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?