Radio listeners have few choices but mainstream

BY TRACIE DUNGAN ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

posted on Sunday, February 11, 2007

Listeners who like mainstream radio ? country, rock, talk, Top 40, sports and religious programming ? can find more than one commercial station that caters to each in Washington and Benton counties.

But what about indie rock or industrial rock? Jazz? Children and youth programming? World music, calypso, zydeco, urban, ethnic, electronic or dance?

From August 2002 to August 2006, the number of radio stations targeting audiences in Washington and Benton counties grew from 26 to 39, according to www.100000watts.com, a radio industry Web site. The number of FM stations went from 19 to 30, while AM stations grew from seven to nine. While many of the stations originate in Benton or Washington counties, a growing number are stations from Fort Smith, Tulsa and Springfield, Mo., that are hoping to pick up listeners.

During that time, full-time formats the area lost included “smooth jazz,” “’80s hits,” “variety,” and a short-lived CBS station devoted to “TV audio.”

The two-county region has maintained a spot on the FM dial devoted to “regional Mexican” and an AM Spanish station. And it has added an AM Spanish news-talk station and two FM stations with Spanish formats.

Outside the mainstream

Radio fans who long for something outside the mainstream are probably tuning into university-owned stations, which are there in part to provide alternatives.

These alternatives are known in the radio business as “niche” formats.

KUAF-FM, 91.3, is the public radio station and National Public Radio affiliate. It is owned by the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.

While KUAF is mainly devoted to news and classical music, it plays several hours of jazz, blues, folk and bluegrass on weekends, said Rick Stockdell, station manager and a UA associate professor of journalism.

But he doesn’t think there’s a local commercial station that could make it with any one of those formats alone, he said.

“We don’t worry about our shareholders, because we don’t have them ? we don’t have stock. If jazz could be successful commercially here, there probably would be a jazz station,” Stockdell said.

“Clearly, more people are interested in Top 40 and in country. And if you can be the top country station in town, you’re going to make a lot of money.”

If anything, Stockdell thinks the local market might have underestimated the demand for “urban” formats such as hip-hop. He believes urban music has appeal beyond the area’s relatively small black demographic.

UA’s student-run college radio station, KXUA-FM, 88.3, has been offering an eclectic mix of alternative formats since it hit the airwaves in April 2000.

“We have everything from world beat, to television and film scores, to Japanese pop,” said Joel Bunch, a UA senior from Benton who works as KXUA’s promotions director. “Then on the weekends, we have even more genre shows.”

There’s Bunch’s metal show, “Thunder Mountain,” and other shows covering jazz, bluegrass, “jam band,” rock history and ’80s bands.

There’s a show called “Reggae Road Block,” a punk show called “The Gutter,” and another known as “Orange Skies” that hones in on psychedelic rock and folk rock.

“If people didn’t like what commercial radio has to offer, it wouldn’t exist,” Bunch said. “But for people who don’t ? we exist.”

One requirement for KXUA disc jockeys is that they be open to all kinds of music, Bunch said.

“They’re going to have to play some weird stuff,” he said, and can’t merely dip into their personal CD collection. “Sometimes people don’t like that.”

WHAT THE MARKET WANTS

Joe Conway, the market manager for Northwest Arkansas for Atlanta-based Cumulus Broadcasting Inc., said the area’s radio market is simple to explain. The company has seven stations broadcasting out of Washington and Benton counties.

“Radio is as supply and demand as you’ll find,” Conway said. “There has to be an audience that can support selling it to advertisers. Advertisers have to feel that there’s enough of an audience.

“Making money is certainly a big part of what we do. If the audience is there, then someone will program to that audience.”

Personally, Conway likes a lot of jazz.

“But trying to make money doing a format that niche in a market the size of Northwest Arkansas just isn’t viable,” he said.

In Northwest Arkansas, Cumulus owns KFAY-AM, 1030; KYNG-AM, 1590; KKEG-FM, 92.1; KAMO-FM, 94.3; KYNF-FM, 94.9; KQSM-FM, 98.3; and KMCK-FM, 105.7.

Conway doesn’t consider satellite radio much of a threat, contending the two satellite companies, XM and Sirius, have trouble getting subscribers.

“What people want is local radio,” Conway said. “They want local news and information, Razorbacks and school closings. We’ve worked very hard to localize all of our stations.”

In the last four years or so, he said, Cumulus has increased its DJ personalities and tipped its local and syndicated programming mix more in favor of local.

“What satellite has done is make broadcasters realize how important local radio is,” Conway said.

SIMILAR, BUT POPULAR

Dave Ashcraft, director of programming and operations for the four Northwest Arkansas stations owned by San Antonio-based Clear Channel Communications Inc., said those who wonder why there aren’t more niche formats have a legitimate question. But Clear Channel is sticking to its formats for now.

“All four of our stations have good strong audiences and good strong revenues, so we don’t see the need to do anything differently,” Ashcraft said.

