Classic Alternative: A Tale Of Two “X”s

Ross on Radio readers are on top of things. I heard about Channel X New Zealand twice within minutes of its launch on Monday, May 8. To be fair, it was from ratings expert Chris Huff and Eric Jon Magnuson, two readers who have already demonstrated an ample interest in international radio. But Classic Alternative is a format that has always gotten a lot of attention from industry friends, even (or perhaps especially) when it’s on the other side of the world.

Owner Mediaworks is one of New Zealand’s two major groups. Channel X replaces its talk network Today FM in most New Zealand markets, including Auckland and Wellington. Many of these are songs that local listeners would have heard on CHR sister The Edge, which perhaps explains why the definition of Alternative can include Dance and Hip-Hop. (I also heard Darude’s “Sandstorm” on the first day.)

Here’s Channel X on its first day at 11:35 p.m.:

• Fiona Apple, “Criminal”
• Muse, “Starlight”
• Smashing Pumpkins, “1979”
• Green Day, “Minority”
• Frank Ocean, “Lost”
• Blur, “Song 2”
• Stellar, “Violent” (New Zealand’s 2000 Single of the Year winner)
• Kings of Leon, “Notion”
• Alanis Morissette, “Ironic”
• Eminem, “Lose Yourself”
• Duran Duran, “Come Undone”
• Dandy Warhols, “Bohemian Like You”
• Kooks, “Naïve”
• Weezer, “Say It Ain’t So”

Here’s the station at 12:30 p.m. local time on May 11:

• Pearl Jam, “Last Kiss”
• Florence + the Machine, “Dog Days Are Over”
• Spacehog, “In the Meantime”
• Ben Harper, “Diamonds on the Inside”
• Kings of Leon, “On Call”
• Arrested Development, “People Everyday”
• Incubus, “Wish You Were Here”
• Robin Schulz, “Sugar”
• Radiohead, “Fake Plastic Trees”
• Sugar Ray, “When It’s Over”
• Raconteurs, “Steady as She Goes”
• 10,000 Maniacs, “Because the Night”
• Linkin Park, “Breaking the Habit”
• MGMT, “Time to Pretend”
• Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Under the Bridge”

Channel X launched jockless and plans to stay that way. The station blurb on Mediaworks’ streaming app, Rova, declares “Channel X is all about the music … we can’t afford anything else.” There’s also a sweeper that begins with what seems like an authoritative-sounding intro: “Channel X News, Sport, and Weather … are not things we do. So you can Google it. Or ChatGPT it. Or go ask your mum.” 

(Rova, by the way, is one of my favorite streaming apps for design and ease of use. It’s also where I discovered a recent favorite small-market station, AC Beach FM Kapiti. It’s also interesting that Channel X is positioning itself as “streaming around the world in HD on Rova.”)

Cumulus’s WNNX (99X) Atlanta also relaunched without an airstaff. Shortly thereafter, it began reconstituting “The Morning X,” first with Steve Barnes, then with former PD Leslie Fram. As CMT SVP of Music Strategy, Fram has a full-time job. The duo is doing a two-hour 7-9 a.m. shift, bookended by classic material from the 1994-2003 version of the show. Soon thereafter, former APD/night host Will Pendarvis joined for afternoons, following the exit of PD/afternoon host Axel Lowe. The :00 ID promises “the original is evolving, and there’s more coming.”

When I began writing this story, I almost wrote that the industry interest in Classic Alternative was punching well above its ratings weight. Since its launch, however, 99X grew quickly, up 1.1-3.8 between December and March. In April, it went 3.8-3.6, but that’s still ahead of both of the market’s CHR and Country stations (which, to be fair, each control only half of a franchise) this month.

I took a Fresh Listen to both The Morning X and Pendarvis. During the 7 a.m. hour, the topics included:

• Audio from a station-sponsored comedy show featuring the raunchy and heavily redacted Bob the Queen, with a lot of content warnings. (The easiest-to-reprint joke, out-of-context, was “my husband is kinky. He asked me about a three-way and I said, ‘Who would we kick out?’”)
• How to stream the station. Barnes mentions that the station’s new tower is being “put together like Ikea” and jokes that the station jocks are getting off the air and building it every day. He also notes that he streams the station himself because “I don’t have an old-school radio.”
• Fram’s 7:30 Sleaze: Fram saw Taylor Swift on Saturday night, but the buzziest show had become Sunday night’s concert in a downpour. Then there was audio of Billie Eilish being forced to cancel a Mexican concert because of weather, as well as Kevin Costner’s divorce, Britney Spears’ autobiography delays, and Brad Pitt’s new The Gardener French Riviera Gin, which led Barnes to note that he’d be doing the show from France for five weeks after Memorial Day.
• A bit, unimaginable on any other radio station, about Shawn Mullins, prompted by playing “Lullaby,” the left-field 1998 hit broken by 99X in the waning moments of singer/songwriters as a major category on Alternative radio. “He’s still in town. Still doing his thing. We’ve got to get him on right away.”

Pendarvis was doing a special feature set of songs about “girls,” ending with Cracker’s “Euro-Trash Girl,” Matthew Sweet’s “Girlfriend,” and Devo’s “Girl U Want.” Here is the 4 p.m. hour that followed:

• Talking Heads, “Burning Down the House”
• Beastie Boys, “Intergalactic”
• Cure, “Let’s Go to Bed” (part of a “this day in rock history” feature on its 41^st anniversary)
• Collective Soul, “Gel”
• Jimmy Eat World, “The Middle”
• Gaslight Anthem, “The ’59 Sound”
• 311, “Creatures (For a While)”
• Bush, “Everything Zen”
• INXS, “Suicide Blonde”
• Lenny Kravitz, “Fly Away”
• Toad the Wet Sprocket, “Fall Down”
• Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Higher Ground”
• Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Black Summer” — the pair was part of a “That Was Then, This Is Now” feature on long-running acts
• David Bowie, “Let’s Dance”