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From the Wall Street Journal: "The Web site of
radio station KCJK-FM,
known as 105.1 Jack FM, features a picture of
an iPod and the taunt: 'Guess you won't be needing this thing anymore,
huh?'
"After years of tight playlists and narrow music formats,
KCJK in Kansas City, Mo., is trying to prove that it can give listeners
the same thing an iPod does: an eclectic
selection of music...
"Now the station is going against the grain of the past
two decades in radio, more than tripling
the number of song titles played on any given day. With
more than 1,200 songs on the playlist, most songs get played only
once every few days, rather than several times a day. Program director
Mike O'Reilly and his assistants handpick the music and the order
in which they are played.
""It's all about train wrecks,' Mr. O'Reilly says,
using radio terminology for two unlikely songs played back-to-back...
Broadcast radio under siege
"Radio has been an incredibly durable medium over the
past seven decades, beating back challenges from new media...
But today, the industry is under attack from new competition
that was barely on the horizon five years ago. Digital
music players like Apple
Computer Inc.'s iPod... Satellite
radio services like Sirius
Satellite Radio Inc. and XM
Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. are beginning to blossom...
Internet radio stations are
siphoning off listeners by targeting small, devoted niches...
"In a fresh signal of radio's travails, Viacom
Inc. this week floated the idea of splitting
its giant radio unit and other slow-growing businesses,
including its CBS television network, off
into a separate company.
Today those laggards are widely seen as
dragging down the value of Viacom's cable networks and
movie studio...
"Now, radio is taking steps to stop the bleeding. After
years of delay because of cost, some broadcasters are now racing
to embrace digital radio... Many stations are trying
to program iPod-style mixes of music...
Viacom is looking to sell off stations,
particularly in smaller markets that are less profitable. And some
chains, notably giant Clear
Channel, are trying to make themselves more enticing to
both listeners and advertisers by cutting
back on the minutes of commercials per hour...
Broadcasters reconsider the Internet
"Radio companies ignored advances
that could have blunted some of the competition...
"'The industry did not invest in its
future,' says Joel Hollander [pictured], Infinity's
chief executive since January.
'If we had invested three to five years ago, people
would be thinking differently about satellite' and other
competitors...
"The Internet has proved largely
disappointing for most radio stations. Many started simulcasting
their programming over the Internet in the late '90s, only to get
bogged down in music-royalty issues that prompted many to turn off
the streams. Now, stations are starting to experiment once again
with selling music over the Internet.
"'The Internet and iPod are not challenges -- they are
business options for us,' says
(John Hogan, Clear Channel's radio chief),
which pipes more than 200 of its stations over the Internet and
plans to start allowing listeners to download
programs to their iPods, a hot trend known as podcasting...
"Some (stations) are starting to broaden their playlists,
including the adherents of the 'Jack' format. Mike Henry, chief
executive of Paragon
Media Strategies and a consultant on the format, says listeners
want to hear familiar music, but a larger
selection and variety of it. So Jack plays only songs
people will recognize, albeit from a variety
of styles and timeframes."
Wall Street Journal subscribers can read this entire
article online
here.
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