Radio: February 3
I
got into a minor disagreement with my podcast partner and friend Michael Stark
over a recent column in which I was trying to clarify something and perhaps
ended up making things murkier. It all had to do with the the word “stale” and
radio station KABC (790 AM).
Going
back a couple weeks, I had mentioned that KFI’s (640 AM) recent changes had a
lot to do with not becoming stale, as KABC had become. What I meant to
reference was the mid 1980s, when KFI was moving to the talk format, and was
able to overtake KABC relatively quickly due to sounding young, hip, and modern
… while KABC was holding on to the old guard and had become somewhat stale in
comparison.
It
was not a direct judgement of KABC’s programming then or now, and often
sounding fresh isn’t so much the talk programs themselves, but how they present
themselves. What music they use coming out of breaks, and more. A station
that doesn’t evolve is likely to die due to a lack of new listeners. Done
right, and a station thrives.
A
perfect example of that is KRTH (101.1 FM) … diehard oldies fans lament that
they no longer play songs from the 1950s and ‘60s, but as KRTH has moved into
the ‘80s and even the 1990s — still a longer period back than when it launched
in 1972 and played music from 1955 and up — it has gained new listeners and
remained one of the areas top-rated stations.
My
partner Stark believes I was too easy on the current KABC program lineup. It is
stale, he says. I’m not sure that is the correct word, but I understand where
he is coming from. Indeed, if KABC was playing something people wanted to hear,
they would not be among the lowest-rated full-power stations in town. My choice
of word to describe KABC: irrelevant.
I
think that the real problem with KABC is that it isn’t offering much to attract
listeners, and they aren’t really even trying. The station is mostly repetitive
conservative programming, basically preaching to the choir, with no promotion
at all. Two of the shows are essentially replays of podcasts, and outside of
midday host John Phillips and (another disagreement with my friend Stark) Ben
Shapiro, the shows are not even really fun nor all that informative. Just kind
of a rehash of negative political news.
So
what to do? The way I see it there are two choices. Either build around Philips
and go live/local all day with people who can relate to local audiences and get
out of the political gutter, or drop talk altogether and play music. Find a
format for an audience that isn’t served by existing stations … such as oldies
(new or old) that KRTH or KOLA (99.9 FM) doesn’t play, metal, or progressive
rock. I guarantee any of those moves would do better than now, and may even
bring a few younger listeners back to the band.
You
Know That …
It’s
funny how certain stories get told, and I suppose when they get told often
enough they become “fact.” But many “facts” about radio are more legend than
reality. Here are but a few examples:
You
always heard that KHJ (930 AM) used a cappella jingles when they launched the
Boss Radio format in 1965 because there was a musicians strike. Sound
reasonable, except that it’s not true. Oh, there may have been a strike — I
didn’t check — but station consultant Bill Drake had already been using similar
jingles at previous stations he consulted or programmed, including KGB in San
Diego (now KLSD, 1360 AM) among others.
Speaking
of KHJ and KGB, it was actually KGB that launched “the Drake format” roughly
one year before KHJ. They didn’t call it Boss Radio, but the elements
were all there - quick jungles, fast moving format elements, and the top-30
records. The success of KGB helped pave the way for its implementation on KHJ.
You
know that Rick Dees came to Los Angeles to work at KIIS-FM (102.7), right? It
must be true, as I even read it in an LA Times retrospective of Dees’ career
and how his arrival at KIIS led immediately to the rise of the station to the
top of the ratings.
Except
it wasn’t that way at all. Dees arrived with his “Cast of Idiots” to work at a
revitalized KHJ (can’t get away from that station today) in 1979; he didn’t
move to KIIS until 1981. And KIIS didn’t switch to a true top-40 format until a
while after Dees’ arrival. Had they kept playing the sleepy “adult
contemporary” format they ran when Dees first arrived, KIIS-FM would never have
set records for ratings earned in the mid 1980s.
Of
course you know that AM radio broadcasts always sound awful and it is due to
the AM transmission system. The only way to get good sound on the radio to
listen to FM.
Wrong
again. While Edwin Armstrong, a key developer of AM, hated the sound or AM
broadcasts so much that he invented FM, it wasn’t due to what we consider AM’s
lack of fidelity. It was the interference. AM radio, due to the frequencies it
uses, is prone to interference from natural and man-made sources: lightening,
automotive ignition systems, computers, dimmers, and more. But Amplitude
Modulation itself is not inherently bad — it was used for the video portion of
television broadcasts prior to the switch to digital … which is why you could
sometimes get a picture before the sound on distant stations in the old
days — AM travels further than FM.
Radio
manufacturers handled interference by reducing the audio bandwidth on AM radio
broadcasts. Made it easier to listen to, but it cut sound quality dramatically.
From a technical standpoint, analog AM broadcasts can actually have a greater
bandwidth — the frequency response spread from the lowest notes to the highest
— than FM stereo (20 Hz to 20KHz vs 20 Hz - 15KHz).
With
modern circuits, it is relatively easy to design a great-sounding AM receiver;
Carver, Denon, and a few others made great AM stereo receivers as far back as
the 1980s. It just costs a little more, and the companies want to keep costs
down. Too bad, actually … some AM stereo stations sounded better than their FM
competitors, but few people had the right radios.
Have
any similar stories? Send them over - I’d love to hear them.
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