If Rock is Dead, Radio Killed It

I'll never forget when the owner of a station I worked for back in the day (who shall remain nameless because I'm sure he would love to sue me for libel) wrote a piece for the company newsletter declaring that the Alternative rock format was dying. This was in 2004, and he had just flipped the sister station of the one I worked for to Pop. Never mind that things were just fine at the station I worked for. People like to declare Rock formats and Rock music dead; it's almost become a cottage industry in itself. Well, an unfortunate development this week may go a long way toward starting a new debate over whether people want to listen to new rock music on the radio anymore.

Emmis Communications, yet another radio company that is drowning in debt, unloaded Alt-Rock stations WRXP in New York and WKQX in Chicago to a company headed by former Clear Channel exec Randy Michaels. Michaels promptly announced that the rock formats (the only new rock stations in NYC and Chicago) would be dumped and all the DJs fired, replaced by FM News formats. Tomorrow is the final day for both stations; in a rare move, the DJs are actually getting a chance to say goodbye to their loyal listeners.

Well, we know that loyalty of an audience doesn't mean much in this post-consolidation world of radio, but what I'm more concerned about is what is and what is NOT being offered on radio in 2 of the 3 largest radio markets in this country. As of Friday, there will be ONE commercial rock station in both cities, a classic rock station. NYC still has Fordham University's iconic WFUV, and it will be interesting to see if their microscopic audience rises after these flips. Considering that rock music is largely ignored by the rest of the new music radio landscape, this pretty much shuts the door on an entire genre of music. Commence the discussions of whether or not Rock is dead.

I have stated here previously that I have no problem with radio execs wanting to put News/Talk formats on the FM dial. My concern has been about what would be removed in order to make room for such stations. Ironically, in New York and Chicago, it is the very genre of music that launched the FM band to profitability in the 1970s. It's quite unimaginable to think that rock artists and bands constantly talk about what a dream it is to play Madison Square Garden, the "world's most famous arena", and yet for many of these bands, if they succeed and make it to MSG, they'll be playing in a city where THEIR MUSIC DOESN'T GET PLAYED ON THE RADIO. Way to help make the medium irrelevant, Randy Michaels.

I live in Philadelphia, where we have a wealth of rock-formatted stations to choose from. I have an Alt-Rock station, two Rock stations that play the classics along with new stuff, and WXPN, which plays the obscure and the forgotten. Philly, well-known for being a soul/R&B town, is also a huge supporter of rock. It is unfathomable that WMMR could go the way of the dinosaur, although there was a time in the 2000s when WYSP was a FM talker and there was no Alt-Rock station (ya know, back when my former boss was saying the format was dead).

Now I know that NYC and Philadelphia are two totally different cities (believe me, as a Mets fan, I am reminded of this almost daily), but rock music is universal, and not even the different cosmopolitan dynamic that is New York City should filter out tastes in certain types of music. I have a hard time believing that as you drive north on the New Jersey Turnpike and cross that imaginary line that separates South Jersey from North Jersey, you suddenly go from having a large populace raised on Springsteen and Bon Jovi that appreciates new rock music to having nobody with an interest in rock. And don't even tell me it's the hipster factor (as in the young rock audience only likes obscure stuff), because there are as many hipsters in Philly as there are in NYC (maybe more), and clearly, it hasn't diminished the rock audience. Similarly, I have a hard time believing that the city that gave us Styx and Survivor and REO Speedwagon and Smashing Pumpkins and... well, CHICAGO... has no interest in giving a place to the next great band to come from their City of Broad Shoulders.

All right, these stations were not exactly blowing people away in the ratings, and perhaps that gives Michaels an excuse to blow them up. In Q101's target demographic (18-34), they are in 9th place. Although their total weekly audience is an impressive 1.1 million, they sit buried in 20th place in the overall ratings with a 1.9 share. WRXP sits in a slightly more respectable 18th place overall, with a 2.6 share. But in these days where radio is (dismally) trying to sell themselves with the new HD technology to promote all of the different niches that are covered by local radio signals today, how can the industry tell its potential audience, "But we don't do ROCK"?

I am well aware that rock is alive and well in large chunks of the country, particularly those where the populace doesn't mind being force-fed the crap that passes for the Active Rock format today. At least those cities are still being properly served, and let's hope that continues. But new rock music has been yanked off the radio in 2 of the 3 largest cities in America, and if nobody steps up to replace these two stations, then radio is once again failing to deliver what its audience wants. Killing rock is a microcosm of how radio as an industry is killing itself.