TRIPLE-A: CAN THREE A'S BEAT A JACK? Bram Teitelman – Billboard For years, the triple-A format has been playing what it wants, has been all about the music and has featured a deep playlist spanning decades. Sound familiar?
The Bob/Jack phenomenon that began in Canada several years ago has blown up in the United States this year. While '80s, adult top 40 and classic hits are among the genres the new format draws from the most, the deep library and musical variety the stations promise have more in common with triple-A than anything else. With a different Bob/Jack/Ben/Mike popping up seemingly every week, is it something that triple-A programmers should be worried about?
In a word, the answer appears to be "no." "Not yet" is the two-word answer. Expanded by another word, "wait and see" is the approach most programmers are taking.
"It's really too early to tell," independently owned WTTS Indianapolis PD Brad Holtz says of the city's WGLD, which Susquehanna flipped to Jack from oldies. "Nationwide, these things are popping up so quickly that we really don't have a lot of Jacks in the country that have a ratings story at this point. It's hard to get a gauge right now. For all intents and purposes, the early research we see is that Jack will most likely affect hot ACs and classic rock stations."
Minneapolis got its own Jack station in April, when Infinity flipped '80s WXPT. "I've been able to watch this from afar, where the Bob/Jack format has done very well in Dallas and Austin, but it's still really new," Clear Channel triple-A KTCZ (Cities 97) PD Lauren Macleash says.
"I was pretty shocked to see them take the leap of faith in Chicago and New York for a format that's so unproven," she continues. "I don't want to take an elitist attitude and say that Jack won't affect us. I always keep my ears and eyes open whenever there's competition. But I don't believe in knee-jerk programming. I believe in focusing in on your attributes and benchmarks as a radio station and accentuating them to be the best Cities 97 that I can possibly be. So it's more of an imaging thing for us than it is changing the entire station around because one of these stations has arrived."
Others, like noncommercial WXPN Philadelphia PD Bruce Warren, are not concerned. (Greater Media flipped adult top 40 WMWX to Ben in March.) "I'm not worried about the version of Jack in Philly," he says. "Really curious music lovers might tune in to it because of the hype and the 'it's as good if not better than the iPod' stuff. I think they'll come to see that all that hype is complete bullshit, because you can't fool real music lovers. Our P1s, particularly our member P1s, will tune in; I'm not naive. But I think they'll tune in and tune out pretty quickly after a quarter-hour."
SBR Creative Media co-president Dave Rahn says that with the exception of NRC Broadcasting's KJAC Denver, one of the first Jack stations in the States, there has not been enough time to jump to any conclusions.
"It had a bit of a spike when they were marketing it, and it has faded," he says of KJAC. "I don't think we saw any evidence that it had anymore of an impact on the triple-As here than it did on any other station. Our analysis is that the Jack format draws from a lot of different places, and we haven't seen any evidence that it would draw more from triple-A more than anywhere else."
A MILE WIDE, AN INCH DEEP
While the 800-1,200 songs that the Bob/Jack format plays is more than most radio outlets, several triple-A programmers say their stations offer far more depth than the "we play anything" competitor.
"We might both play Sheryl Crow and John Mayer," Warren says. "But they're not going to play 'Rain King' by Counting Crows, they're going to play 'Round Here' or 'Mr. Jones.' They're not going to play 'Neon' by John Mayer. That would be a great fucking Ben station. It's still ultimately about hits."
"If you're a listener that goes from hot AC to a classic rock to a triple-A station, it's exciting and different for you," triple-A WXRV (the River) Boston PD Dana Marshall says of Mike, Entercom's answer to Jack in Beantown. "The first response I heard was, 'It's really nice to hear "Free Bird" once, but after that, I don't really need to hear it anymore.' It reminds me of a program that we used to do here at the River called 'Free Form Friday Night.' It wasn't a straight-up Jack format, but we'd pull out all kinds of crazy things. But we were a young radio station trying to grow our audience."
