Just saw this on All Access. I found it interesting that their target is a 39 year old female. Very insightful. Gen-Xrs are aging and are now the money demo. Unlike previous generations of "soccer moms", they do not want Celine Dion and Michael Bolton. Nor do they want the Justin Timberlake and Fergie music that has infiltrated Hot AC playlists. It sounds like this station is super-serving women who graduated high school in the 80's and had Seattle bands rock their college years. It will be interesting to see how successful this is. I can see why CC launched this in Sacramento. There was not room for two ACs AND a hot AC in that market. Here's the All Acces story:


My, My My92.5: Inside KGBY's Format Flip
As tipped here earlier today, CLEAR CHANNEL AC KGBY (Y92.5)/SACRAMENTO will indeed flip formats once its all-holiday music programming ends. ALL ACCESS has seen documentation that describes the new format -- a Rock/Alternative Adult Hits format called "My92.5," not unlike KYSR (STAR 98.7)/LOS ANGELES. But music was somewhat secondary in the missive, as more attention was paid to listener interactivity through online programming, marketing, promotion and networking.

The target audience is adults 30-49, college grads, homeowners and families. The station should attract a 55/45 female-to-male ratio, with a core target being a 39-year-old female

The buzzwords used in the format tutorial depict a station that's heavy on music and viral listener-interaction, described as "SACRAMENTO'S 'mypod.' Listeners are supposed to drive the programming, and there will be no "big name talent hosting 'shows'."

The station will be jockless for the first 60-90 days and the document hinted that there may not be a need for any air talent at all. On the other hand, there will be heavy web-interactivity, emphasizing lifestyle and the creation of a MySpace social networking section. Listeners will be encouraged to interface on website photos, videos, music programming ideas and online contesting.

A strong emphasis was placed on what will not be on the station: "no cutesy sweepers .... no corny jingles ... no hype, swooshes or bells and whistles" and, of course "no talent initially."

The artists listed in the station's typical playlists range from the late '80s to late '90s; the most recent of the tracks listed was released in 2000. The artists were either Rock, Pop or Alternative-based, ranging form NO DOUBT and SANTANA to RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS and DEF LEPPARD.

In a sign of the times, two document pages focused on the music; three pages delved into the online interactivity.

Kinda ties in with the Christmas IPODs, EH?

> Kinda ties in with the Christmas IPODs, EH?

Yep.

The description of this station reminds me a lot of the "Video Jukebox" TV channels that were around in the early 1990s. These could be found on LPTV signals and in some cases on cable. Viewers requested videos by calling a 1-900 number. When no videos were playing, a menu would scroll, showing the numeric codes that one would need to dial to request each of the videos in the station's library. Those stations were completely automated, and the overall presentation was very low key.

I can see where they are going with the idea of wanting to create an interactive radio station that would be comfortable for people who are used to using MySpace, banking online, and buying stuff over the Internet. However, I think that there is a potential that this approach, with its deliberate omission of jingles, sweepers, and personalities will be perceived as low budget one the initial "gee-whiz" factor wears off.

Alfredo_t,
I've never heard of the type of music video channel you just described, but I would have really liked it at the time if we'd had one in Portland. It might even work today if it was set up correctly with lots of web-based interactive tie-ins. I realize that cable on demand features and the internet already gives people video on demand, but the advantage of a channel would be that everyone else also sees your request played. It reminds me of when I would get song requests from people who owned the CD of the song they were requesting. I always thought that was funny. I think that the appeal there is that your friends hear your request, and you get to impose your tastes on other listeners.

The Jukebox Channel might not have made it out to the Portland area. The only ones that I remember discovering were in Montgomery, AL, Columbus, GA, and Rochester, NY, roughly in the 1992-1995 timeframe. All three of these were low powered stations on UHF. I also saw a story on an entertainment news show circa 1993 that talked about the Juke Box channel and actually showed the robotic system that would take the video tapes from the library and insert them into the players. The tapes were most likely Super-VHS. The Jukebox station covered in the story was described as a cable-only operation. I think that the biggest problem with the Jukebox Channel was that they never advertised their stations! I only discovered these stations by surfing the dial on a LCD portable TV that I had with me at the time.

