Every day when my wife drives home from work (here in San Diego) she tunes in to radio station Star 100.7 to listen to a show called 'The Daily Dirt' (which is basically entertainment gossip). Today she was surprised to discover that the station had abruptly switched to a 'classic rock' format that randomly plays songs from the 80's, 90's, and the present. Plus, it was no longer Star 100.7. It was now
Jack 100.7. Even the DJs were different. She thought it might be some kind of belated April Fool's Day prank. But when she got home we did some research and learned it was no prank.
Apparently this is
happening to radio stations across the country (and in Canada). Suddenly the management will fire all the staff, rename the station something like Jack or Bob or Doug FM (it's always a guy's name), and switch to a random-play format. Audiences aren't given any warning, so they often think it's a prank.
I think this is a scheme cooked up by marketers to maximize profits. The management tries to spin the random-play thing as them being daring enough to 'play whatever they want', but in reality they're just saving money by having a computer in shuffle-mode pick the songs. Then they fire all the staff (except for the morning show usually), and replace them with lower-paid substitutes who mumble phrases from a corporate script in between the songs.
I never listened to Star 100.7 that much, so the change won't affect me in any way. But it does seem strange that all these stations are being renamed Jack or Bob or Doug and transformed into glorified iPods on shuffle mode. I figure that it must be one company behind it all, but I don't know who it is.
Comments
"Yeah, a Toronto station changed a couple of years ago to 'Jack'. I wonder if this is where it started."
Well, I read recently in an article about the radio industry (I forget where or I'd give you a link to it) that the "Jack" format started in Canada, so you may well be correct.
I worked in radio on and off for about twenty years and the "industry" falls in love with these stupid formats; a new one comes along every couple of years. Each new one is going to be THE answer to radio's problems. Yeah, uh huh.
I didn't realize people were so into morning shows. I flip thru the stations & stop on music or news, regardless of what it is, as long as it's not rap, hip hop, or pop.
This has happened to at least three radio stations I've listened to over the years in California. The most famous was KZAP.
KZAP started as an FM rock station in 1968. It defined the FM rock format for all that came after. Basically overnight on Jan. 20, 1992 it was changed to a Country Western format, with a few days warning to the staff and hours warning to the audience. One DJ was on vacation and didn't find out until he'd got back and heard the new format.
107.9 here (Classic Rock) changed a few years ago to "108 The End" or some crap, but they gave warning for about 3 days.
Our local mountain station KNGT was bought out by a conglomerate, but was assured they would be continuing to broadcast the same news and music, and keep the staff. They were lied to. The staff didn't find out until a few hours before they were fired. It then became a spanish language station, effectively cutting of any local news for our mountain tri-county area.
Even the mostly stable rock stations here in Cali, like 96.9, get bought out periodically. InfoCom bought them a few years ago, and made subtle but annoying changes. There was a new morning show every few months, for several years. Did they inform the audience before-hand? Hell no.
"Stations have to submit applications to the FCC to continue to be on air every few years. If they are not approved, a new "sound" gets put on that frequency. It happens all the time. Sometimes they're approved, but for whatever reason, get switched to another frequency. I can't really see how it's a big deal."
Maegan, you're confusing station licenses with formats. Companies that own radio stations have to have licenses because the airwaves are legally owned by the public. Yes, they have to renew those licenses every few years (I believe it's seven years) but that has nothing to do with the format of a station.
The format is the "type" of station that it is. You have Talk stations, Rock stations, Sports stations, etc. There are sub-groups within those formats, like "Lite Rock," etc. A station's format has NOTHING to do with the licensing requirements. The government does NOT tell stations what they can program, other than with respect to "decency."
Stations switch formats for business reasons; if there are two or more Rock stations in a market, let's say, the weakest (in terms of ratings) may switch to a format that the management believes will be more profitable.
It is not uncommon at all for the same station to have several formats over its lifetime, even though it is being operated by the same management and under the same license. Sometimes, a station will even file for new call letters (the "name" of the station that begins with either K or W). They do that typically because they believe that the old call letters are too associated in the public's mind with the previous format.
"Nicknames" like J-105 or Kool 98 or whatever are just that--nicknames--and have nothing to do with the "official" name (call letters) of the station. They are made up by the management of the station and are not assigned by the FCC (the people who regulate broadcasting in America).
You are correct that stations need to be licensed, but to repeat, a station's format has NOTHING to do with their license.
"Can they do that legally? Just change a stations name and playlist to classic rock overnight? You'd never be allowed to do that in the UK, where radio is regulated to within an inch of it's life. Thankfully."
Yes, Timmy, in the U.S., stations can and do change formats at will. As I explained to Maegan above, the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) does NOT regulate a station's format at all.
It happens all the time. In his movie, Private Parts (and the book of the same name), Howard Stern tells the story of a station he worked at which was Rock but switched to Country over a weekend. The format was completely different when he came in to work on Monday.