“The formats we’re in are basically based on the demographics of the market,” he said. “The formats we have are the most popular. The same is true of our competitor ? they have similar formats.”

Ashcraft believes most music genres are fairly represented in the local market for the time being.

“If you look at the radio dial, there’s country, there’s adult hits, there’s Top 40, there’s classic rock, there’s new rock, there’s news-talk, there’s Christian,” he said.

In Northwest Arkansas, Clear Channel owns KIGL-FM, 93.3; KMXF-FM, 101.9; KKIX-FM, 103.9; and KEZA-FM, 107.9.

All four Clear Channel stations have local morning shows, and decisions on the mix of local and syndicated programming are made locally, Ashcraft said.

Ashcraft and Conway said they’re open to listeners’ suggestions.

“My question is, what would you like to hear?” Ashcraft said. “We have all kinds of feedback lines.” Clear Channel stations also have feedback sections on their Web sites.

“People call all the time,” Conway said, adding that he responds to e-mails from listeners also. “People are often very passionate about what they want to hear.”

RADIO ROLE MODEL

At one time, UA student Bunch longed to be one of those cool, freewheeling DJs who could do their own thing, spinning tunes of their choice and impressing the radio audience.

When he was coming of age in Benton, Bunch would listen to the “Chest Brockwell Show” on KABF-FM, 88.3. (These days, the non-commercial Little Rock station boasts diverse and experimental programs, call-in talk shows and music formats such as blues, bluegrass, black gospel, progressive country, alternative rock, jazz, and tejano.)

Brockwell would play different styles of rock, including electronic stuff. Bunch recalls calling Brockwell so much that the two became friends.

Bunch thought about becoming a DJ, and even researched it as a profession, including taking some intern jobs at commercial stations.

He found the prospects of becoming an on-air free spirit like Brockwell would be, while not impossible, really difficult.

“It’s difficult to make a living, and the playlists are set,” said Bunch, who regards his work at KXUA as a hobby. “They’re based on national playlists.

“When you’re a DJ at a community station or a college station, you have way much more say in what you want your show to sound like.”

Popular niche formats for college students today include indie rock by bands such as Modest Mouse and Deathcab for Cutie, Bunch said.

“A lot of people want to hear hip-hop,” he said. Other popular genres are ’80s pop and alternative music, and Bunch believes ’80s influences are evident in a lot of today’s popular music.

THE FUTURE OF RADIO

Recent and emerging radio technologies such as satellite, Internet, podcasting and high-definition radio will change the way listening audiences hear their favorite programs.

HD radio will provide radio listeners more format choices if it catches on, Stockdell predicts.

“What’s possible with HD radio is more channels,” he said. “With digital, you can cut up the bandwidth a little thinner.”

XM Satellite Radio describes the medium as “the radio industry’s first major technological change since the popularization of FM radio in the 1970s: the creation of a third broadcast medium, transmitted by satellite, now taking its place alongside AM and FM on the radio dial.”

Listeners have to buy special HD-capable radios to receive the signal.

This could be a conundrum, Stockdell believes: Listeners will want to know there are a variety of HD channels there before they invest in HD radios, and radio stations typically want to know an audience is there before committing new resources.

HD radio offers a digital signal that’s said to be comparable to CD quality, Stockdell said, though he added: “To my ears, it doesn’t sound much different.” It could definitely provide more listening options, though.

KUAF is one of six stations in Arkansas now offering HD radio, Arbitron’s Benbow said, adding that the other five are in Little Rock. KUAF announced in March 2006 that it had begun broadcasting in HD.

In a few weeks, KUAF should add even more versions of itself, all at the same point on the dial, 91.3, Stockdell said.

Adding HD channel versions will allow KUAF to rotate its formats less by providing more full-time formats.

Internet, satellite and iPod technologies are exciting, Bunch said, because they allow people to tailor their listening for their personal tastes.

“I think Internet radio is only going to get bigger, especially with podcasting,” he said. “People can put podcasts of their favorite shows on their iPods.”

As far as satellite radio goes, it’s getting more commercialized, he said. “But because they have more freedom, it’s a little more interesting than commercial radio.”

Unmacht is not hopeful that Internet and satellite media will encourage traditional radio to offer more diversity, at least not anytime soon.

For now, the government has allotted only two spots to satellite stations, Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio Inc., he said. Financially and logistically it was not easy for them, he said. It took the stations a decade to get licensed and about five years to build infrastructure. Local stations don’t really have to worry about competing with them for local advertisers.

“I think what’s going to happen is the same thing that happened with AM radio in the ’70s,” Unmacht said. “AMs didn’t respond to the changes the FMs were introducing into the market, like fewer commercials.”

Then in the early ’80s, the AMs all of a sudden realized they were losing money, he said.

Traditional stations may morph into Internet radio, Unmacht said. They are already getting into Internet radio, but are doing so through simulcasts.

His prediction: “As we see more wireless Internet going into your car, it will replace traditional radio.”