One thing that was interesting about the Jukebox Channel was that as viewers keyed in their video selections, the digits would be displayed over the air.

What was Paragon Cable used to have a on-demand-type music video channel for a short period of time on channel 99. It wasn't publicized much, if at all.

One thing that was interesting about the Jukebox Channel was that as viewers keyed in their video selections, the digits would be displayed over the air.
That reminds me of what was on here at the time. I don't remember much, because I was maybe around 10 or so (I was fixiated with the computer-screen channels like On Tv/Prevue Guide/TV Guide Channel, the cable access programming calendar channel, Weather Channel local forecasts, etc.), and when the first video came on after about five minutes of the guide my parents' comment was along the lines of 'uh, you don't need to watch this channel, change it NOW.'

I ordered "How Much Is Enough" -- The FIXX from that channel. Still have the VHS tape of it somewhere.

I think in the early/mid 90's there was a interactive "music video by order channel" like that called "The Box." I was able to receive it over my C-Band dish back then.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jukebox_Network

Apparently the Jukebox Channel ultimately met its fate to MTV...........

Thanks for clearing up that the correct name for this music video channel was the "Jukebox Network." I did a search on that name and turned up the following Entertainment Weekly article from August of 1991:

315044%2C00.html,http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,315044,00.html

Despite this being called a "network," each jukebox was, indeed, independent.

I've always lived on the west side, and until the late 90's the east side and west side were served by different cable companies. I'm pretty sure we never had the Jukebox Channel.

Does anyone have any comment on the more acute blending of eras we are seeing today, and how that might impact this?

Prior to the Internet going joe public, we had fairly clear music eras. One can look at the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's and see fairly clear transitions in terms of general form and style. From somewhere in '00 on, it's become more blurred and less distinct.

Today we are well overdue for such a sharp break. Instead of a break, we are getting this smooth blend, I find different in texture, when compared to earlier times. IMHO, sampling has something to do with this. Kids pick up on the samples and that brings older music into relevance. That's not the whole story though. Just an element I've seen play out.

The simple truth is many more kids these days appear to be exploring a wider variety of music, in terms of time it was produced.

From time to time, I get to snoop iPods as people want to share music, snag new tunes, update / fix fragged pods. It's been interesting to see just what kids have on those things.

Quite a mix actually!

Good rock from the 70's and 80's appears often, for example. That's technically the parents music, if the norms I saw in action were still in play. It's becoming increasingly clear they no longer are! I've heard more than a few kids state, "they don't make music like this any more.", when I've commented on the older music they are listening to.

The usual pile of top 40 whatever is there, but so is a lot of just great music from a lot of different time periods. When I was a kid, there were a few of us that did this. We were very into the music and would purchase a lot of it, shared it, talked about it. We were not the norm however.

IMHO, a lot more of this is happening because sharing is easier, as is simple acquisition of tunes that lie outside the current focus in time. Is this a growing norm, or just a fad that manifests due to an overly long period lacking really differentiated sounds?

Was shopping with my sons last night. Many of the stores we were visiting played great 70's & 80's rock, and that music was available in the store, packaged in interesting ways. Picture vinyl (damn cool to see), cd collections, etc... while talking to one younger cashier, that came up on an excellent Billy Idol tune. She flat out stated we are now past the time where it's clear anymore. No more 80's 90's. Just music of all kinds and scenes surrounding it. Very interesting, IMHO.

(that conversation, surrounding a good tune, we all liked a lot, happened among a 14 year old, 17 year old, late 20 something, and a late 30 something)

If it's more than a passing phase, we could be entering a time where new music happens, but does so not easily replace music already accepted. Maybe we are already there. That cashier thinks so.

It's almost as if the idea that "old" means irrelevant, or bad is going away for a significant fraction of young people. If true, then targeting specific groups of people may well become more difficult.

