Idaho Radio News Etc.

The NYTimes is the latest to jump on the “modern rock is dead” bandwagon.

Here’s a classic quote that anyone who’s been through a format flip can identify with:

Troy Hanson, the program director of WZTA in Miami, said that he first learned that his station’s owner, Clear Channel Communications, had ditched the rock format – and his staff – when he tuned to the station one morning in February and heard talk-radio. “We didn’t even get to play ‘It’s the End of the World as We Know It,’ ” … as a sign off, he said.

The story mentions Seattle’s KRQI — once known as K-Rock, now just the latest Jack attack. The new Jack (in this) city is woefully unimpressive. People keep saying “oh, it’s like an iPod on shuffle!!!” At least when I shuffle my ipod, I know that I like all the songs. Jack FM has waaaay too many “ahhh…. change the station” moments to hold an audience. I wish someone would put Jack back… umm… in the box.

Anyway, The NYT piece cites the same data from Rolling Stone (you know, the rant I made about Deeds a few weeks ago??) — that modern rock stations are off 20% according to Arbitron

“The format in the last couple of years has gone through an identity crisis,” said Kevin Weatherly, program director of KROQ, a closely watched alternative powerhouse in Los Angeles. “You have stations that are too cool, that move too quickly and are only playing the coolest music, which doesn’t at the end of the day attract enough of the audience. Or you have the other extreme, dumb rock, red-state rock that the cool kids just flat out aren’t into.”

Such scrambling to strike a balance has cost many alternative programmers large chunks of audience. Some radio executives said that they made a fateful choice in the last few years to jettison the pop-rock side of their genre to concentrate on heavier-sounding bands, and now are afraid to turn back. As part of that shift, many stations also decided to eliminate women from their audience research. These stations decided to aim at men almost exclusively because of the heavier sound.

The piece wraps up with something I’ve been yammering on about for a while — that stations need to adapt to technology — embrace it, rather than ignoring.

How’s that Podcast coming?

A source tells me that KDJQ 890AM will follow an oldies format. As we reported earlier the station will blast 50,000 watts from a tower near the prison.

I’m also told that an “open house” will be held soon. Anyone with further info, let me know.

Update: KDJQ is now in the list of stations on the right, with it’s own story archive.

Twice in the past 24 hours I’ve had to delete comments that are way beyond appropriate. I hate HATE to censor — please cool it a bit.

These are the (simple) rules: No profanity, no libelous remarks, and nothing that defames someone’s character.

Thanks.

Wednesday on the Magic Morning Show:

TOMORROW MORNING WITH
SHAMUS AND TARA!
YOUR CHANCE TO DRINK A “BACON” LATTE WITH TARA, ANOTHER LICENSE PLATE NUMBER AT 7:30 AND MORE PASSES TO THE “MEN OF STEELE” AT CHINA BLUE!!

Clear Channel’s Star 98.5 in the Pocatello/IF is teaming with a local jewler to allow kids to buy a gemstone for just a buck (instead of the $12-20 they usually go for). Plus, all the dollars taken in will go to the Idaho Youth Ranch.

I noticed recently how heavy the Boise stations are playing Green Day’s Boulevard of Broken Dreams. The song spun through KCIX, KQXR, KRVB, KSAS and KZMG a total of 222 times in the past week according to MediaBase. Add in KQXR’s 44 spins of the latest hit Holiday, and the rockers racked up an amazing 266 plays (and that doesn’t even include KTPZ’s probably 80 or so spins).

Clear Channel has launched a new campaign to increase its image in the communities it serves — and the things the company does to help that cause.

This is the page for Idaho.

This from R&R:

Is there any truth to talk that Entercom is merging with Citadel? The rumors also have Randy Michaels, the former CEO of Clear Channel Radio and founder of Jacor, running a merged Entercom-Citadel as CEO. When ST caught up with Michaels, he said, “I too have heard that the rumor is circulating. Lots of others, too. Rumors. Not news. Thanks for asking!” Stay tuned for further developments.

Entercom’s Seattle stations are well-programmed — and sound a lot better than those of the CC flavor up here. What would the addition of Randy Michaels mean? (Thanks to Cale for the heads up)

Update: I’m told that Boise Citadel big-wigs adressed the rumor — calling Entercom a “great company.”

Thanks to ‘the dad’ for this…

Oh, and here’s a quiz — name Q104’s calls….

Visual radio.

Using any AP content on your website? You’ll soon have to pay up.

We all know that Boise radio stations don’t play much in the way of local music. It’s the hole chicken/egg deal. There isn’t a ton of well-produced local music — is that because the local stations don’t play it, or the other way around?

