At least Chris Carter's BREAKFAST WITH THE BEATLES--the only program I listen to on KLOS--is unaffected by this wave of downsizing.
http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/industry/legal-and-management/more-layoffs-at-cumulus-ladd-buchmann-leave-1005441562.story
http://www.ocregister.com/entertainment/kabc-324171-director-program.html
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/radio-323981-new-oct.html
Showing posts with label Bob Buchmann. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bob Buchmann. Show all posts
Friday, October 28, 2011
Sunday, January 25, 2009
End of an era: Rita Wilde out as program director for "classic rock" KLOS-FM.
Bob Buchmann, former Program Director at NY classic-rock station WAXQ-FM is replacing 25-year KLOS-FM icon Rita Wilde. (To show you how out-of-touch I am, I didn't even know KLOS is now being run by Citadel instead of Disney.)
A poster on the Los Angeles message board for radio-info.com said this:
Wow, that's too bad, sort of. Rita Wilde was at KLOS forever, and did a number of cool things like the U2 B-sides compilation (named after herself - the Wilde album) and the semi-annual A to Z. She also did the rock report, which was well done, I felt. Though I don't like Jim Ladd that much, he's at least allowed some freedom on the air, and Wilde supported him.But overall, she presided over a period of time when KLOS became terribly, terribly boring. You can't play the same 300, 400, or 600 songs for a decade and expect people to stick around [my emphasis, not the poster's]. I am smack in their demo (actually a little bit younger) and listened very heavily to KLOS in the 80s and early 90s. I really WANT to like the station, and I've always kept it on my presets.......but I haven't really listened for many, many years.It's a shame they're probably blaming her for their low ratings, when in fact they probably ordered her to have a small playlist. Another good example of how having a small playlist does NOT work for stations without new music to play.Bring on the new PD, and may you play a lot of interesting rock music so I actually want to listen.
Another poster responded as follows: "KLOS was too deep [in terms of their library of songs]....deep cuts [songs that aren't "hits"/signature songs] cause tune out.....plain and simple. Look at Indie [referring to Indie103.1 FM--an LA classic-and-current alternastation which was terminated recently, retreating to online-only status].
The above dialogue speaks volumes about the too cautious, over-focusgrouped mess that is current terrestrial radio. And the same kind of flesh-eating bacteria takes place now on recently-merged satellite titan Sirius XM--try listening to the 80s alternastation First Wave, which has a much shallower--and, arguably, more tortuously overfamiliar--playlist than KLOS.
Probably what KLOS should do is let a little more of the Jim Ladd ethos creep in--give some classic artists [from Bob Dylan to Bruce Springsteen to The Grateful Dead to The Allman Brothers to The Pretenders and Heart] greater rotation (even if Buchmann doesn't want to stray from the hits, my advice is to play more than just the two or three biggest ones)--plus more emphasis on new songs by "classic" acts. And by all means hang on to the few programs that distinguish the station from some of its classic-rock siblings--namely Chris Carter's BREAKFAST WITH THE BEATLES show, which deserves to stay put after years of maltreatment by KLSX-FM (which used to be a pretty good example of a classic format done reasonably well before changing to all-talk).
I'd like to think that KLOS, with the change in program director, could be an example of how to do a classic format right instead of a possible lipstick-on-a-pig approach which thinks that DJ changes and a smaller playlist will make for higher ratings.
Let's see whether or not I'll be wrong again.
A poster on the Los Angeles message board for radio-info.com said this:
Wow, that's too bad, sort of. Rita Wilde was at KLOS forever, and did a number of cool things like the U2 B-sides compilation (named after herself - the Wilde album) and the semi-annual A to Z. She also did the rock report, which was well done, I felt. Though I don't like Jim Ladd that much, he's at least allowed some freedom on the air, and Wilde supported him.But overall, she presided over a period of time when KLOS became terribly, terribly boring. You can't play the same 300, 400, or 600 songs for a decade and expect people to stick around [my emphasis, not the poster's]. I am smack in their demo (actually a little bit younger) and listened very heavily to KLOS in the 80s and early 90s. I really WANT to like the station, and I've always kept it on my presets.......but I haven't really listened for many, many years.It's a shame they're probably blaming her for their low ratings, when in fact they probably ordered her to have a small playlist. Another good example of how having a small playlist does NOT work for stations without new music to play.Bring on the new PD, and may you play a lot of interesting rock music so I actually want to listen.
Another poster responded as follows: "KLOS was too deep [in terms of their library of songs]....deep cuts [songs that aren't "hits"/signature songs] cause tune out.....plain and simple. Look at Indie [referring to Indie103.1 FM--an LA classic-and-current alternastation which was terminated recently, retreating to online-only status].
The above dialogue speaks volumes about the too cautious, over-focusgrouped mess that is current terrestrial radio. And the same kind of flesh-eating bacteria takes place now on recently-merged satellite titan Sirius XM--try listening to the 80s alternastation First Wave, which has a much shallower--and, arguably, more tortuously overfamiliar--playlist than KLOS.
Probably what KLOS should do is let a little more of the Jim Ladd ethos creep in--give some classic artists [from Bob Dylan to Bruce Springsteen to The Grateful Dead to The Allman Brothers to The Pretenders and Heart] greater rotation (even if Buchmann doesn't want to stray from the hits, my advice is to play more than just the two or three biggest ones)--plus more emphasis on new songs by "classic" acts. And by all means hang on to the few programs that distinguish the station from some of its classic-rock siblings--namely Chris Carter's BREAKFAST WITH THE BEATLES show, which deserves to stay put after years of maltreatment by KLSX-FM (which used to be a pretty good example of a classic format done reasonably well before changing to all-talk).
I'd like to think that KLOS, with the change in program director, could be an example of how to do a classic format right instead of a possible lipstick-on-a-pig approach which thinks that DJ changes and a smaller playlist will make for higher ratings.
Let's see whether or not I'll be wrong again.
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