It's my opinion, this will then require context outside the music itself, as we may find the tunes themselves are not enough differentiation. That also means the tunes themselves have less overall value, as they do not, in and of themselves, pack the punch for differentiation they once did.

Will it be possible then to take one common set of tunes, and have a younger personality frame them, introduce them, whatever, and have an older one do the same thing, and have the end result appeal to very different age groups, for example?

Stir in the Internet, as the first post in this thread highlights, and perhaps these things can happen at once, leaving the common element then to be what? Shared activity, community, interest, common celebrity, ???

I have noticed this "blending" phenomenon that you talk about, but I don't know what its origins are or how much of a role the Internet played in its occurrence.

Back in the mid/late 1990s, when I was doing college radio, there were a number of current artists (Stereolab, Komeda, the Cardigans, Smashmouth, etc.) whose style could be described as "retro." These bands took elements of 1960s and early 1970s music (such as electric pianos, primitive synthesizers, organs, certain guitar effects, and certain types of riffs) and used them to create new music. Around that same time, some of the DJs at the station started experimenting with playing 80s pop music that Gen-X ers would be likely to remember. This drew a pretty positive audience response. Later, in 1998/1999, there was a brief period when young people started discovering their grandparents' (swing) music. As all this was happening, I suspected that it was the beginning of some kind of a trend, but I would not have envisioned the environment that exists today.

What is different today than 15-20 years ago is that it is now acceptable and even encouraged for young people to explore music of past eras. When I was growing up, I discovered a lot of 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s music from listening to the nostalgia stations that my mom liked to listen to and from exploring the world of full-service AM radio stations, out of my own curiosity. The old music of previous generations *was* easily available back then, but it was taboo for young people to consume it.

I don't know a single teenager who just listens to the top 40 crap on their IPOD. Yes, some of it is on it, BUT Im seeing a TON of classic rock artists mixed in with the top 40 crap! Seriously, just by lookig at Myspace pages, kids have a WIDE range of musical tastes! Im amazed of how many 13 and 14 year old girls LOVE the beatles. Back when I was a teen (in the mid 80's) some of the peers in my age group had no idea who the Beatles were(I kid you not). Is the music on top 40 radio so bad, that kids are turning to older decades of music????
Or Maybe Top 40 should stop craming this Brittney Spears CRAP down their listeners throat and actually play some artists that have some actual substance.

That strikes right to the root of it really.

Maybe current top 40 isn't bad, so much as it just isn't that good! Think about having to compete with all the gems produced over time. At any one of those times, there was crap. Of course, that's filtered now, and distribution costs are low, so it's out there now, instead of in the back catalog.

I believe it's gonna change some stuff. Maybe top 40, will improve. Maybe some other metric will rise to reflect the state of things.

Some of that classic stuff is just so freaking great. But I've got to hand it to the kids--they're much better informed about their parents' music that we (speaking for boomers) were about ours. My son's 22 year old gf was in the car tonight listening to XM Top Tracks...and sang along perfectly with "Do It Again" followed by "One Toke Over the Line." And my daughter knows the Dylan and Stones catalogs way better than I do.

yeah, my 14 year old niece owns every single Rolling stones Album, Well i should say every RS album up to "tattoo You", which in my opinion is the entire catalog, because everything after "tattoo you" is Crap!
LOVE THE STONES!!!

Sirius or XM Radio cloned and genetically spliced into terestrial radio markets now from Sacremento. But next year, comming to a market near you!

Yes, my 19 year old knows all the Oldies songs, as he grew up with them in the car, at the studio and so forth. He consideres them , now , Old Fogie music and rolls his eyes at some of them when I have Sirius 6 or 7 on in my car. The ones he sings along with , he still likes, but wont admit to it, of course. My 23 year old daughter still digs on Incense and Peppermints and other flower power bubble gum era stuff as I think she may be a clone from the Brady Bunch, she even looks like Eve Plumb( Marcia Marcia Marcia)...Its funny to watch these two when the old man slaps on Sirius 6 or 7. How much they actually remember of 'my' music versus what they dwell on of their own preferences.

