Wide And Wonderful: A Little Ditty
'Bout Jack & Bob April 08, 2005 By Paul Heine
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’Äîbut 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’Äîpredating 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’Äîfor 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’ÄîCorus Radio, Rogers
Broadcasting and CHUM Broadcasting’Äîprograms 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’Äîand demand’Äîmore 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’Äîwhere 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’Äîeven 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."
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