WIDE AND WONDERFUL: A LITTLE DITTY 'BOUT JACK & BOB Paul Heine – Billboard Radio's playlist liberation movement hatched at a birthday party in Manitoba, Canada. A radio was blasting when Howard Kroeger, director of operations and programming for CHUM Broadcasting's Winnipeg stations, arrived at his friend's 40th-birthday bash—but the station playing wasn't one of his. It was a competitor's classic rock station. Unfazed, Kroeger used the occasion to conduct an informal focus group among the partygoers, most in their mid- to late 30s.
Whenever Boston, the Cars, Meatloaf, Supertramp or some other '70s staple came on, it got an overwhelming thumbs-up from the Molson-enhanced crowd. But there was a noticeable lack of enthusiasm when Jimi Hendrix, the Animals, the Doors or other '60s icons played.
While the crowd dug connecting with music from their high school years, Kroeger noticed the station wasn't playing a lot of other acts his generation grew up with, like the Pretenders, Elvis Costello, Soft Cell and Tears for Fears.
Returning home, he pulled one of Joel Whitburn's Billboard chart reference books off the shelf and began feverishly compiling a list of songs from 1974 to the present that had a rock/AC flavor but weren't getting much radio love. He ended up with a potpourri, a deep and wide list.
With the help of Mike Dorn from Audience Research International, Kroeger made a format montage from the song list and had it tested during a CHUM strategic study. "It came back that the hole was absolutely huge," Kroeger recalls. "Like, massive."
Kroeger always liked the "Bob" moniker used by a Minneapolis country station in the early '90s, so he adopted the handle in Winnipeg. "We wanted to present a personality for the radio station without having to go through all these names that have been used a gazillion times before, like the Hawk and the Bear," he says.
And so, on March 4, 2002, North America's first Bob FM was born on CFWM Winnipeg—predating the first Jack FM by 10 months. Swiping from the W Hotel's "whatever, whenever" motto, a slogan was fashioned: " '80s . . . '90s . . . and whatever."
"We wanted something that would take the market by storm," Kroeger says. "We knew we were onto something."
Indeed. Launching two weeks into the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement ratings survey, the unprecedented station debuted at No. 1 in adults 25-54 and has remained there ever since—for nine consecutive ratings periods.
Inspired by the success in Winnipeg, Rogers Broadcasting launched Jack FM in Vancouver on Dec. 27, 2002, under PD Pat Cardinal. Today, there is a Bob, Jack, Joe or Dave in every major Canadian market except Montreal. Each of the country's three radio titans—Corus Radio, Rogers Broadcasting and CHUM Broadcasting—programs a variation of the format in multiple markets.
FIDGETING PROGRAMMERS
Initially puzzled by a format that fractures some of radio's time-honored programming tenets, U.S. broadcasters have since embraced the concept. "The first time you sit down with somebody to schedule what everybody calls train wrecks, you might see a little fidgeting going on," Joel Folger says amid bursts of devilish laughter. A former programmer, Folger works with Kroeger advising U.S. stations on the format. He prides himself on helping PDs "unlearn many of the principles that you, as a programmer, have come to believe are set in stone. You can play songs from different formats on the same station."
In one form or another, Bob, Jack and their offshoots have hit the air in Los Angeles; Chicago; Philadelphia; Dallas; Detroit; Washington, D.C.; Atlanta; Denver; Kansas City; Salt Lake City; Austin; Sacramento, Calif.; Indianapolis; Des Moines, Iowa; Tucson, Ariz.; Texarkana, Texas; and other markets.
"One of the interesting things that came out of this is that wide can be a format once again," Kroeger says.
While the new approach is most evident as an adult top 40-classic hits hybrid, it is also being felt at formats as disparate as modern rock and country. It subscribes to the credo that train wrecks should be celebrated, not shunned. Don McLean's "American Pie" into the Pet Shop Boys' "West End Girls"? No problem. Harry Chapin's "Cat's in the Cradle" into Lipps, Inc.'s "Funkytown"? You bet. U2's "Desire" into the Spinners' "Rubberband Man"? Bring it on.
Though it waves the "We play anything" flag with pride, the format focuses on music that appeals to 35- to 44-year-olds while tossing maxims about fit and compatibility out the window. Classic alternative from the '80s is abundant: Tears for Fears, Simple Minds, Talking Heads, Soft Cell, INXS. That meshes with the acts that first put MTV on the map, like Men at Work, Dexy's Midnight Runners and Duran Duran, and with that decade's pop-rock crossovers from Bryan Adams, Toto, Prince and the J. Geils Band.
But there's room for dance and funk from the Commodores, Kool & the Gang and Wild Cherry. Seventies classic rock is another cornerstone, with Foreigner and the Steve Miller Band taking prominent seats at Bob and Jack's table. And don't forget adult top 40 from the '90s and today, encompassing Sugar Ray, Smash Mouth, Avril Lavigne and Rob Thomas.
In short, it is the only place on the dial where Grand Funk Railroad, Norah Jones and the Georgia Satellites peacefully co-exist. Libraries range from 700 to 1,100 songs, with most Canadian stations toward the top of that bracket. And that has brought Loverboy, Honeymoon Suite and Corey Hart back in a big way. Sunglasses at night, anyone?
'80s POP-ROCK CENTER
"Some people drank the play-anything-you-want Kool-Aid," Kroeger says, "but the stations that will remain successful are the ones who focus their resources on finding out what the right songs to play are."
"At the outset, it's a nearly equal split between the classic rock '70s and the pop-rock '80s," Edison Media Research VP of music and programming Sean Ross says. "As it has evolved, there's a little more '90s and a little less '70s, but the pop-rock '80s is still the center."