Damn near anyone who has worked in radio in the U.S. for any length of time can tell you a story like that. Either it's happened to them or to a friend. There is NO restriction on what format a station can have, other than concerning "decency."
"Our local mountain station KNGT was bought out by a conglomerate, but was assured they would be continuing to broadcast the same news and music, and keep the staff. They were lied to. The staff didn't find out until a few hours before they were fired."
That is SO not unusual as to be typical for radio. In fact, I'm surprised that they had even a few hours' warning.
Typically, how it works is that, suddenly, a staff meeting is called. This is almost never good news in the radio "business." The air staff is told then and there that they will no longer be needed and that they should clear out their desks.
As the joke in radio goes, "Remember your last show? Well, it WAS your last show!"
😝
I used to listen to a station here in Fresno maybe 10 or 11 years ago, I think it was "Lite Rock" or "Adult Contemporary" or whatever they call it. I was up late at night with the radio on, and when midnight came around, the song stopped playing and a DJ came on, sounding really excited. "We've got some great news! Some major changes will be happening here at *station*, effective immediately! From now on, we will no longer be known as *station*, we will be known as..... K-GARTH! Yes, that's right! All Garth, all the time! 24 hours a day!!"
I cried myself to sleep that night. Fortunately, it was gone after about three hellish days, and the format was changed to hip-hop instead.
I've heard that stations sometimes do this kind of thing when they're bringing in a radical format change, just to clear out all the old listeners in order to cut down on the number and frequency of complaints when the new programming starts. After a month of Snoop Doggy Dog, you won't have nearly as many of the old Easy Listening fans calling to ask what's up with the new 24-hour Reggae format.
We shoulda checked wiki first:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_FM
Apparently, naming a product Jack and then advertising with the slogan "you don't know Jack" is an extremely slick move.
"It's not just radio... Remember when Van Halen decided to take over MTV and call it DAVE TV? What the....?"
You probably realize this, but Van Halen didn't just "decide" to "take over" MTV. Stuff like that doesn't just happen on a whim. It's nothing more than a publicity stunt, agreed to by the management of the band and the management of MTV.
"Our pop-rock station became metal-rock, the pop-rock station became country. That was an interesting change because for the first month, while they were switching to the new format, they played Garth Brooks 24-7."
In the radio business, that is known as "stunting." It is done for one or both of two reasons. The first is to draw public attention to the fact that the station is doing something odd. The second is to confuse the station's competition as to exactly what format the station is changing to.
As you can imagine, it's often important to stations that the competition be kept in the dark as to what it is about to do so that the competition can't make its own format change to blunt the impact of the move.
Typically, the song or artist that the station plays continuously has nothing to do with the format that the station is actually going to. That's so there's no "hint" of what the station really plans on doing.
In your case, it seems that they weren't worried about the competition finding out that they were going country, hence the 24/7 Garth Brooks.
Or maybe the gay scene is getting into radio, hence the male names.
Either way: don
I think their computer plays good stuff.
I'm OK with hiphop but Y100 was the only station of that format in the area. Now it has joined the 5 other hihop stations. Doesn't sound like a good move to me since the market is already saturated.
Lame.
There were two other country stations in the city then -- one FM and one AM. The FM one focused on the traditional older country music. The new station was aimed at younger country fans. Garth was kind of the symbol of those fans in the 80s. So you're probably right. The station is still country, and still aimed at younger listeners. You can check out the "Cowgirls" at their website for proof of that: http://www.q104kc.com/
I listened to my Jack station last night, and it doesn't sound like a computer shuffle. They do have DJs, though they don't take requests.
And no, they don't do requests either.
On another note: "Stunting" formats, in addition to clearing out the old listeners, also generate publicity for the station. In 1992, oldies station WCOL (92.3 FM) abruptly ceased broadcasting save for a computerized voice counting down from 30,000 or something like that, which got all of Columbus talking. When the countdown finally reached zero (which took almost three full days), the station had adopted a country format that it retains to this day.
More recently, in Washington DC, there was a "Survivor Radio" format (based on the quintessential reality show) that lasted a full week, with different people being able to "program" the station for a full hour using their MP3 playlists. Listeners were invited to call in and vote one of the "PDs" off the air, along with their format. Though not a rigged contest, the station's new format had already been decided; each person's playlist was merely a slightly different variation on the "dance" or "rhythmic CHR" format. But it got the publicity the station wanted for its new format.
Recently, one of the hip-hop station switched to "Bob FM." It's the weirdest mix of songs I've ever heard (well, outside of college radio). Suddenly it was "Tubthumping" sandwiched between "Tiny Dancer" and some Sara McLachlan song. No DJ's either. For a day or so, I imagined some guy named Bob at the radio station, throwing together random songs. But it's not quite eclectic enough not to be a marketing ploy.
