOR, Afternoon host, [email protected]
MELONY TORRES, MD/middays, [email protected]
ANYONE can start a non-profit radio station, or company, and do what EMF does. If you want to start a station that plays nothing but Scottish music, and you can find a way to pay for it, you are more than welcome to do that and be subject to the SAME rules as EMF or any other Non-Commercial station, including the studio waiver. It has nothing to do with religion, and everything to to do with being non-profit and non-commercial. Now, you could argue that they abuse that loophole to grow and operate, but MOST public radio stations do that. Minnesota Public Radio is quite large because they have studios in St Paul, and just radio towers everywhere else. Now, a venture that couldn't make money under traditional rules can surely raise enough to pay for power and tower.
The changes in local/main studio rules now allow for remote studios for every class of station, not just non-commercial ones. In theory, iHeart or Entercom could have studio complexes with a hundred or more stations in each feeding local transmitters all over the country.
You are right on as far as non-commercial non-profit organizations. The salient difference between a non-profit and others is that the non-profit does not distribute earnings to shareholders. Instead, any surplus is put back into the organization. That means a new MRI device for a nonprofit hospital or a new building for a university or a transmitter for a radio station.
One of the three hospital systems in my area is nonprofit and every time they get significant income and donations, they expand by opening satellite care centers all over the metro are to put care closer to users. No different than EMF that uses surpluses to add stations in markets the are not in or to improve signals or to add a new format.
That is your subjective stance. The fact is there is a market for new rock. Where we agree is that the record companies don't support anything that can't be played on Pop or Country radio. But, just because you don't like it, doesn't mean there isn't new rock out there with their sound. Theres a whole channel on SiriusXM for one example, and most of the music played isn't played on FM rock stations. That's the issue.
People here live to quote WKRP. Well, here's another quote. "If they are so hot, why aren't they climbing up the charts babe." "Beacuse you never play them babe." -Michael McKean and Steve Buscemi in Airheads.
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If the record labels don't care, why should commercial radio? They don't have a dog in the fight. Radio stations are not in the music business. They don't benefit in any way from making rock stars rich. People pay money for Sirius, so they should get something different. If they paid for FM, they might get new rock there too.
Radio Stations benefit by staying RELEVANT. Gone are the days where you can only hear music on the radio and through friends. I can literally hear any song, of any genre, from anywhere, using the internet. I no longer listen to COMMERCIAL FM Radio, and haven't for about 18 years. Why? Because every time I turn on the radio, I hear the same songs on my local rock station that I heard the last time, and the playlist hasn't really changed, aside from 1-2 tracks, in the past few decades. Being a hard rock fan, I know there are HUNDREDS of good rock tracks that have come out since then that they could be playing, but they don't. They stuck with the 25-54 demo for so long that they have now become the 40+ demo. The difference? Now I KNOW they could be doing better, but they choose not to. I am listening to tracks anywhere between 5 months before they make it to FM, and over 80% of the "product" isn't making it to the air. They are capitalizing on their audience as they slowly age out of the advertising demo's, and advertisers are slowly turning to other forms of media, where they have an opportunity for better ROI (Facebook, Twitter, Cable TV, Youtube, etc).
Sure, the cushy days of getting promo money from record labels are gone. So, slowly radio has to serve the public with a clear mission (KLOVE does just this) or be subject to atrophy, and eventual death, as the audience moves on. PLJ, like many others, had PLENTY of time to do just that, and chose not to. Even if you accept that the format "died" 11 years ago (recession, PPM), you still had 11 years to reinvent yourself and stop the bleeding. Cumulus was a VERY poor steward of these missions. They are trying to turn that around, but they are so far in the hole (especially compared to iHeart, etc) that they have now run out of runway to make that happen. I have seen them make very poor decisions all over the country, getting rid of popular talent, flipping formats that are pulling in a 3+ share for formats that barely cracked a 1 share (Love 105 in Minneapolis is a great example of that, a 3 share is the best those signals could ever HOPE to get!).
In come the K-Love's, with millions in the bank and virtually no debt. And what's really sad is, from what I have heard, the stations get more investment under K-Love than they got over the past 10 years as a commercial station in nearly every case, despite not having a studio (new transmitters, processors, etc).
Radio pivoted to a more "neutered" sound at the exact wrong time to do so, and it may never recover. And what makes it painful to watch is to see that they were still billing millions of dollars a year, but somehow deemed the 50k/year afternoon guy with an audience as "too much money".
They're relevant by playing music large groups of people want to hear on the pop, urban, country, and other currents-based hit stations. That's where it matters. Rock fans have moved on. They want their favorites and nothing else. Every time New York had an active rock station, the listeners complained all the time. So why should radio lose money for people who have no loyalty to anything but their own personal taste. Country fans are far more loyal to radio than rock fans. So they have a station in NY and active rock doesn't.
Link to the article above that was copied and pasted without attribution to the original writer and website:
https://www.allaccess.com/net-news/...new-york-alumni-ready-to-get-back-in-the-acti
Rock fans moved on, because of what we have been saying. Dumbing down Pop and Country music is how those formats remain. They play to the lowest common denominator. If you are inclined and are lazily wondering through YouTube, look up Thorty2 and specificly his video on why modern music is awful.
You're not paying attention. We're not in the music business. We don't care if the music is great or awful, just that people listen. We're not music critics.
Enjoy YouTube while you can. Pay for Sirius. Support your favorite artists because no one else will. It's you & them.
In no radio station I've ever worked at... and that is a total of several hundred... has the term "lowest common denominator" ever been used.
The objective in radio is to program to as large a group of people as possible. That means selecting a mass appeal format and then playing songs that are not negative to any significant group within the target and which have good "I love it" scores overall.
Whether the music is dumb or not depends on the record companies and the artists. Radio simply tries to play the widest appeal songs within the available "inventory" of compatible music.
I think rock music has been aging out. It risks becoming the smooth jazz of the 2020's.
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