A recent Boise Weekly discussion has a few interesting notes:

BW: Is there a need for more local radio play?
…
TIM [Johnstone]: I’m guilty. I work for the smallest of the corporate radio outfits here and the only one, I think, that is playing local music and specialty programming. Radio is a monster and it always has been. Hopefully this community radio project comes to fruition and I know the store will certainly be involved in supporting that. But radio is always going to tough.

Tim’s right about being alone on the local music bandwagon. For a time, KZMG would play a very limited amount of local stuff (Mad Ro’s “No Matter” became a bonified hit for the station) – but that seems to have stopped.

The discussion also touched on the actual quality of locally-produced albums:

J [Arancivia]: There’s opportunities to record here. I think Boise is a good place to be if you want to record an album. The software on the computers is definitely making it bad for the studios, because you can make a professional sounding CD in your living room if you want. But another bad thing, [to Tim:] not your radio station, but the X, I heard that one of the reasons they don’t want to do local music is because CDs don’t sound professionally made.

TRUDY [Young]: Yeah, three years ago maybe they could have said that.

J: Now they do. We have 13 bands in our membership with CDs that sound as good as any CD you buy from Hastings or Record Exchange.

TIM: We used to play local music on the X when I was program director there but that changed quickly.

J: The buzz is that they’re trying to start it again, but the latest thing I heard was that the CDs don’t sound professional.

TRUDY: I talked to Big Jay the other day-sent him an e-mail to find out where they were with that-also to see if any local bands could get on their Cage Match. He said they will not do any local bands on Cage Match anymore. The last time was two years ago. The show he originally thought was going to be a local radio show-I’m assuming was going to be on Sundays-is not going to appear be as local as he hoped. So he doesn’t even want to dee-jay it.

TIM: Jeremy gets frustrated. I’ve been in that position.

TRUDY: He’s a good guy.

TIM: I’ve been in that position. At some point you just throw your hands up in the air because you are constantly being told “no” by these people who don’t understand the connection to the market and the importance of what that means for a more significant percentage of listenership than they ever knew. It’s really frustrating.

Update: Thoughtful, interesting note from Ian at the X in comments below

Journal Communications reported Friday that first quarter revenues rose 9.2% to $18.2 million — and that operating earnings jumped to $3.8 million.

But: without the sale of the Northstar Print Group — Journal’s earnings dropped 16.7%. The company blames it on TV & Newspaper ad sales softness.

• Sony patents life.
• March Madness may be over — but April Insanity is just heating up. Get your own Papal Brackets here!
• Even a pair of pants need an instruction manual. Apparantely.
• Ask Google How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
• Pigs don’t fly. But they do swim apparantely.

I’m just going to quote this tip verbatim — because, frankly — it kinda makes my head hurt trying to decode it:

On the morning of April 15, 2005 long time 99.9 The Buzz staple Kurt Kruzer went into the office of Kim Lee owner of Lee Family Broadcasting and announced that this was his last day and he will no longer be on 99.9 the Buzz. Rumor has it that Jeff Edwards will be filling the gap. Of course Jeff Edwards is the DJ that was fired from ClearChannel’s 96.5 an oldies station. He will fill the void there until a replacement can be found. And the goods don’t end there as it is rumored that the morning show on sister station Kat Kountry will soon be undergoing yet another overhaul. The current morning duo of Keith and Kris will be replaced by Clearchannel’s castaway Logan Tousow and Locally Owned Radio ex. Dina Diamond. Can somebody tell me what the heck is going on at Lee Family Broadcasting?

I just heard an interesting “rumor” from a good source — is a well-known morning host about to exit?

Update: OK, what an unfair post. Let’s just say the first tip I recieved was close — but not right on the money. I understand from a second source that “someone” apparantely met with some sort of personell action last week — but it’s not fair to anyone to report anything more.

Ever heard of KEFX radio in Twin Falls? Yeah… me either. Until today.

KEFX is better known as “The Effect” — a national Christian Alternative Radio venture, owned by Calvary Chapel of Twin Falls.

The network has stations in Arizona, California, Hawai’i, Iowa, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Virginia and Washington state with more than 40 stations.

K239AC has signed on in the Boise Valley as a translator of the KEFX at 95.7 FM. AJ, my ears on the ground reports the signal is pretty strong from it’s transmitter location on Table Rock to the Ada/Canyon line.

The class D signal is broadcasting a non-directional signal with 28 watts of power. You can listen online to KEFX at http://www.effectradio.com/.

Other translators for KEFX in Idaho operate in Cascade, Grangeville, and Mountain Home .

