What would you do with.... 94.1 KODJ

[CAwasinNJ]

This is the third in the series as we continue up the FM dial. The idea is to imagine you're given ownership and complete control of 94.1. You have the resources (money, personnel, etc.) to do whatever you want with the signal without having to worry about higher ups on the corporate ladder, what clustermate stations are doing, etc. You can leave it as is, completely change it, or anything in between, but the ideas should be at least plausible/possible. What do you do?

I think I'd leave this alone too. The ratings are excellent and the demos are pretty good. Sure you could chase after a lower age group, but with all the competition already there that seems like a losing proposition.

[amanuensis]

I don't think I would change much either. Strong morning show. Good playlist.

[oldiesfunhouse]

I would make two HD subchannels. I would put "real oldies" from the 50s and early 60s on one of them and Smooth Jazz on the other.    

[David]

Other than reducing the spot load during certain dayparts, I wouldn't do anything with KODJ. Yes, I realize that the station has to sell advertising to pay its bills. But if I have to listen to 6-8 30 second commercials to hear 3-4 songs followed by another lengthy commercial break, you've lost me as a listener.

[CAwasinNJ]

I like oldiesfunhouse's idea of an Old Oldies subchannel, but I'm curious why the "smooth jazz" (the music is nice but the name stinks) would go on that station and not somewhere else.

There's also a technical question that maybe those with more engineering expertise than I can help with. The wisdom I've always heard is that you don't want more than 2 music formats on an FM digital signal because you would have to set the bitrates too low for any one of them to sound good. Sounding like crap won't stop some companies, but maybe it's something to think about.

As far as spot loads, 15-17 minutes an hour is pretty typical these days for broadcast TV. I'm not sure where radio stands but I'd guess it's probably in that neighborhood. It might be better to have shorter breaks but more of them. I think that used to be the case. I have an aircheck from 1987 where the DJ was trumpeting the fact that they'd play 3 in a row after the break.

[amanuensis]

Mar 13, 2023 9:29:28 GMT -6 amanuensis said:

I don't think I would change much either. Strong morning show. Good playlist.

Well, I guess there is one thing I would change -- the "Happy News" segment that airs each weekday morning at about 9:10. Instead of going on at length about it for several minutes, I would instead have the DJs say something like "we've added another great Happy News Feel Good Story to our page on the station website, this one involving an X that finally got Y after going through a lot of Z. Go check it out for all of the details. And now back to the music."

[oldiesfunhouse]

94.1 had Smooth Jazz on its HD2 once. That was the only reason I thought about putting it there. I guess when we get to KBZN in the series, putting Smooth Jazz on their HD2 would make more sense.

[CAwasinNJ]

A radio station's business is the radio station, not their website. The website is to augment the station and drive people to listen, not the other way around. If the segment disrupts the flow of the station then it should just be dropped.

There would be a certain logic in putting smooth jazz on KBZN HD2 if they had HD, which they don't. You could add HD, but I'm not sure that there having been a history of smooth jazz on 97.9 would really matter anymore. It's been almost 15 years since low ratings doomed that format. I think at this point it makes about equal sense anywhere on the dial if you want to program it.