The Intriguing Stations of 2019 article was supposed to come out a week earlier than it did. But it was in early January 2020 that iHeart Radio began a year of industry-shaking layoffs and consolidation. The cutbacks were unprecedented in their scope, but entirely within the spirit of iHR’s very public 20-year campaign for “better local through national.” It was a hard week to celebrate radio when so many broadcasters were wondering what the future looked like, particularly for local radio.
When I did publish Intriguing Stations of 2019, I got an e-mail from Australian radio consultant Craig Bruce asking, basically, “Is that all you’ve got?” Using my column as a listening guide, Bruce felt he encountered too many sweepers and positioners and not enough of the unique on-air personality that he (and many broadcasters) felt was radio’s only remaining point of differentiation.
It was a valid question, and one I’ve tried to head off for more than 15 years or so of writing the Intriguing articles. I still find a lot of radio I want to hear, and I’ve got a three-page listening “to-do” list to prove it. Sometimes even formats of sweepers and older songs, when innovatively assembled, are game-changing. Much of what has been chronicled over the years is the continued influence of Bob-FM and the industry drive to find the next one. Sea-change stations are important, but quirky listens and innovative failures keep me busy in the meantime. If you read this column, I trust some will intrigue you also. But I gird for “is that all you’ve got?” every year. So if “quirky fun with some oh-wow songs” isn’t enough for our present challenges, I understand.
Bruce and I resolved to write a column together; I wanted to discuss, among other things, how much responsibility any one station shouldered for “saving radio.” That term is in quotes because some of my readers don’t believe radio needs saving, while others believe that we’re well beyond that.
Then the pandemic hit, and we never got to that column. Broadcasters had predicted cutbacks and consolidations among other ownership groups. That might have been speculation in January. By spring it was reality. As the months wore on, even the industry’s most admired groups were making cutbacks as well. By summer, even some big name radio stations were mostly sweepers and positioners, too.
In most years, I remind readers that Intriguing Stations is about the stations that represent a change in radio programming, or perhaps made a notable comeback. It’s not about the stations that are reliably great, and just keep on keeping on. After the layoffs, I asked readers to supply a list of what stations were still managing to do radio right, and that was the opportunity to salute WCBS-FM New York; KRTH (K-Earth 101) Los Angeles; WDKX Rochester, N.Y.; WXPN Philadelphia; and many other heritage outlets.
But after a year in which “reliably great” could no longer be relied on, it was indeed the big enduring brands that proved handy in a crisis last year. They were stations where personality was indeed a difference-maker. Not every personality I appreciated last year was groundbreaking, but they did make me feel like somebody was there for the audience. And I did discover, after many years, WMMR Philadelphia night host Jacky Bam Bam, and he was like nobody I’d heard recently. Plus WXPN did a Top 2020 countdown and got national press coverage. How could I not mention it?
Radio’s crises didn’t entirely bring new station launches to a halt last year, but it’s hard to point to a breakthrough FM station. I wrote 15 “First Listen” columns in 2020. Only 10 were about brand-new stations (rather than existing stations that I had recently discovered). Only six were about local FM radio stations, as opposed to other forms of audio. WMIA (Totally 93.9) Miami was one of my best-received profiles of the year, but it’s not a 6-plus success story yet. And just as iHR’s most notable launch of 2019 was its all-podcast format, its most significant launch in 2020 was the multi-market rollout of the Black Information Network. (BIN also made iHR a purchaser, not a seller, of radio stations last year.)
One of this column’s ongoing predictions has been that when broadcasters no longer had the wherewithal to provide hosted, produced radio, that would become the job of its digital competitors. In 2020, Spotify created its own morning show, “The Get Up.” Spotify also enabled self-published podcasts using licensed music, something put to use both by the syndicated Throwback 2K and my Edison Research colleague Tom Webster’s Deep Six podcast.
Broadcasters hadn’t taken the prospect of their deep-pocketed competitors venturing into hosted, produced radio seriously, in part because Apple’s Beats 1 had gained immediate publicity but not traction. In 2020, Beats 1 was rebranded as Apple Music 1, along with the launch of Apple Music Country and the next-gen Classic Hits format Apple Hits 1. The Country format was the one most in competition with a mainstream format, and landed just as the industry was learning to jump-start hits with streaming and outside broadcast radio’s walls. Apple Music 1 remains its own format, but on Wednesday afternoon, I heard Zane Lowe interviewing the newly phenomenal pop star Olivia Rodrigo. The conversation turned to Smashing Pumpkins and Rage Against the Machine, and suddenly the two worlds intersected.
Other intriguing developments beyond broadcast: Urban AC KTSU Houston launching progressive Hip-Hop/R&B format “The Vibe” on a mix of its own air and online; the U.K.’s Podcast Radio, which became the home of former KROQ Los Angeles morning man Gene “Bean” Baxter; ROR readers’ favorite KNXFM93.com, saluting the ‘70s soft-rock outlet; and, for those times when all you indeed want are a succession of “oh-wow” songs, the return of my favorite outlet, Jofox Radio. Australia’s SCA struck a wise alliance that created Soundcloud Radio. Urban AC WHUR Washington devoted an HD-2 channel to the Quiet Storm programming that it helped innovate 45 years ago.
