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Posted on 06/12/2005 6:56:17 PM PDT by raccoonradio
On June 3, New York City's venerable oldies station WCBS-FM hit “shuffle” and kicked off a firestorm.
At 5 p.m. that day, station owner Infinity Broadcasting suddenly fired its on-air staff -- which included former Monkee Mickey Dolenz and radio legend Bruce “Cousin Brucie” Morrow -- and adopted a programming concept that's infiltrating radio markets across the nation.
“Jack.”
Or Ben.
Or Dave.
Or Bob.
It can get confusing. A Burlington, Vt., station known for years as “Alice,” has since adopted the Jack format.
It's radio's answer to the iPod, a shift away from tightly formatted playlists boasting Hot Adult Contemporary or Oldies or Urban sounds. Instead, there are songs from a 40-year span, stacked like sonic cordwood, without rhyme or reason.
The Rolling Stones, Madonna, Green Day, the J. Geils Band and the Gap Band bleed into one another.
In April, Boston Adult Contemporary/Dance Radio station Star 93-7FM became Mike-FM, playing, as stated in an e-mail to some listeners, “two of three Star songs per hour, plus tons of hits that you loved growing up in Boston but haven't heard in a while ... .”
Jack, created by Bob “Cadillac Jack” Perry and debuted in Vancouver, B.C., in December 2003, is radio's answer to the iPod trend, to the burgeoning satellite and Internet radio industries.
When the change comes, on-air staffs get dumped, playlists swell, aggressive-sounding slogans are adopted (”We play what we want”) and listeners have to sort it all out.
It's built to be like an iPod, Apple's phenomenally successful portable player that randomly spits back MP3 files from an owner's personal library when you hit “shuffle.”
Or, not really.
Unlike what Star/Mike said in its e-mail -- “we'll play (songs) randomly, so you'll feel like you just hit shuffle on a iPod. You won't even have to buy one” -- it's anything but random, says Tom Taylor, editor of Insideradio.com, by phone from New Jersey.
“The whole iPod thing is a marketing gimmick,” says Taylor. “The idea that radio is random is crazy. It's anything but random. They work very hard putting together those segues. And beside, with Mike, it's (corporate owner) Entercom's iPod, not yours, right?”
The idea of the format, he says, is “to surprise you” with what is known in radio as the “oh, wow!” song.
Jack is aimed squarely at the 35- to 44-year-old demographic, which is a small span but a large number of people.
“It's anarchic-sounding, with slogans like ‘we play what we want,' and plays itself off as a reaction to some of the tight playlists of the past five to 10 years.”
Taylor is not aware of any U.S. markets that have two Jack-formatted stations. While some Jack stations across the nation are showing increased ratings, “we don't really know how it's going to play out yet,” he said.
But in Boston, he says, “it was that typical thing of who's going to jump into the pool first? MIX has been playing with its ‘whatever weekends,' but Star did it.”
“I understand wanting to personalize your format,” says veteran Boston-based radio consultant Donna Halper. “But if you're personalizing it, isn't it ironic that you're doing it without announcers?”
Two things typically frustrate listeners, says Halper. “One is clutter -- too many promos, commercials, chatter. The other is not being told the names of the songs.”
While there's less talk, she says there also seems to be more assuming listeners know the songs.
“I'm not sure this is what listeners really want. Yes, owners may feel desperate on some level ... but every time you chip away at a station's personality, what you have is Muzak. Muzak is fine, but what reason does it give me to be loyal?”
There's also the “attitude” factor.
“You hear slogans like, ‘radio for people who don't like radio.' Well, if there was a restaurant that said, ‘we're a restaurant for people who don't like food,' would you eat there?”
Halper says the anything-goes Jack format is “an overreaction.” Not everyone even knows what an iPod is and some listeners will be confused by the format.
And it ignores Baby Boomers.
“Radio is driven by advertising agencies who still believe the myth that if you're over 40, it's not a desirable demographic. I think they should really rethink that. They spend money, and has there been anyone more willing to try something than Baby Boomers? So, where are the people over 45 supposed to go?”
And what of on-air personalities? That companionship?
It could be temporary, a way to focus on the musical blend as the format sets in. And people get used to the new people-names.
“It's like Magic and Kiss,” says Taylor. “There's an art to this, coming up with something that's memorable. Radio is showbiz, and it's when radio forgets that that it gets in trouble.”
Some WCBS fans still haven't calmed down at the abrupt change from oldies to Jack.
The outraged include New York Sen. Charles Schumer, a diehard Cousin Brucie fan whose Web site urges visitors to vote on whether to keep Brucie on the air.
“I'm still getting e-mail about that,” Taylor says. “I think in that case, it'll be going on for some time.”
I'm 43, right in there
>>“I understand wanting to personalize your format,” says veteran Boston-based radio consultant Donna Halper. “But if you're personalizing it, isn't it ironic that you're doing it without announcers?”
There's nobody at the "mike" at "Mike-FM"
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Here in Columbus its "Ted".