Spanning the youngest edge of the baby boom and the older end of Generation X, the 35-44 demo is nostalgic for the music it grew up on. In addition, Kroeger believes consumers tend to obsess on what was hot 20 years ago. In the '70s, the '50s-inspired "Happy Days" was a TV smash. In the '80s, people looked back to the Vietnam War era of the '60s through films like "Platoon" and "Full Metal Jacket." In the '90s, TV's "That '70s Show" became popular and there were movies about Studio 54.
Now, it's the '80s' turn. "As you approach your middle to late 30s, those pangs of nostalgia get louder and louder," Kroeger says.
Meanwhile, the explosion of peer-to-peer file sharing and the popularity of mix tapes have conditioned consumers to expect—and demand—more variety, Kroeger reasons. "The last several years became a real awakening period for people's musical taste buds," he says. "I'd have Abba and the Clash on the same tape! That's what this whole thing is all about. Plus radio has been niche-formatted to death. Now variety has become a niche."
Some believe Jack and Bob's real drawing power stems not from the music but from the variety, novelty, surprise and "radio without rules" stationality. "To the extent you can still do a 2.5 share on a signal-challenged station in a crowded market, that's probably true," Ross says. "But it's even better if you've got a classic hits hole or an '80s hole, or even better, both."
Folger compares Bob and Jack to early-'70s top 40 outlets like WLS Chicago. "You wouldn't be limited by [genre]," he says. "They'd go from Al Green to Creedence Clearwater Revival. For a big part of the audience, it's something they never heard before."
EXPLOSIVE RATINGS GROWTH
Bonneville flipped AC KKLT Phoenix from K-Lite to the Peak on May 28, 2004. "I spent a lot of time paying attention to the Jacks and Bobs in Canada before we started thinking about this project," PD Joel Grey says. "I thought we could do it ourselves."
With virtually no external marketing, the station's 25-54 rank zoomed from 14th in spring 2004 to second that summer and to No. 1 that fall. Reflecting on the explosive ratings growth, Grey says, "It was different, it was broad, they loved it, and they told everybody they knew about it. We hit a home run right out of the box."
The Peak's audience is about 60% female, higher than the format's normal 50%. "We started out as a female radio station. We held on to all those females, and the males have slowly come over," Grey says.
The Phoenix Peak also differs in the size of its library. At roughly 600 songs, it is double that of many music stations but still several hundred titles shy of most Jacks and Bobs.
"These days, there are as many different versions of the format as people doing it," Edison's Ross says. "At the same time, everybody is filling roughly the same hole, which is classic hits plus '80s plus a little bit of '90s."
Among the variants are such AC-slanted, female-friendlier versions as Greater Media's WMWX (Ben FM) Philadelphia and ABC's WRQX (Mix) Washington, D.C. Emmis has applied the model to country WLHK (Hank) Indianapolis, where Susquehanna operates WGLD (Jack). And Clear Channel is gunning for guys with KDRB (the Bus) Des Moines.
"There are people who lean more toward the '80s, those who favor the '70s and those who lean on the '90s," Ross observes. "As the format evolves, it's a little less '70s and a little more '90s recurrent in most places than it was three years ago, when it first started."
Will it work everywhere? Apart from the format's runaway success in Canada, it has achieved noteworthy ratings in Phoenix, Austin, Denver, Kansas City and Dallas—where Infinity's KJKK is No. 4 25-54 persons and No. 1 25-54 cume. In fact, the Dallas Jack "was one of the stations that convinced [U.S.] radio it was real," Ross says.
"There are certainly some places where all that exists in terms of the hole is the novelty itself, and even there, the format has made some inroads—even in markets where somebody is playing the '80s, even in markets where the classic rock station is pretty mass appeal and not vulnerable, even in markets that have already had some of the 'goofy person's station' gimmick," Ross continues. "Jack still managed to take 2.5 shares out of Denver [via NRC Broadcasting's KJAC], even though they already had Kim [Infinity adult top 40 KIMN] and Alice [Entercom adult top 40 KALC], even though there were already places in the market to hear the '80s, even though there were already places to hear variety. If it was anything, it was the novelty of the variety, because every other aspect of the format was already taken."
Will the novelty wear off? Do Bob and Jack have legs? "Because of the breadth of the years encompassed and the sheer volume of songs, you're not going to see the kind of burn factor that you saw with Jammin' Oldies and '70s stations," Folger says. "I seriously doubt it's going to wear out anytime soon, especially with Bob, where you have some currents in the mix."
RADIO PHYSICS
Among the format's challenges, Folger adds, are "resisting the temptation to drill playlists down too far and [devoting sufficient energy to] creative writing."
Kroeger says Bob today is not the same station he launched three years ago. "The biggest thing is managing those expectations," he says. "It's radio physics: What goes up must come down. The format runs a really big library and attention has to be paid to balancing rock with pop/AC, because it's really easy to sound like a classic rock station one hour and an AC station the next hour."
Grey contends that "as long as the 'Oh, wow' records only come up once in a while," the format will avoid the problems that the Arrow and '70s oldies stations encountered. "I think it does have legs."
Ross believes there will always be a hole for a station that combines '70s and '80s oldies. "The previous generation didn't want to go to three different stations to hear the oldies it grew up with," he observes. "And there is no inherent reason that it has to whither after a couple of years. Oldies and classic rock stations didn't shrivel up after a few years. The fact that every gold-based format has problems says something about PDs, not necessarily about the audience."
"The format is going to grow beyond belief in the next few years," Folger predicts. "In three years, you'll have a station with a wide playlist of all different kinds of music in every market. It's an exciting time for radio."
Grey believes radio audiences are clamoring for more variety and less repetition. "Everybody's crying out for that," he says. "And to some extent, we haven't been listening." |