107.3 WKAZ About To Rock

[Bob Campbell]

Damn. They whacked Billy? Bill Shahan IS Charleston radio. He would be the first person I'd hire if I were running a Classic Hits, Oldies, Hot AC or 90's format.
In fact, I tried to hire him at Mix , but obviously couldn't afford him on an LM budget.

[genlock]

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[djsandman]

Jay...what I mean about Charleston radio not progressing is that it sounds the same now as it did 30 years ago. And as a rock fan, I was at least hoping that this "K-Rock" would play classic rock from my generation (btw, I'm 43) and not from my dad's. I've already heard songs on there like Midnight Rambler, Brown Sugar, and Blinded By The Light.

This would have worked like say 20 years ago, but come on...it's 2011!!!

[unchoopfan]

Thoughts/Observations on the KROCK flip:

- Bye Bye Billy: Sad to see Shahan exit 1111 Virginia St., E, but radio is a business and, for whatever reason, his numbers weren't there with this incarnation of 107.3-KAZ. LM would be crazy not to get Billy for middays on 100.9. He'd be a perfect fit there.

- 680/95.3-KAZ: Don't know what the long-range plan is, but would love to see Buxser broaden the format a bit beyond the 60s to fold some of the 107.3-KAZ playlist in. Great to hear Persinger and local talent voice tracking and the music selection is great, but tilting heavily toward the older end of the boomer demo.

- KROCK (a.k.a. WFBY South): Really! You want to bring change to the Charleston radio market and we get the same old retread CR format. Not that I don't love my Classic Rock, but this market is dying for something new and different! And, you bring JB&B back into a market where their tired ol' show played out with the radio audience a half-dozen years ago! Have a feeling this KROCK experiment is doomed for failure.

- WW(KLC)D?: Here's what 105 needs to do: continue building the audience around the rotation of a heavier mix of new rock and regional acts, with the occassional mix-in of CR staples.

- Try It! An adult album alternative station: Oh how I wish WV Radio would have rolled the dice and tried a format like what you find on Sirius "The Spectrum" or a great Seattle station KMTT (103.7 The Mountain). Charleston has a great listening base for these kinds of acts, particularly with Mountain Stage having its roots here. You have two college campuses here in the Valley. What commercial FM in Charleston can you tune to hear an artist like Amos Lee or Wilco? None now. Structure a format around the adult alternative base (The Stones, Jack Johnson, U2, REM, Dave Matthews Band, Death Cab for Cutie, Snow Patrol), but don't marry yourself strictly to the format. Weave in some CR artists that fit and new and emerging artists. As "The Spectrum" touts itself - over 40 years of world class rock from top singers and songwriters.

[Big Media]

And, you bring JB&B back into a market where their tired ol' show played out with the radio audience a half-dozen years ago! Have a feeling this KROCK experiment is doomed for failure.

God that show sucks. Redneck, country-ass crap. Should fit right in with the "play me some Skynyrd" classic rock crowd. Should also be a good fit for gun and pawn shops, Ford dealerships, John Deere dealerships, and Gander Mountain.

[AmpedNow]

I understand the aging demos of the market... But, except for CHR, is there anything for the under 35 crowd?

It's really amazing to sample other markets and hear classic rockers that play stuff all the way up to the mid-late 90's. Yet Charleston, and WV radio in general, is still incredibly heavy on the 70's. The "Gen X" rock from the 90's is still largely ignored.

As for the under 35 population in the state, I know they are outnumbered. But, with so many possible choices available now, would it really be reasonable to expect them to hang around for "regular" radio if nobody is bothering to play their music?

Those current 5 shares may become 8-10 shares in a decade with a more desirable age demo.

I don't know. I'm just thinking out loud.

[djsandman]

[djsandman]

Wooderson from "Dazed and Confused" would say this. That's what I love about these radio stations, man. I get older, they stay the same format!

I understand the aging demos of the market... But, except for CHR, is there anything for the under 35 crowd?