One of the stations here in KC recently became "Jack FM." I like the wide ranging format, and I especially like the very minimal presence of DJs. Finally, a station where they just shut up and play the music.
there is nothing worse than listening to radio DJ banter.....just play MUSIC! Thats why people dont listen to radio anymore, that and being forced to listen to the same song (usually a lame pop song) 8 times a hour
The "Jack" format sounds stupid to me. I listen only to those radio stations that play the content I like. I won't endure 45 minutes of music I don't care much about to hear 15 that I do.
I refuse to listen to any of the so called music stations. Apparently the advertisers don't miss me. Sigh. I wonder what cool products I will never buy because I missed their commercials?
So it's got that going for it. Which is nice.
When the local music stations pooped format my solution was to buy more capcity memory chips for my PDA.
The only radio I generally listen to is am talk radio.
I have generally disliked the on air disk jokeys who seem to talk too much anyways. Too bad they did not figure out that lesss blah blah blah and more music equals listeners before I removed them from my routine.
Yes, I'm also tired of talkative DJs, etc., though sometimes it's good to hear what the song title or artist is, etc. I have been a longtime college radio DJ (blues) and I try to play as much music as possible. When I do a talk break I mention the song titles and artists (stuff not normally heard on commercial radio, of course!) and maybe throw in something like: "That's new from Jimmy Thackeray, who's playing
next Saturday at Johnny D's".
So a VERY BRIEF talkbreak might be OK but I know what you
mean, on and on. Morning shows have had so much talk
that they've pretty much abandoned ANY music in favor
of blab, gags, etc.
And sometimes if a DJ is interesting enough (Dr. Demento
comes to mind), it's worth it.
Yes, it is great to have music-only radio in some ways
but occasionally you do need a (hopefully live, not
pre-taped) voice on there. ONCE in awhile...
Our cable systems in the NW carry some HongKouver TV stations, and they've been running incredibly lame "Jack-FM" ads starring some doofus-acting Indian (dot, not feather) guy stumbling around composing little theme ditties for the station. Sort of like Homer Simpson with Apu's voice, if you can picture that.
The TV commercials are so stupid (probably intentionally) that I have no intention of actually listening to the radio station.
We have a Jack-FM down in Los Angeles and I like it. The station plays a lot of songs you've never heard befor or that you haven't heard in a long time. It's a great change from hearing the same pop hit 10 times a day.
...and keep in mind on a classic rock station, you already KNOW that they just played "Sympathy for the Devil" by the Stones. On a station that might blend in folk, reggae,
blues, etc., you might like to know what you just heard,
especially if you really liked it and might be interested in buying the album. "Some classic blues re-done by Paul
Rishell and Annie Raines--'Memphis Town', from their new
album..."
>>a lot of songs you've never heard befor or that you haven't heard in a long time.
yes, I heard a good one-hit wonder, Sausolito Summernights by Diesel (1981) on Boston's "Mike FM"
now the more advanced radio stations actually make a list of the songs played in the last 24hours available on the internet.
FR-mail me to be added to or removed from this ping list
Hit shuffle on my iPod and you will go from a Beethoven concerto to Bessie Smith to Todd Rundgren to a Bach cantata to Neil Young to B.J. Thomas to Waylon Jennings to George Thorogood to Johnny Cash to Mozart...well, you get the picture. Certainly the radio stations aren't going to offer that!
And that's just the thing. Everybody is unique. Hit shuffle on anybody's iPod and it will spill out a combination of music that nobody else would necessarily want to listen to. The radio stations have no hope of duplicating the experience that somebody gets when they shuffle up to 10,000 songs of their favorite music!
Commercial free.
The closest thing to the iPod Shuffle experience is commercial-free satellite radio. I've been listening to "The Vault" on Sirius and let's just say that it's had me running to iTunes for most of the past month to download obscure rock tracks I had completely forgotten about!
BTW, Cousin Brucie was just hired by Sirius and he will begin his show with them starting Independence Day Weekend.
yup have seen that--and if your radio has RDS it'll say the title (on stations so enabled)
I should mention that on satellite radio, the artist and title of the song playing is displayed on the radio receiver. SO there is no mystery as to what you are hearing. My wife and I like to play "name that tune" on long car trips. We'll cover the receiver and see who can name the tune first.
They're going about it 180-degrees bassackwards wrong, in my opinion. If radio wants to compete with CDs and the iPod, it has to be a format that differentiates itself from CDs and iPods...and that means not going to all music or maximum music, because the people who want all music are already listening to something other than radio.
The advantage radio has over CDs and iPods is the ability to mix in important information and entertaining talk with the music. If they would go to a somewhat retro format of mostly music but also hourly news updates, weather updates (especially during severe weather), and intelligent, entertaining deejays (99% of today's deejays are talentless and just simply go through the motions), I think it might work.
From an earlier thread about the "Jack" format I clicked a link to http://www.reelradio.com . I was shocked at just how entertaining some of those old 1960s and 70s airchecks were...like those from "Boss Radio" KHJ out of LA. The key to that format is a talented deejay, though, and there doesn't seem to be many of them around anymore.
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