Our technology now supports all these 'retro rememberences' to the hilt. Whereas in yester-year it really didnt do that so well.

It is interesting that everyone refers to the oldies as those tunes from their youth, regardless of what era it was in. When people talk of the oldies, they are usually referring to mid 60's through 80's. When I think of "oldies" that I prefer, it is mainly mid 50's through the mid 60's, thinking that along about the mid 60's a lot of crap started coming out.

There is no oldies station in town as far as I am concerned. Although I like some things from each decade, Percentage wise, I prefer from 1954 through about 1965. People older than me will talk about the oldies as music from the 40's. There seems to be a missing era from the early 50's. I cannot remember much from that period other than a few artists. Patti Page, Chordettes, Doris Day...to name a few. I first got interested in listening to music with Bill Haley, Little Richard, Pat Boone (yes, for a short while, he was considered the King of R&R)who preceeded Elvis.

That era is not met locally. I guess we are too old and don't spend money and radio needs advertisers to exist so we are not desired demo. People that like music earlier than that are rapidly leaving the planet so are even moreso not taken care of unless they can get 1550, let alone even know it exists.

I listen to 1550 a few times per month. IMHO, music from that time is very under appreciated. It's a great AM experience on my GE III. (and I'm just gonna hit 40 this coming year -gettin' older sucks people!)

Great vocalists! Themes, lots of them --romantic, flowing, beautiful, peaceful. It's the kind of music, one can sing in the car, and actually hit it well enough to feel it and be a part of it! (I wonder sometimes where the simple art of that has gone --the voice is so often abused these days...)

IMHO, these should just be popped in once in a while. With the right context, maybe mood, they would work!

Now is the right time of year too. The Christmas and Holiday music (back then these were different things!), showcases those early eras perfectly.

I listen to KKAD as well on occasion. It is relaxing, and sometime I'll turn on Standards and Vocals on Comcast. The music is timeless. Unfortunately, it's on AM instead of FM Stereo in this market.
I doubt that kind of music will ever return as the music industry and radio moguls seem to want to dictate what we listen to, just like the fashion industry does to the current styles.
Now they are using the very young audience to promote the Heather Montana's of the industry and make sure they have control over what those kids listen to in the future.

All the more reason to get the mp3 player of your choice, and program it yourself. I will absolutely not be dictated to, and my 30gb iPod takes care of that nicely.

I do pretty much the same thing myself, only with a CD player. Screw what the radio stations & charting services *say* I want to hear, as I only play what I *do* want to hear. If one were to look through my CD folder, they would find odd blends including classic rock, easy listening, oldies, disc-recorded stuff off Muzak and maybe the occasional top 40 cut for ballast (sans James Blundt and Christina Aguileria, I would rather listen to...well......than...you know.........) but not blended together on the same disc! DON'T want it to end up sounding like Charlie programmed it himself, hint hint.

Oh yeah, lots of Beatles, Stones, Jimi, Elvis, Bing and Mantovani but again, not mixed all together at the same time. And no, I don't have much of anything after "Tattoo You" either, with the sole exception of the first few cuts from "Bridges to Babylon". ;o)

Personally I still haven't taken to the whole Apple I-pod "fad" tho. Don't need yet another hard drive to manage. And considering how hard I tend to ride, the little "Micro-drive" they use would probably be shot after just a day's worth of really good, hard racing.............

If I do buy a MP3 player, it will be one of the knockoff brand devices that runs off a battery that I can change and that retails for under $30. I just don't like the idea of spending big money on a portable electronic devices, since they can easily get dropped, crushed, lost or stolen.

Trying to look at the situation objectively, I think that a big part of the problem is that the industry has gone overboard on hyper-focusing the CHR (top 40) radio format and the music produced for that format. Isn't this similar to what happened in the late 1970s, when consultants said that top 40 primarily appealed to an audience that wanted to hear dance music, and as a result, top 40 radio became wall-to-wall Disco? That ended in 1980, and various other sounds returned to CHR radio then. Hopefully, something like that can happen again.