It's really amazing to sample other markets and hear classic rockers that play stuff all the way up to the mid-late 90's. Yet Charleston, and WV radio in general, is still incredibly heavy on the 70's. The "Gen X" rock from the 90's is still largely ignored.

As for the under 35 population in the state, I know they are outnumbered. But, with so many possible choices available now, would it really be reasonable to expect them to hang around for "regular" radio if nobody is bothering to play their music?

Those current 5 shares may become 8-10 shares in a decade with a more desirable age demo.

I don't know. I'm just thinking out loud.

[Jay Nunley]

I should just shut up, but I just can’t help myself. I love these kinds of threads.

It is impossible to put “tone” into text, so many of my responses sometimes seem harsh or attacking. I assure you this is not the case. I apologize to anyone who feels I’m being an asshole.

As for my responses coming off as egotistical or “know it all”, well that isn’t intentional, but I make no apology for that.

KROCK (a.k.a. WFBY South): Really! You want to bring change to the Charleston radio market and we get the same old retread CR format. Not that I don't love my Classic Rock, but this market is dying for something new and different! And, you bring JB&B back into a market where their tired ol' show played out with the radio audience a half-dozen years ago! Have a feeling this KROCK experiment is doomed for failure.

Bring change to the radio market? That’s their goal? That’s weird. I’ve never heard of any operator having that goal. I’ve heard them say it when promoting a new station to local media, but never as an actual goal.

The market is not dying for something new and different. Small pockets of it might be, but the market as a whole is not.

I agree for the most part on John Boy and Billy.

WW(KLC)D?: Here's what 105 needs to do: continue building the audience around the rotation of a heavier mix of new rock and regional acts, with the occassional mix-in of CR staples.

Are you really suggesting they run away from a brand/position they have built for 30 years and run toward a format that has already failed? Why would you give up the high ground and give up such a strong P1 core just because someone else is coming at you? You are basically saying because another company put on a classic rock station they should immediately give up and start doing a format with no chance of success.


Regional acts? Do you mean local bands? Holy hell. Nothing is death in radio like local bands. The last data I saw on this showed listeners are more likely to tune away from a local band than they are a car lot remote break. The only people interested at all in local bands are those actually in local bands and their friends and relatives. Essentially, 0.000013 percent of the population.

Try It! An adult album alternative station: Oh how I wish WV Radio would have rolled the dice and tried a format like what you find on Sirius "The Spectrum" or a great Seattle station KMTT (103.7 The Mountain). Charleston has a great listening base for these kinds of acts,

There is no listening base whatsoever for this format in Charleston. This is an extremely difficult format to do and even if you did it exceptionally well, in Charleston you will never get above a 1 share.

It's really amazing to sample other markets and hear classic rockers that play stuff all the way up to the mid-late 90's. Yet Charleston, and WV radio in general, is still incredibly heavy on the 70's. The "Gen X" rock from the 90's is still largely ignored.

This isn’t true. WKLC, WAMX, and WCMI are both much heavier on 80s, 90s, and recurrents than 70s. The reason is simple. That is what their target audience likes. Most of the rock listening males (even those in the 25-35 age range) like Aerosmith, Motley Crue, Alice In Chains, and Staind, not just Staind.

As for the under 35 population in the state, I know they are outnumbered. But, with so many possible choices available now, would it really be reasonable to expect them to hang around for "regular" radio if nobody is bothering to play their music?

They are playing their music. CHR and country stations are both doing it. New rock has a very small listening contingent; too small to support the format on commercial radio for the most part. This changes over time. In 1995 it was a good idea. In 2015 in may be a good idea again. It just isn’t right now.

Those current 5 shares may become 8-10 shares in a decade with a more desirable age demo.

Not if the younger population continues to bleed toward the panhandles and out of state.




You guys are thinking about all of this with your gut instead of your head. I have no idea who the shot callers are anywhere but at WKLC and I’m pretty far removed from there. However, I can give you a quick rundown on how these kinds of decisions are made, why, and use Charleston as the example market now that I don’t have to worry about giving away strategies or tipping my hand.

