From Country Aircheck today and the landmark CMA country consumer study: "Be on guard against a potential backlash and genre dilution related to new, more pop-oriented country. The key is to nurture a new artist’s persona as a legitimate country performer with personal ties and a commitment to the essence of the genre. This authenticity also applies to DJs, as the study found strong resistance among core fans against the “crossover DJ” who has switched from another format to Country."
A&O tip: every quarter hour of your music schedule either refutes this listener complaint or supports it, as does every content break by your personalities. If you don't know what I mean by this statement, we need to chat now.
3 comments:
John Shomby at 8:21am March 24
I agree with some of it but, being one of those who "crossed over"...I think folks like us HELP the format and have helped bring new folks into it.
Jaye Albright at 8:26am March 24
Every single country programmer for as long as I can remember, even back to the 1950's when country adopted top 40 formatics, the best programmers have always come from other formats. The key is bringing what you knew and yet understanding the core too.
Chuck Geiger at 8:30am March 24
We have just went through this with KTTI in our cluster, we have brought back core country artists and songs in the mix with the "pure pop" country songs. Jaye is right, watch the music matrix, quarter hours of WHITE HORSE, HERE COMES GOODBYE and related w/out ALL MY EX'S, DOWN ON THE FARM and OL' RED could be trouble. CC's former research director Leigh Jacobs found this out a few years ago, the true lifegroup hates pop country, but they were too nice to tell you - They are not now.
John Shomby at 8:31am March 24
Absolutely....it IS easy to get caught up in the pop sound....I know from personal experience. Thankfully, I had Mark McKay here to keep me focused properly or else I would have been very ugly.
Jaye Albright at 8:36am March 24
It's not just the sound of the music either, it's also the stationality which can get out of synch with authenticity and broad demographic values too.
All formats tend to split apart and merge together over time, creating an ever-expanding set of genres that are blends or spin-offs. The trick is to make sure your music (brand) continues to satisfy the audience you're trying to reach. If you follow a splinter genre, you better make sure your audience also wants more focus on that kind of music. Oldies stations that added 70's and 80's music discarded most of the audience for 50's and 60's music, but they made a deliberate decision to do it.
Regarding air personalities who are perceived as having "crossed over" from other formats: Does this have implications for clusters that maybe have their afternoon DJ on the AC station voicetrack middays on the country station?
Just wondering. Even with a different air name, I'm not sure people are as dumb as we think they are sometimes.
My two cents.
Buzz in Tucson
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