KZLA Format Change: “We Work for Our Advertisers”
Aug 19th, 2006 | By Joe Taylor Jr. | Category: Radio|
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As someone who spent more than a decade working in radio, I often confuse folks in my seminars and my mentoring program when I tell them not to spend a whole lot of time worrying about getting played on the radio.
That’s because a little over a decade ago, radio shifted from being about breaking music for eager audiences to collecting the largest audiences possible to serve up to advertisers. I’m not knocking advertising, but the radio business has, for the most part, become like that third-grade soccer match where eighteen kids are all huddled around the ball while both nets are empty.
Audiences, despite what they say they like, don’t listen to stations that play a lot of unfamiliar music. Two songs back to back can kill what ratings researchers call “the quarter hour.” So we have radio that — despite the creativity of folks still working in the business — struggles to reach a lowest common denominator. I was in Subway the other day, and the station on the sound system proclaimed, “we’re the only station everyone in your office can agree on.” Yes, we all agree. Your station sucks.
We got confirmation of just where radio stations place their loyalty, when KZLA in Los Angeles flipped from country — where they owned the format and dominated a niche audience — to Hot AC, where they’re gonna join the rugby scrum. Val Maki of Emmis Broadcating, the station’s owner, confirmed what we knew all along when she told an interviewer, “we work for our advertisers.”
Your perfect audience isn’t waiting to discover you on the radio. So stop worrying about building a huge radio promotion budget into your CD release, and focus your attention on getting in front of your fans in places where they do want to see and hear you.
Technorati Tags: music+business, radio, KZLA, Emmis
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August 29th, 2006 at 8:51 pm
[...] Those folks are not craving something new, and they don’t necessarily care what they listen to, as long as it feels “right” and “familiar” to them. They’re tolerating whatever is the least offensive. And they probably make up 60-80% of Americans. They’re the folks that listen to the “station that your whole office can agree on.” [...]
September 3rd, 2006 at 5:46 am
We play anything, from classic SG QT’s and The Great Black Quartets, early CCM, some Praise & Worship, some early bluegrass,country Gospel, and early Jesus Rock (Larry Norman a.o.), some Gospel Jazz, Black Choirs…but we’ll spin you too..
If you got a group, or are a soloist..or whatever you do musically in the Gospel realm..and got a nice MP3 format song and want worldwide coverage for free..send your song/songs to sogoshack@hotmail.com ,we’ll play em as long as it’s in tune…
DHarmon
owner of http://www.sogoshack.com
Always wanted to be a Gospel Dj, contact us on the same email adress (above)