I tell you what. I’ll break this down like I’m a consultant. I don’t mean a useless memo writing, 500 song playlist propagating, waste of money consultant. I mean a good consultant.

I will also make this promise. Unless someone asks me a direct question this will be the last post I do on this thread.

The first thing we have to agree upon is that the goal is to pull advertising dollars out of the market.
If your goal is to have a cool radio station that breaks barriers, pushes the edge, expands horizons, or any other buzz phrases everything I say from this point forward is useless to you.

Let’s start with recent ratings trends. This is the current two book average for persons 12+, Mon-Sun 6a-mid.

1 WQBE-FM 18.9
2 WVSR-FM 10.4
3 WKLC-FM 8.4
4 WVAF-FM 7.6
5t WCHS-AM 6.8
5t WRVZ-FM 6.8
7 WKWS-FM 6.0
8 WKAZ-FM 4.8
9 WMXE-FM 3.6
10 WVTS-FM 2.0

If you are WV Radio this is a problem. You have no stations in the top three. If you want to continue to get a large portion of agency buys, you have to have a station in the top three or start doing combo sales which eats up inventory and diminishes your return.

Now, we take a look at the market matrix.

WQBE is a monster. They are exceptionally well programmed. Their air talent is rock solid. They promote and market the station well. They have heritage and history. Country is the most desired format in the marketplace. Unless any of that changes, you can’t beat them. You can take a 6-10 share with your own country station, especially if it is a more young appeal station in a market that is so old. The Wolf has been successful in preventing 40 shares for WQBE, but unless someone crashes that particular truck that’s all you can do.

The only weakness I hear on WQBE is way too many remotes and at times the stopsets are excruciatingly long (a product of being #1 for so long). If I were programming The Wolf I would hammer the crap out of that. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.


If I were Bristol I would dump all the also ran talk back onto 950. No one is ever going to beat Hoppy and Limbaugh. Put a classic country on 94.5 to take advantage of the market age and sell it in combination with WQBE. Does that make it a throw away? Sort of, yes, but what is it now?


WVSR is also well programmed and somewhat well marketed with good air talent. It’s hard to go at them because they have formatic room to just sit on you if you go at them directly. Unlike WQBE, WVSR is beatable, but you would have to invest so much money into the product it probably isn’t worth it based on the potential return. This is why you make the decision to put a more urban CHR on against them. WRVZ is what they are doing and it works for that purpose. In fact, I say it is working better than anyone ever thought it could. I credit the PD for that.

If you are WV Radio you have FIVE stations just behind WKLC. Of the top three stations that is the one that looks most vulnerable.
LM only has one other FM stick they are using to bridge the 4-6 shares of listening that is driven away from WKLC by the 80s, 90s, 00s, and currents. They don’t have the sticks necessary to cause you problems with your AC, Talk, Urban, Country, or Sports stations.


WKLC is cursed with bad spring books. By the way, we were never able to figure that out. All kinds of plausible explanations were bandied about, but nothing that was a real answer. You could never convince me a station that does not destroy itself can lose 30% of its audience in 6 months and then gain that 30% back and gain another 15% in the next 6 months. Alas, the vagaries of Arbitron are a subject for another time.


WKLC has some other exploitable weaknesses. They do NO significant marketing. Their physical plant, especially remote equipment, physical presence material, and promotional items are complete crap. There is heavy turnover at the GM and sales positions. I will refrain from mentioning my leaving as another factor. The new PD seems to be doing just fine.


You have an FM stick with a nice footprint. It has been underperforming for years after the JACK disaster. You can continue with an oldies format and try to improve and grow it. That hasn’t worked so far and with much of the older potential audience listening primarily to country, that may be a fool’s errand.
You make the call to go after WKLC. If you can take enough of their listening you can put one of your stations in the top three and maybe put three of them in the top five.


