You want to know what people like to talk about? Radio. Its influence as a medium is dwindling, yet its prominence as a discussion topic keeps going up, up, and up. Maybe the first point has something to do with the latter: when the pie is smaller, people are more inclined to fight for a slice. Case and point, more Jack FM-related e-mails, like the one that follows.
I was gonna let this go, but I was looking at the new book and I just can’t….
First off, anybody whose post contains “drop like a balloon” (not lead balloon, not leaky balloon) and follows that with “98.7’s The Zoo” has credibility problems.
Second, I’ve seen the same survey the Rolling Stone article refers to, and there’s a little more to the story than the RS blurb implies. Jack’s TSL isn’t great, but it’s equivalent to that of Classic Rock and better than Hot AC or CHR. And Jack’s cume is outstanding. The winter book indicates more people in the 25-54 age group spent at least some time listening to Jack than to any other station in the DFW market. Besides, everyone figured going in that Jack’s TSL would suck because of the diverse playlist.
And on the subject of new music, I have occasionally heard a song on Jack that I hadn’t heard in 15-to-20 years. Radio listeners don’t just want new, they also want fresh. Early 80’s songs that haven’t been aired in this market in a decade qualify as fresh.
Jack and its brethren may become the Jammin’ Oldies of the mid-decade, but the format has already outperformed anything else done on the 100.3 frequency in years.
And, finally, I’d point out that using Denver’s Jack station as an example of listener fatigue may not be terribly valid. KJAC is a serious rimshot. Its signal is better in Cheyenne and Laramie, Wyoming than it is in Denver. To me, it’s a wonder they can get anybody south of Boulder to listen to that signal no matter what the programming.