Macleash says her station's 21-year heritage helps defend against a Jack attack. "Cities with heritage triple-As are less vulnerable to a Jack station if in that market there has also been a successful classic rock station, a successful '80s station and a pretty decent hot AC, since those are the formats that Jack really pulls from," she says. "They're all upper-demo formats, and Jack stations all take pieces from those formats' playlists."
Marshall says, "If I was going to lose them to that kind of a format, I would lose them for assorted other reasons. We're independently owned, and we're pretty eclectic in our delivery, even over and above other triple-As. Triple-A used to be all over the place, and kind of came center, as did we, to some degree. But we've still been able to keep an awful lot of our diversity and a pretty large library, so if they like triple-A, then I don't think we're going to lose our core audience to a Jack format."
JACK IN A BOX
Many Jack stations are still jockless, letting the music and snarky promos do the talking. This is one area in which any station competing against the format can stand apart. "They have some OK imaging, but the jocks will make or break it," Warren says. "You can't fool real music fans."
Macleash says that 80% of the Bob/Jack stations do not have jocks. "There's not that relatability to the marketplace. It's a Jack-in-a-box, so to speak," she says. "There's not that connection. You can fire your entire staff and cut your losses there, and throw this format on. It's a quick way to eliminate a little bit of expenses, but a successful triple-A station has the advantage of having a real connection to its market. It's part of the inherent DNA of being a successful triple-A station. My jocks have been around for a long time, and they do an awesome job of continuing to connect with the listeners."
Holtz says, "The best defense is to remain on the offensive and keep a clear focus and vision of what your station is. A lot of people have said that triple-A is the original Jack. In a lot of ways it is, but we go even deeper. And the one thing that triple-A can do, which I believe is true in any city where triple-As and Jacks exist, is that triple-As are community-based radio stations that are serving the public interest. There's a level of interaction between triple-A radio stations and listeners that does not exist with Jack in its present form."
"Having been in triple-A all my life, I believe what the format brings to the table is so much more than just the music," Rahn adds. "What we've seen right now, the Jack stations are just focused on the music and the positioning of it. That's not to say that personalities won't become a part of it, but it's still early."
Some are finding that Jack stations are merely the old signal with a coat of fresh paint on them. Warren says there is little difference between Ben and its former incarnation as Mix 95.7, a modern AC station.
"My kids are 8 and 6 years old, and they love radio, and loved Mix 95.7," he says. "They couldn't wait to hear what the next song was on there . . . As soon as it flipped, I was driving around with my kids, and my oldest said, 'You know, Daddy, this new station Ben is telling us it's a little different, but they're still playing the same songs!' "
Macleash says of Minneapolis' Jack, "If you listen, it's not that much different than what Mix was as an '80s station. If you look at an hour, about 60%-70% of the songs are still the same. So other than the difference that there's no jocks or local connectivity to traffic, weather and other service elements, there isn't that much difference."
Triple-A could actually benefit from the influx of the new format, as fans of the stations that Bob/Jack replaced look elsewhere for music. "We didn't necessarily share a lot with oldies, but I would think there probably are a lot of disenfranchised upper-end listeners in their early '50s," Holtz says. "Certainly, our station as a classic-leaning triple-A station would be very listenable for those disenfranchised folks."
And on a larger scale, the diversity Jack promises could open listeners' minds to hearing a wider variety of music. "If you think about the world in terms of whether the pie is big or small, anything that draws people's attention to non-narrow radio formats is good for triple-A," Rahn says. "There are some people that have said that Jack is a form of triple-A. I think the only real common denominator is the size of the library and the amount of different titles and styles of music that are played. That ethic is similar to triple-A in that we're not narrowly defined by genre, style or library size. Beyond that, most of the Jack stations are playing in a different sandbox musically."
Macleash says, "It's a breath of fresh air, and it's setting a new standard for variety for all of us, which, in the long run, isn't necessarily a bad thing. It opens the door, but as far as sustaining that kind of growth, there's only so far you can go." |