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davidtanny's Blog
Topic: RXP and Sound: Too Corporate To Me (Apr 9, 2008)
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fiogf49gjkf0d RXP and Sound: Too Corporate To Me (Apr 9, 2008)
Both The Sound and RXP have one thing in common: neither station breaks any new ground.
Radio stations in big cities on both coasts have launched their idea of rock stations as of recently.
While Los Angeles's "Sound" plays too much soft music that they call classic rock, New York's RXP, launched last month, sounds far more corporate than "Sound" does, and neither station breaks any new ground in the genre of today's rock and roll music for the Myspace generation.
If given the choice, I would choose the homeboy on the West side with The Sound.
Both stations are trying to appeal to people in the younger group, 18-34, as well as my age group, 35-64, which happens to be the age group that is most likely to listen to classic rock on Sirius and XM Radio on their commercial-free stations. Half of that age group, 50-64, isn't the kind of audience the advertisers care to reach. The 18-24 group are considered too poor for the advertisers to reach.
Problem is for "Sound" and "RXP" is that there is simply no market for rock that spans five decades in one station. Most people generally don't care for vintage rock when all they want to hear is good new music.
I like to hear a wide range of rock from many decades, but I'm just one in a very few that enjoys that kind of range, but my definition of rock includes the likes of some bands like The Ramones, Rolling Stones, and Devo.
I like to listen to oldies every now and then, but I don't listen to it everyday, more like once or twice a month on XM channels 5, 6, and 7.
Neither RXP or Sound are playing much good new rock music; both of the stations' new music are bland and boring, in other words, female-friendly enough for radio to play. FM 94/9 and Rock 105.3 in San Diego play better new songs for their alternative and rock and roll formats respectively. Folks in New York just don't get San Diego.
The ratings for KPRI are sinking, even with their new transmitter in San Diego metro. Too many soft rock songs. FM 94/9 and 91X are also struggling in the ratings but are doing better than KPRI. Jack would do better if it stuck with just the 70s and 80s rock. Rock 105.3 doesn't play much rock from before Nirvana came out and they're doing well, and that's a Clear Channel owned station.
What is "Sound" playing? Some stuff that doesn't qualify as rock and roll. Too many mellow rock songs. That ain't rock music. Pirate Radio 100.3? That was ROCK music. KSCA 101.9 in the mid 90s? Too mellow. Won't get the large amount of listeners. "Sound" is more like mellow rock. "Sound" sounds a bit more testosterony than "Sophie" in San Diego does. AAA is triple dead. It just won't get ratings.
The younger listeners demand new good music that rocks instead of some phony mellow rock crap that doesn't even get the older listeners to tune in. The radio listeners know a turkey when they hear one. That's why "Sophie" is a bomb in San Diego.
"RXP", on the other hand, relys on the same tired old songs that we can get on satellite radio's niche rock channels when we're in the mood for them, but when we're in the mood for mostly new music, "RXP" doesn't deliver as much as you'd think they would. I surely haven't heard any "local" rock on RXP every time I tuned it in. It's just the same old corporate rock bands that you've heard over and over again that you can hear on XM channels 46 and 49, except that RXP has commercials. I like classic rock, but I'm not going to listen to RXP for that; I'll tune in XM for their niche channels and get no commercials to boot! If it's new, RXP doesn't play much of that either.
FM 94/9, on the other hand, plays more good new music more often and a few older ones every now and then, just not mostly old music. 91X finally knew when they had to stop relying on 80s music for the most part and their ratings went up to fair, but not good. I enjoy 80s modern rock, but most people don't care for that anymore. They've moved on to other things. I can hear 80s modern rock on Satellite and Internet.
What both RXP and Sound fail to do is to interest the rock and roll fans and play the hot new rock bands that really rock. All they can come up with for new music are mellow rock bands that the chicks would enjoy. Play some local bands that really rock. Play some new major label bands that really rock. Play some indie bands that really rock. Are RXP and Sound doing so? Nooooooooo! Stop playing the old classic and alternative rock hits of the past, and stop playing the boring new songs!
Indie 103.1 sounds great, but it needs to be on a bigger stick. 100.3 should have courted "Indie" to move its format to 100.3 and Entravision, owner of 103.1, flip it back to dance.
This is why today's rock radio is dying out. They're playing mellow rock bands like Jack Johnson instead of playing straight out rock and roll. They're not playing what people really want to hear. This is scaring people away from the stations.
Elder rock music fans don't care for Hootie and Amy Winehouse. The younger music fans don't care for Emerson Lake and Palmer or Simon and Garfunkel. People want new music that fits what they enjoyed listening to in the past. Elder rock fans want a new Led Zeppelin, Van Halen, AC/DC, and Motley Crue, not soft modern rock crud! Young music fans just want the new kinds of rock and roll that radio just don't care to play, not the emo and soft rock crud that RXP and Sound play.
The younger listeners want music that speaks to their generation; they don't care about the Flower Power classic rock from 1968, in fact, they weren't even around back then.
The truth is that there are so many places on the Internet to listen to up and coming rock bands is that the younger listeners aren't going to settle for radio's idea of a format. The problem with radio is that they like to keep playing the same old songs over and over again everyday until you're sick of the station and tune it out forever. With Satellite radio, you can tune in for a day a month, then listen to something else as your mood desires. The classic rock stations will still be there when you're in the mood for it.
Where iPods, Satellite, and Internet radio have become the new darlings of music, especially new rock and roll, where does that leave music radio? Dead. Unless somebody can come up with music that people haven't downloaded and doesn't put people to sleep, music radio is dead! Spanish language radio is doing fine because most people haven't downloaded the songs and listened to them to death on their iPods.
Rock radio stations ara struggling to come up with a mix that will attract a large amount of listeners, and very few like Rock 105 or KGB 101.5 are getting fair ratings for long periods of time. KGB should have moved into XM 40's Deep Tracks territory by now.
What kinds of rock and roll are people listening to on their iPods? Why isn't radio researching that and come up with some real answers? Find some rock that's real for a change. Stop playing that slow AAA stuff!
Both RXP and Sound fail to consider a free-form approach to rock. They need to have people who care about the music do their own research and find some exciting rock bands that get you excited instead of making you yawn. They should program in some danceable rock like the old WLIR once did, program some geek rap and rock like that heard on Dr. Demento, program some techno, some goofy pop bands like Aqua, and some new punk that can be played on the radio. Play some stuff we haven't found on the Internet yet! As soon as we downloaded them, play something else!
Instead of taking on new ground, RXP and Sound chose to go the same and stale routes to nowhere. Emmis and Bonneville, owners of RXP and Sound, are as corporate as Clear Channel, and are doing a worse job doing rock than any of our local nimrods running KGB and ROCK.
Another opportunity to break new ground has been wasted on RXP and Sound. Time for an all Dementia Radio format yet?
Of course, the only people who like to see music radio fail are talk show hosts. Just ask Tom Leykis. He claims that his show is getting the ratings because his competetive music stations are sucking out loud. Well, the music stations are sucking, especially in Los Angeles, but there are plenty of iPod listeners that Tom is competeting with, so he has to come up with topics that are fascinating, such as, well, a recent one where he critiques RXP for having a corporate influenced playlist, made fun of RXP for playing Boston and Oingo Boingo, just two corporate rock bands, and says that rock radio is dead.
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