Rock-out punch

by Mark Brown, Rocky Mountain News, March 15, 2003

Rap builds the buzz and stokes the heat. Country gets the divas and the big-hat guys on the Ford truck commercials. Smooth urban/soul seducers get the headlines, good and bad.

But rock 'n' roll still dominates radio in Denver and across much of the country. Rock's where the most listeners are - where the ratings battles are fiercest, where the most money is made, where stars are born and careers are ruined.

And Denver is by far one of the bloodiest rock-music battlegrounds in the nation.

"More rock is being played in Denver than in New York, Chicago or Los Angeles," says Jeff Pollack, president of Pollack Media Group, one of the nation's leading consulting firms. "Denver is definitely one of the most competitive rock markets in the country - one of the most competitive markets in the country, period."

Pollack notes Denver has 42 radio signals, as opposed to 90 in Los Angeles. "Think of that ratio compared to the population," Pollack says.

According to Arbitron, country station KYGO was the most-listened-to radio station in the most recent fall ratings, with a 6.7 share. (A share is the percentage of radio listeners, tuned in at a given time to a particular station).

But the rest of the top 10 consists mostly of stations that played some, if not all, rock music: KBCO, KQMT (The Mountain), KRFX (The Fox), KOSI, KXKL (Kool), KBPI and others. Add up their listeners and you get a share of 27.8 - and that's not counting rock outlets such as Area 93 KTCL, Alice 106 and others.

Admittedly, the definition of what's rock has stretched, from Kool's oldies (Ritchie Valens, the Turtles) to KTCL's modern rock (New Found Glory, Linkin Park).

The classic hook

But classic rock has become the biggest battlefield. The music is a mixture of veteran artists such as Led Zeppelin, Bonnie Raitt, Bruce Springsteen, Jimmy Buffett, Rolling Stones and Lyle Lovett, as well as newer artists of a certain merit and depth, including John Mayer, Norah Jones, Jewel and Jack Johnson.

And three stations are battling it out for supremacy in this format, with about $25 million in ad revenues at stake:

• 97.3 KBCO in Boulder: a 5.4 share in the most recent Arbitrons, but tops in the coveted 25-to-54 target age market three of the four past quarters;

• 103.5 The Fox: a 3.9 share, but as high as second in recent ratings periods in the 25/54 market;

• 99.5 The Mountain: Formerly The Hawk, this upstart hit 3.5 in the most recent Arbitron.

"The Mountain coming on in May of last year was a big competitive change," says Mike O'Connor, FM programming director for Clear Channel Radio, which owns KBCO, The Fox and 11 other stations in the state.

"They got as high as fifth place in the 25/54 demographic, and now they've settled back down to eighth. But because they play more KBCO-style music, they have a better chance of being mass appeal than The Hawk."

Mass appeal can mean massive ad revenues. Each share of listenership is worth roughly $2 million annually in advertising, O'Connor says. So, based on current share ratings, the Mountain, KBCO and The Fox are battling for listeners with about $25 million a year at stake.

Despite the media focus on younger people with disposable income, older demographics spend more. Women 25 to 54 years old command the greatest advertising dollars.

The next most lucrative market is all adults - men and women - in that 25/54 demographic. The overall ratings, generally measured with listeners 12 and older, don't matter that much in this game.

"We're the top station for 25/54, which is really all we care about," KBCO program director Scott Arbough says. "The goal of our station is to stay within that demographic, focusing on a 34-, 35-year-old listener."

The day begins

That most matters at day's start. "The listening levels are highest in the mornings . . . and command the most advertising dollars," O'Connor says.

The Mountain, The Fox and KBCO are all after those morning dollars, using three distinct approaches:

• The Fox has Lewis & Floorwax for four hours of jokes, talk and interviews each weekday morning; they quit playing music during the morning show nearly two years ago.

• The Mountain has a team, DJ Archer and newsman Ace Young, who keep the focus on music, with brief news breaks.

• KBCO blends the two, with Bret Saunders playing music, but augmenting it with interviews, trivia, contests and more.

You also have three different philosophies about music.

"The Fox plays the songs that have stood the test of time," O'Connor says. "We in radio look at one thing: What songs appeal to the widest possible audience in a particular demographic? We don't focus on a genre of music. We focus on an audience segment, then play music that appeals to that segment."

"We can't go digging into some deep album track off an old Amazing Rhythm Aces album while we're trying to paint with this big wide brush of different styles," KBCO's Arbough says. "We need to stick with the songs that are the best songs from each of those artists, eras and styles."