"For a day or so, I imagined some guy named Bob at the radio station, throwing together random songs. But it's not quite eclectic enough not to be a marketing ploy."
Trust me, there ain't no "Bob." These things are always "marketing ploys" in the sense that they are designed to increase interest (and listenship) in the station.
They may SEEM haphazard, but trust me again, they're every bit as tightly structured as any other format in radio.
To address the person who said that his station probably had "pre-taped" DJ's, a lot of stations these days do what they day "voice tracking" where the DJ digitally records all his "breaks" (when you hear him or her speaking) sometimes days in advance. There's a good reason a lot of stations don't take requests: there's no DJ there to take them!
"Voice tracking" is often done remotely, even from a different city hundreds or thousands of miles away from where you are listening. ISDN lines allow him or her to send the voice tracks to the station you're listening to. A computer inserts the breaks where they belong inbetween songs. Frequently, the person you hear on the air is heard, via voice tracking, on several stations at once.
There was a story about voice tracking where it was revealed that an air personality heard in Boise, Idaho was actually in San Diego and had never been to Boise in his life. This despite the fact that he would often talk about places in Boise as if he had recently been there or was planning on being there soon (information is given to the voice trackers about the cities they are heard in so that they can seem "local"). Oh, he'd also talk about "callers" he had just spoken to as it he was physically in Boise, callers that didn't exist.
Kinda sleazy, huh?
Like four or five guys happened to inherit their family's radio empire at aboot the same time, and name it after their dog...
Seriously, it's all coincidence.
And CMG's just nuts. There is no way in hell that someone could do what he says, and not be somewhere he says he's not. How could someone actually be miles from where he says he is?
Sarcasm
Yes, that's a bad ascii representation of sarcasm dripping from the above post.
I work for JOE FM in Edmonton, AB. Power 92 (JOE FM Predecessor) was not making money. It was the number one station in the market for years but started slipping down the ratings ladder. The decision to switch to JOE FM was purely out of self preservation. The staff was not fired (except for a few on air folks that were bad in the first place), although I think on air folks should be swept out in a format change. Anyway, we all kept our jobs and things went on as per normal. Now we are the number one FM station again in the market. To be fair, a lot of research went into the format change...it just wasn't a "flip of a coin" choice. The demographics in Edmonton showed that a JACK format would be infinitely more popular and they were right. Plus, with six new stations opening in Edmonton in the past year, not flipping formats would have been the final nail in the coffin.
I can't speak for other cities and their reasons for changing formats but I can only assume it was a money/survival technique. I prefer the JOE format to the old Power, anyway.
Uh oh! Big Brother is coming over to my desk. Got..to...look...casual...what's that pink paper in his hand?
"And CMG's just nuts. There is no way in hell that someone could do what he says, and not be somewhere he says he's not. How could someone actually be miles from where he says he is?"
You're right. What WAS I thinking?
"This happened in Reno recently too - the station was calling itself "the new" 97.3 and decided that since people had called in and pointed out that they weren't really new, they'd start this competition to name the station, and what should they turn up with? 97.3 Bob FM. I thought this was mildly odd until I saw this thread, but they don't seem to have really changed their format noticeably so I wonder if they just tried to use the same idea for the publicity and not as an excuse for a format change?"
Anne, I'd be willing to bet money that no REAL listeners called in to say that. Very few REAL listeners care that much about what a station calls itself.
If you actually heard callers talking about this on the air, again I'd be willing to bet that they were employees of the station or friends of employees. I've personally seen that kind of thing done.
Oh, another sleazy radio secret for ya: You know those things you sometimes hear on stations with "listeners" saying things like, "It's my favorite station!" or "I listen to it every day at work" etc.? You can actually buy CD's with people saying those things for use on the air. They're offered by companies that sell production audio. Another bubble burst, huh?
>> reasons for changing formats but I can only assume it was a money/survival technique. <<
I think you are probably right. The one here in KC had already been through a couple format changes within one year; it was trying to stay afloat.
Cranky Media Guy said:
>> You can actually buy CD's with people saying those things for use on the air. <<
Maybe you can, but not all, (maybe not even most)stations, do that. I've had friends who were DJs. One guy, who did a lot of remotes, constantly carried a DAT and often recorded those little things which were put together into the ads. This girl I dated was often one of the voices. They weren't spontaneous exclamations; they were scripted. But they were real people.
"One guy, who did a lot of remotes, constantly carried a DAT and often recorded those little things which were put together into the ads. This girl I dated was often one of the voices. They weren't spontaneous exclamations; they were scripted. But they were real people."
I don't doubt you at all. No, I'm sure some stations actually record people. I just thought that some readers here would be surprised to know that a lot of those "listener" things are commercially-available sound cuts.
Even the way your friend did it, though, is a wee bit sleazy. After all, the listener is supposed to think that they are real, unrehearsed responses.