Now, here comes the part where I risk insulting the people at WV Radio. Again, that is not my intention. I’m just giving an analysis. I obviously think going at WKLC/WMXE is exactly the right move. I think strategy is great. I think some components of the execution of the strategy are flawed.


First and foremost, WKLC is NOT an easy target.


Most of WKLC’s shares come from an extremely loyal P1 core. They have spent decades building this. No other station I know of in the entire state (maybe WLGC) has done as good a job of creating a station culture and folding core listeners into it. You can take some transient P2s and P3s from them, but getting to that core is going to be HARD.


WKLC is the rock station in the market. It is solid in that position in the audience perception. Even with a new PD who may not know why you do play “The Ballad of Curtis Loew” and don’t play “I Know a Little” or that Tesla is more popular here than anywhere else he would have to really be a poor programmer to change this and it appears he is not. Also, the station is extremely well consulted.


A purely classic rock station is not going to have as much impact on them as going straight at them would. Hiring B.T. is a good move. He is an established air talent in that world and is plugged into the audience. He knows them and they know him. Hearing him on your station will provide a measure of comfort to listeners sampling a foreign station. However, classic rock is essentially an oldies format and from the limited amount of listening I have been able to do, it is a very safe and vanilla playlist. I’m always an advocate of playing high testers, but vanilla is always a bad idea for a rock station.


If you really want to get into WKLC’s ass you need to take them on directly. Not only do you do a mainstream/ETR/heritage rock flavor you cherry pick their established benchmarks. Do Twofer Tuesday, block party weekends, the Memorial Day 500, and on and on and on. If they give away a trip to see Tom Petty, you give away a trip to see Tom Petty. Straight up just DO THEIR BIT. I know most of the people reading this are going to think I’m insane. That may be true, but I’m also absolutely right. Make it so there is listener confusion and make it so their listeners are interested in the “battle” between the stations. This is the quickest and may be the only way to take down the heritage rock station in any market. It works and it works fast if you market your station heavily.


A vanilla classic rock may take just enough from them to knock them out of third place, but it might not. I guarantee you they will immediately make moves to protect their position and they may very well actually start marketing themselves.


John Boy and Billy is not a good move. I don’t know why, but that show simply hasn’t done well in Charleston since Clear Channel yanked them off WKLC and put them on WAMX. There is no reason to think they will all of a sudden start to do well again. Lex and Terry, Free Beer and Hot Wings, or a good local morning show would have been the tip of the spear instead of an anchor around your neck.


I’m assuming WV Radio will relentlessly market this station. That is WKLC’s most glaring weakness and the easiest way to attack them.
As for WKLC the answer is much simpler. Tighten up. Make sure you are only playing the most popular recurrents and currents. Get rid of extraneous bullshit. Continue to make sure every quarter hour has a signature title. Most importantly, start marketing.

Now would also be the perfect time to change your name back to FM105. I know you don’t want to. I tried to get you to do that repeatedly. Listeners still refer to you as FM105 more often than Rock 105. FM105 is a brand name. It was a mistake to change it in the first place. It is the Charleston radio market equivalent of Coke changing its name to Cola Beverage. Do it now. Change it back and make a big deal out of it. Your core audience will love it and it will take away the inherent interest in a new rock format station.


I think I’m done now. I’m sure anyone who actually read all of this is happy about that.

[Mr. Jones]

Goddamn, do I LOVE the sermons from the First Church of the Nunley!

[djsandman]

I think I can pretty much sum things up by giving you a "Radio Replay" of 4 Charleston area stations, all at the same time.
App'x 12:15 pm on 4/27/2011:

WVAF: "Pride (in the Name of Love)" by U2
WMXE: "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple
WKLC: "Whipping Post" by the Allman Brothers Band
WKAZ: "Come Together" by Aerosmith

I think it's safe to say that if you want classic hits, then the Charleston FM band has definitely got ya covered! And fwiw, "Smoke on the Water" was played on 2 stations in a span of just 20 minutes!!!

And one more thing...damn good read, Jay! You can't blame them for what they're trying to accomplish, but it just keeps the Charleston FM dial dormant, to say the least.