"Radio has gotten safe and bland and everyone's playing not to lose," says Mountain DJ Mike Casey. "The Mountain is really by the seat of your pants in some ways. It's as simple as someone coming in and saying 'You know, I was thinking we should play some John Prine today.' "

When it arrived last year, The Mountain vowed to shun the usual gimmicks: No on-air contests, no shock jocks, no talking over the music. They've stuck to it - even when promoters gave them prime tickets for Jimmy Buffett and other shows. Station officials also vowed to play more songs on the air, and they have accomplished that, to an extent.

Declining promotions "is a leap of faith, it's a paradigm change," says program director Dan Michaels. "This is what it's gonna be. Get used to it."

"KBCO is a great radio station, but what happened with all these stations is that the corporation dictates. It becomes more and more about the sales," Michaels says. "They talk about the music, but they also have to talk about the promos, who's at what car lot. It just makes more talk."

The Mountain says it's more experimental - playing entire album sides, pulling deep tracks and the like, with the belief that even if a listener doesn't like something, they'll return.

"Even if you leave for that song, you'll come back. There's something unusual that's going to happen," Michaels says. "Radio, long-term, only survives if you remember why it was cool in the first place."

Competitors say the Mountain's versatility is over-hyped. The Fox has long played album sides, deep cuts and bootleg tracks. "One of the myths is that the Mountain never repeats songs, and that's just not the case," O'Connor says.

Rotation, rotation, rotation

Repetition is one of the biggest complaints for listeners, and in some ways that reputation is earned. Stations that specialize in a genre play hits in heavy rotation. And with so many stations in the Denver market drawing on many of the same veteran artists, you can actually get more repetition by jumping around. For example, you can hear the same hot Dave Matthews or John Mayer song on a handful of stations.

"There's a lot of sharing. John Mayer is an artist you'll hear on KBCO, KIMN, Alice, KTCL. Most listeners are button-pushers," Arbough says. "The reality is the (individual) radio station isn't playing the song that much."

One answer to repetition is to change it up. KBCO will play live Studio-C versions of songs, so as not to play the same cut over and over. The Mountain has gone to digging out different versions - Tom Petty's early band, Mudcrutch, doing his hit Don't Do Me Like That, or Petty's live Sept. 11 version of I Won't Back Down.

"We want people to say 'Oh wow' when they listen," Michaels says.

At an average of 12 songs an hour, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, a radio station theoretically could fit in more than 2,000 different tunes. In reality, from March 3-9:

• The Mountain played 1,048 different songs, according to O'Connor, with 53 of those repeating four times or more during that week.

• The Fox played 1,054 different songs during those same days (that's skewed higher than normal by a short-term musical promotion on weekends), with 80 of them repeating four times or more.

• KBCO played 929 different songs (no figures on repeats were available).

O'Connor points out that Lewis & Floorwax's show takes up 20 prime programming hours a week - room for another 240 songs. Take that into account, he says, and the variety the Fox plays is virtually equal to the Mountain.

Listeners might complain about repetition, but this is an extraordinary amount of different music being played. The average classic rock station plays no more than 400 different songs in that same seven-day period, Pollack noted.

"What you're describing is three radio stations that are competing in an environment that has been dominated by KBCO," he said. "They set the tempo . . . the other stations are trying to emulate that and carve a part of their share."

The human touch

Another overlap among the stations is the emphasis on personalities. All feature live DJs most, if not all, of the time, when just the opposite trend is happening across the country.

The Fox is front and center with Lewis & Floorwax. KBCO's Saunders' personality is reflected through his morning show, and Ginger's midday show is consistently state's highest rated. The Mountain hired Denver radio veteran Pete McKay, Beatles-expert Archer, L.A. veteran Ace Young and free-form radio pioneer Raechel Donohue.

Though some deny it, the stations do adjust to each other in the market. Before it was sold and turned into a Spanish-language station, 96.5 The Peak took a run at '80s rock, and suddenly other stations in the market emphasized it, too. The Mountain has taken to longer back-stories about the music, and it seems to be creeping into other stations' formats as well.

"We have a ways to go. They're doing very well. But so are we," says Michaels. "Making the top five will be just fine. Our people can still make plenty of money. And they are. People can wait for the other shoe to drop; it's not gonna happen."

The Peak "re-energized KBCO," says Arbough. "KBCO is a . . . very well-liked radio station. We didn't get that way by reacting. With the Mountain, there hasn't been (any changes) and we don't foresee any.

"Our agenda is to provide as wide a variety as we can, focusing on adults 25/54. If the Mountain is coming at KBCO, it's because KBCO is successful at what we do and they want a piece of that."

"There's been a lot of Mountains and Hawks and formats like that, other morning shows have come in," says the Fox morning show's Rick Lewis.

"We never talk about the so-called competition. What's the point? We've been the dominant show of the market."

Mountain West Music 2002