Absolute Radio was one of the U.K.’s pioneers of brand extension. Its pop-up VE Day station, Absolute Radio ’40s, was a brilliant moment–inspirational on multiple levels. (Even with the knowledge that the stunt received government funding, it was still a reminder of what U.S. radio has not done with its side channels.)
Then there was Village Radio, the in-store service that plays in around 30 stores of a New York/New Jersey area supermarket franchisee. “Oh wow songs heard in supermarkets” is a perennial topic among radio people. VR has some of that, too; there’s a Facebook thread now among friends who heard them playing “Automatic” by the Pointer Sisters. But during the pandemic, they’ve also become a voice of encouragement for employees and shoppers that sounds more on-target than some of what I’ve heard on broadcast radio.
A few other favorite places on the Infinite Dial did not survive the downturn. At this writing, you have a few days left to hear John Gorman’s oWow Radio, one of the few individual-broadcaster attempts to do a full-fledged local station without an antenna. Radio Disney Country, which championed female artists at Country, has already signed off, while Radio Disney’s last days are imminent.
On broadcast radio, I found myself coming back to the heritage CHRs that somehow managed to avoid the steep downturn the format experienced last year, particularly WKRZ Wilkes-Barre, Pa., and KJYO (KJ103) Oklahoma City, two stations that proved similarly durable during CHR’s early ‘90s crisis. If you’re looking for a teen-pop boom to signal a resurgence at CHR, KJ103 is also the CHR with the longest running support of the band BTS. I also liked WKCI (KC101) New Haven, Conn., for its ‘90s/early 2K weekends, and KFTZ (Z103) Idaho Falls for taking the opposite approach and being the CHR station that most enthusiastically embraced streaming stories.
WERQ (92Q) Baltimore and WZMX (Hot 93.7) Hartford, Conn., were two Hip-Hop stations that largely withstood that format’s travails. KLJY-HD-2 (Boost 101.9) St. Louis, one of the strongest proponents of Christian Hip-Hop/R&B, moved to a full-market signal at year’s end, becoming KXBS (Boost 95.5) and giving that format a new showplace.
It’s also hard not to go back to the Soft ACs that endured after the initial late ‘10s excitement over the format diminished. At year’s end, KISQ (The Breeze) San Francisco and WFEZ (Easy 93.1) Miami, celebrating its 10th anniversary, were still proving the format’s durability. So did WRCH (Lite 100.5) Hartford, Conn., nominally Mainstream AC, but more traditional than some peers.
Classic Hits WAKY Louisville, Ky., is a perennial in this column, but led the market at points in 2020. Bobby Rich’s KDRI (The Drive) Tucson, Ariz., was another readers’ favorite, and was about to break even as a stand-alone radio station in the middle of a pandemic. WNKN (Classic Country 105.9) Cincinnati and Classical WETA Washington, D.C., aren’t column perennials, but they were two examples of “niche” stations that suddenly maximized available listening by being programmed for older listeners and longer listening spans, the opposite of what broadcasters had been told to do in the PPM era.
When I asked Bruce for his favorite stations, he went back to some heritage outlets as well: New Zealand’s CHR ZM Network and Heritage Rock Radio Hauraki. Both Bruce and an ROR reader sent me back to Australia’s Triple-J, whose version of Alternative includes Bea Miller and the Kid LAROI; it was interesting to see Entercom’s Alternative outlets, including the new WDZH (Alt 98.7) Detroit, evolve a little further along those lines over the course of 2020. I also found myself back on resurgent Triple-A WXRT Chicago. Like Triple-J, it was a station that advocated for the music and made listeners feel connected at a time when it mattered.
I’ve particularly liked Alternative radio in Canada for the last five years, both for its ability to balance pop and guitar-rock and for the quality of homegrown acts. I’ve also liked Canadian Country radio, where female acts never stopped being part of the format, and where CKLC (Pure Country 99) Kingston, Ont., went to a 50/50 male/female mix during last year’s controversy about representation at the format. At year’s end, it was also interesting to hear WNCK (Quahog Country) Cape Cod, Mass., become a rare example of a non-commercial take on mainstream Country.
As is the case each year, I have come to the end of a long list worried about sins of omission. It’s not all I’ve got, as it turns out. There is a long list of heritage stations atop Radioinsight’s newly unveiled list of share and cume leaders, and it’s only grazed here. If you don’t see your favorite station of 2020, please leave a comment. Or it may be on my to-do list.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on WBZZ Pittsburgh. It’s one of the few CHR’s that’s transitioned from HAC but really embracing a lot of rhythmic gold almost sounding like a Rhythmic AC at times. Intriguing for sure.
It makes a lot of sense given Pittsburgh’s history in the late ’90s and early ’00s when WKST (Kiss 96.1) was so heavily Hip-Hop and R&B driven.