[Dave Allen]

Dear Jay,

Go back to work now. Thanks.

Sincerely,

Dave Allen (your boss)

But everything he said was right.

[Hoss]

1 WQBE-FM 18.9
2 WVSR-FM 10.4
3 WKLC-FM 8.4
4 WVAF-FM 7.6
5t WCHS-AM 6.8
5t WRVZ-FM 6.8
7 WKWS-FM 6.0
8 WKAZ-FM 4.8
9 WMXE-FM 3.6
10 WVTS-FM 2.0
We see from the numbers that when WV Radio took WQBE on with the WKWS switch the resultant numbers, to date, don’t show much of gain. My point, it’s hard to take dominance away from a station that is obviously (by the numbers) doing something right. As Nunley says you better be prepared to market. Too many have failed by the attitude of we’ll do the same and everyone will listen. You force the sample and then you deliver not only what the audience wants but more and better. The first few months are critical, give up a little revenue and sweeten the pot with more music. Good Luck from another voice in the peanut gallery.

[Mike]

A well done oldies or classic rock station would DOMINATE ratings in this state and region.

No one does it. However, ALL the so-called "modern" rock stations in the state pad their playlists with classics.

Modern rock has NO audience whatsoever outside the colleges (which don't count in the books anyway).

I still admit I am depressed that B-97 is pretty much dominated by an 80's playlist and is by default the oldies station of Huntington.

[Rock]

Jaybird, I always LOVE IT when you post like that....I can now steal your knowledge, and pass it off as my own.

I should probably shoot you some Maker's Mark, eh?

[Lester]

I know most of the people reading this are going to think I’m insane. That may be true, but I’m also absolutely right.

Fuckin' A. Of course the only person that matters at WVRC would read this, harumph a few times, mutter a few F-bombs and ignore all of it... so just in case LM is worried that you just consulted him out of existence in a radio messageboard post, fear not... they won't listen.

Most of WKLC’s shares come from an extremely loyal P1 core. They have spent decades building this. No other station I know of in the entire state (maybe WLGC) has done as good a job of creating a station culture and folding core listeners into it. You can take some transient P2s and P3s from them, but getting to that core is going to be HARD.

I repeat this to smack down Mike's statement regarding a well programmed CR being a ratings killer... only if you have no previously established competition. To this day you'll see cars/trucks, model 2007 and newer, with 106.1 RDU license plates on them. They dumped CR and went country in 2006, and "hot talk" about a year and a half ago.

[djsandman]

"Radio Wasteland" part 2, at 12:42 pm on 4/28/11.

WVAF: "Summer of '69"
WMXE: "More than a Feeling"
WKLC: "Pride and Joy"
WKAZ: "Night Moves"

Granted it's the noon hour, but this should not be happening!!! IMO, all of these songs fall under the "Classic Hits" format, except maybe Pride and Joy. Out of these 4 stations, only one is supposed to be a "Classic Hits" brand. A "Radio Wasteland" indeed!

And one more thing. "Smoke on the Water" was played again during my lunch break, this time on Rock 105. That makes 3 Charleston area stations playing that song in less than a day. "Who Are You" was played today by WMXE and WKAZ in the same hour. Will a third time be a charm for WKLC to play it next???

[amayo]

Damn Jay-you need to hang out a consulting shingle of your own. Seriously. Well played...

[Greg Goodfellow]

And all of that knowledge will preclude him from being the next Governor...he simply knows too much.

[Kiddconley]

Admittedly, my opinions and talents in Station Processing are limited, but both KLC' and KAZ' were playing the same song at 5:44 yesterday. I had the opportunity to just go back and forth and compare the two. IMO KAZ' sounded better (at least for my tastes in processing). They seemed to have more depth, they were louder... just a wider spectrum of sound. KLC' seemed "thin" and highly compressed. Would the listener ever notice this? Probably not. I certainly didn't until I heard the same song on both stations. Anyone else catch it?