KSAS PD Hoss Grigg made it official this week — he’s exiting the station (and industry). His last day was Friday April 8.

R&R reports he is going to “write loans for commercial and residential properties.” Grigg told AllAccess “It’s time to relax and enjoy more of life and my family.â€?

T&R info here

JT no longer on morning duty — is that “the” Howard back in the building?

Plus, the station is about to embark on a “search for a DJ” contest.

Michael Deeds’ colmun this week is actually on local topics.

(Sorry, been a while since I’ve tossed in a Deeds jab).

Also, you likely saw last week’s piece on rock and Journal. The article is actually a decent look at rock and the Boise radio market. However, it shows his bias to completely ignore KKGL. Since his “freelance” work for KRVB is sometimes a conflict for his day job, he should go the extra mile to make sure he’s getting all sides.

But I wondered if the central point of his argument is actually true: are Boise stations really beating the national trend?

At least four major-market stations have folded in the past six months. A recent Rolling Stone article reveals that rock ratings have dropped for at least six years, reflecting an audience that has withered by nearly 20 percent.

But not in Boise.

So I did a little digging. Boise rock radio is not down anywhere near 20 percent. The four core stations (KQXR, KRVB, KJOT and KKGL [for this sample, KKGL is far more appropriate than KTHI]) are trending down, slightly (these are all 12+ numbers):

But wait, there’s more. The R&R article isn’t talking about all rock stations — it focues on Modern Rock. That’d be KQXR.

Fall 1999: 7.3. Fall 2004: 5.2.

That’s a difference of? Yep, 19%.

The article makes a few good points (subtly) about the way Journal does business. The Boise operation uses the famous “rock wall” strategy — arranging KQXR, KRVB, KTHI and KJOT in pattern. If one segment tanks (say, modern rock), another area is there to boost it (like the “Superhits” format).

Deeds also points to the expansion of playlists:

On the bright side, “The X,” “J-105″ and “K-Hits” have widened their playlists in recent months, responding to consumer demand and, ostensibly, trends toward iPods and satellite radio. Listeners are asking for variety.

He’s right. KRVB already has one of the longest playlists in the city — adding a few tunes to the other three certainly can’t help. (Side note: KRVB’s big playlist is evident in it’s studio: it has easily twice the storage space of any of the other JBG Boise studios to store CDs).

Idaho Radio reader Adam wrote in with a Salt Lake-market note of interest.

You can now download KSL-AM segments to your iPod. The so-called PodCast binds an XML or RSS file to MP3s. You use a special piece of software to subscribe to the RSS feed, then sync it to your iPod. The program downloads the audio and uploads it to your iPod for later listening.

This is especially useful for news-talk stations and the like. You can even put an ad or two in the stream.

If I were KTIK-AM, I’d start doing this to make their now somewhat useless streams of IST and J & the Fatman (har har) more dynamic. Plus, KBOI could start PodCasting everything Bronco: the games, the GameNight call-in show and the Thursday coaches show. I would be first on the download list. Turning your station into a giant TiVo could be a big hit with listeners — and turns your audio stream in to something very useful without a ton of work. It’s Non-linear listening.

KSL claims to be the first station in the country doing this — but it’s not. That does not by any stretch diminish how cool and progressive the idea is.

The Boise CCers are now promoting the cool new iPlaylist feature (something I wondered about a few months ago)– allowing listeners to find out what’s on now, as well as the last 10 songs or so. The features also includes a large database of artist information, album covers, etc.

Here are the links: KLTB | KCIX | KSAS | KXLT.

KFXD-AM has not deployed the system.

OK, I know… I’m relentless on the poor KSAS website, but:

Check this out. You can download your very own Instant Messanger icon — featuring Buckhead, Tim Davis, Rick Dees, Ellen K and other folks who don’t work aren’t on the air at KSAS anymore!

Update: They fixed it. Staff page still broken. Still.

KCIX is also giving away some local money — $1,000 to be precise. It’s called the Mix Money Machine

It beats one of the other time they gave away big money.

I wade through a lot of news/crap in an average week. I’ll go off-topic and throw out five of my favorite links each Friday.

- Best Buy called the cops on a Maryland man for trying to pay with two dollar bills. Apparantely the bright kids at the store thought they were fake…

- Need an XBox in your car? Microsoft may debut the TBox soon.

- Vote for Pedro!! My friend and colleague Alyson Oüten put together and outstanding Idaho Life piece on the legislature’s Napoleon Dynamite proclamation. A must watch.

- Buy Pedro’s house! KSL.com has a listing for the home of Pedro in above mentioned movie. It’ll set you back $105,000 for the duplex.

- And finally, the Fox TerrorFirst! Van.