Their stations don’t have much in common musically, but both Triple-A KINK Portland p.m. driver Gustav and his Alternative KTBZ (The Buzz) Houston counterpart Theresa were talking about Stevie Nicks on Wednesday afternoon, within a few minutes of each other.
Nicks came up on The Buzz because a listener had reached out to plug his girlfriend’s candle-making business. Theresa had checked it out and found the vibe to be “very Stevie Nicks/Lana Del Rey.” Gustav set up “Edge of Seventeen” by talking about how cool it had been to see Nicks on Saturday Night Live, even if the current season was otherwise just OK.
The state of every rock format these days is informed by not having a Fleetwood Mac-level superstar band. Both KINK and the Buzz have been standouts in their respective formats for thriving anyway. In Nielsen’s just-released October PPM ratings, both stations are No. 3 in their markets. The Buzz is up 4.9-5.7, while KINK is up 5.4-6.5, its best share since 1992 according to ratings historian Chris Huff.
The Buzz and PD Elliott Wood last appeared in these pages in 2020 as one of a handful of rock-leaning Alternative chart reporters that stood out in a format that was then experimenting with The Kid Laroi and 24K Goldn. KINK was one of our “Intriguing Stations of 2021,” under then-PD Gene Sandbloom, in part for playing Olivia Rodrigo, as well as Elton John & Dua Lipa’s “Cold Heart.”
Four years later, Alternative isn’t rocking much harder, except for library material and artists already in the format (Jack White, Linkin Park). While some PDs were quick to assail anything that resembled Hip-Hop, there’s still plenty of streaming-driven pop but these days that’s Myles Smith or David Kushner. To some extent, that reflects the influence of Triple-A on its adjacent format. Is Triple-A a good neighbor for sending over Good Neighbours? It’s worth noting that KTBZ isn’t playing that band, top 10 at both formats.
Under Ken Benson and Max Dugan, who became co-PDs in 2023, KINK still has some pop component—the station just began playing Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)”—although it felt less noticeable when I heard them this time. Promotionally, the station was giving away tickets to Cyndi Lauper’s farewell tour, as well as a “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” weekend to see her in Las Vegas. Next week, the station begins giving away Zach Bryan tickets and qualifying winners for a New York flyaway.
Here’s KINK just before 3 p.m. on October 30:
- Zach Bryan, “Pink Skies”
- Everclear, “Santa Monica (Watch the World Die)”
- R.E.M., “Man on the Moon”
- Beck, “Loser”
- Benson Boone, “Beautiful Things”
- Cars, “You Might Think”
- Lumineers, “Ophelia”
- Sublime, “Santeria”
- Myles Smith, “Stargazing”
- Police, “Roxanne”
- Jack Johnson, “Upside Down”
- Stevie Nicks, “Edge of Seventeen”
- Good Neighbours, “Home”
- Stereo MCs, “Connected”
- Killers, “Mr. Brightside”
- Zach Bryan f/Kacey Musgraves, “I Remember Everything”
- Blondie, “Call Me”
On the Buzz, Theresa was the only personality I’ve heard so far acknowledging the upcoming election. She had already voted, she said. She encouraged anxious listeners to “stop watching the news” and “social media.” Instead, “walk a dog. If you don’t have one, find one.”
Besides being part of iHeart’s $1,000 cash giveaway, The Buzz was also giving away tickets to Jerry Cantrell and to Linkin Park in Dallas. Listeners could win the latter by singing a Linkin Park song on the iHeart app talkback feature. Here’s The Buzz just before 3 p.m., October 30:
- Staind, “It’s Been Awhile”
- Papa Roach, “No Apologies”
- Third Eye Blind, “Graduate”
- Butthole Surfers, “Pepper”
- Linkin Park, “Lost”
- Jimmy Eat World, “The Middle”
- Bush, “Glycerine”
- Breaking Benjamin, “Red Cold River”
- Three Days Grace, “Never Too Late”
- Green Day, “Welcome to Paradise”
- Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Around the World”
- Gorillaz, “Clint Eastwood”
- Imagine Dragons, “Enemy”
- P.O.D., “Alive”
Of course, I have to comment on this. Firstly, thanks for being one of the very few trade riders to give alternative and AAA the respect it deserves, it grew very tiresome to see top 40 and country as the only formats acknowledged in the radio industry. Also, I would like to congratulate those respective stations for having such good ratings, I’m a fan of them both. I’m a little divided, though, I know who their generational target is, because I came up with much of this music, And I don’t know how I feel about the fact that in order to be a successful commercial rock station these days you basically have to be about 85% gold every hour. I’m on an AR now, fortunately voice tracking and not programming, happy to be out of that, but when I did program a AAA, I realized that there are two problems if you were going to do this. You either have to go all in on a lot of the new music coming out, and there’s so much turnover on that chart, or you have to go all in on gold, which means with that strategy, you’re going to have to pick select currents and bang them into the ground. Once again, this is complicated, because AAA is one of the very few formats where every single station sounds different and has its own objectives, but I still contend that one of its biggest problems is a lack of consensus. It’s an industry term, and with it always being that, it will never appeal to general advertisers, even if most of the music featured, would be played on a station they would listen to. I would contend that AAA is closer to adult hits these days than hot, at least commercially. That’s the problem, though, consensus, new music is not the problem at all. Maybe it was a few years ago, but now it’s an excuse, Or at most generation targeting decision, which is something Ac is contending with.
Great comment, BC. I live in Houston, so I know all about The Buzz and how grounded they have been in 90’s and early 2000’s commercial alternative. I think they’re doing well, despise of their playlist. Their target audience is definitely those who grew up in the 80’s and 90’s. I wish we had a AAA station. If we did, I’d like to program it, because I love what KINK and KGSR did in their hay-day.
Hi Sean:
I dug out this older column trying to learn more about KINK-FM. I had been mostly listening to KUTX, but haven’t enjoyed them as much since most of the Texas music migrated to a separate stream.
I rediscovered KINK again lately and find their music seems designed just for my tastes. (Any station that will take me from Zach Bryan to Death Cab is okay by me). I also think the “One-hundred-one Things We Love About Portland” is brilliant and so well written. The long spotblocks on commercial radio are harder to sit through, but even those seem a bit more restrained on KINK. Kudos to the programming team at this legendary station! Hope you are doing well Sean!
MAX
Great to hear from you, Max! Have you heard Indie 88 Toronto? Sun Radio Austin?