Comments on: Clear Channel Gives Your Mersh Rock Correspondent A Considerate Gift

By: MrStarhead

MrStarhead — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 03:21:47 +0000

Ludo have been touring around the Midwest for years and years. They’ve always been popular with people who are in other bands. You’d go see them in Tulsa, and half the crowd would be Tulsa groups.

By: tigerpop

tigerpop — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 08:47:17 +0000

@2ironic4u: Harvey Danger is still around, yes? Their first record was one great single and a lot of meh, but their next couple records were great.

By: Al Shipley

Al Shipley — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 07:50:30 +0000

@owenmeany: Yeah, I don't totally get it either, I don't know what this station's odds are in the long run. The strangest part is that, although they're using Elliot In The Morning, the daytime music programming doesn't seem to have much in the way of DJs/hosts, going for generic Jack FM-style announcer segues and station IDs, which really pales in comparison to the personality-driven style of DC101. I'm wondering if they'll eventually start building up an on-air staff (maybe bring a couple DC101 people up, or hell, grab some old HFS jocks that are still in the area), or if it'll stay like that.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 06:55:19 +0000

I wonder what Clear Channel's strategy is here. Won't they be taking listeners away from their own DC101 with a station like this?

If I'm reading the latest Arbitron ratings correctly, that Smooth Jazz station was #8 in the market (compared to CBS' WHFS being #14 and DC101 #19)...

By: Al Shipley

Al Shipley — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 06:16:41 +0000

@Chris Molanphy: One factor you have to take in consideration is that most modern rock stations these days feature a LOT of older classics and recent 'recurrents' in their playlists, it's not like urban radio where it's new stuff almost all the time. Sometimes I can go an hour without hearing anything from after 2003. So if the stations like that go from playing 2 current songs an hour to 4 or 5 for whatever reason (like, say, a bunch of bands of Coldplay or Weezer's stature releasing new singles around the same time), it can completely warp the relative airplay counts.

By: How do I say this ... THROWDINI!

How do I say this ... THROWDINI! — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 06:10:24 +0000

That Carolina Liar song is getting a lot of play here in LA on Indie 103.1. So much so that I picked up the cd. Its ok, nothing special. Some of the songs give me a Killers-feel, which is fine. Good summer listening I guess, but nothing special.

By: Chris Molanphy

Chris Molanphy — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 04:49:15 +0000

@Al Shipley: Sorry, I wrote my previous comment too quickly and should've been clearer -- I think it's probably a combination of factors. I mean, I'm probably not wrong in my thesis last week that summer is a heavier airplay period for big rock hits in general. But there are only so many hours in the day, you know? If Offspring and Foo Fighters are seeing 140% boosts in airplay on hits that were already in the upper tiers, and everything else around them is rising, too, at least some of that has got to be the result of new stations coming online.

Usually changes to Billboard's/BDS's radio panel happen in, like, quarterly waves, not station-by-station/week-to-week. Maybe they added a quarter's worth of new modern-rock stations to the panel a couple of weeks ago? I mean, we've been hearing that flips to rock have been increasing (bit by bit) nationwide in recent months, right?

By: Michaelangelo Matos

Michaelangelo Matos — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 04:43:32 +0000

@Al Shipley: An interesting historical note. According to David Browne's (very good) new Sonic Youth bio, over 100 new mod-rock stations popped up in the wake of Nirvana's success. Might be useful to compare/contrast with the current number of stations.

By: Al Shipley

Al Shipley — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 04:14:29 +0000

@Chris Molanphy: Interesting, it didn't occur to me that there'd be a connection between those 2 things. So you really think the addition of one station to a relatively big format like Mod Rock would make that much of an impact, out of all the dozens (hundreds? I have no idea) of existing stations?

By: Chris Molanphy

Chris Molanphy — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 03:52:54 +0000

@Ned Raggett: FTW. I would've gone there if you hadn't.

But all that's changed in recent weeks: Clear Channel has flipped one of its smooth jazz stations to Channel 104.3, Baltimore's first full-time mainstream alt-rock station in over three years.

This is very informative, thank you. In fact, I think it might explain the batshit Modern Rock chart I wrote about in my column last week - those doublings in airplay by aging Top 10 hits by the likes of Foo Fighters and Death Cab can almost only be explained by the addition of a wholly new station (or three) to the Modern format. I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 03:05:08 +0000

The Ludo disc is great. Kind of reminds me of Harvey Danger (hey, stop, they were a good band). Really suprised that Carolina Liar is moving up the Alternative chart, would’ve thought this would be a Hot AC/CHR track.

By: Ned Raggett

Ned Raggett — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 02:21:48 +0000

it still cracks me up that the singer from Slipknot's real name, after being known as simply "No. 8" all those years, turned out to be "Corey."

"Hi, you've reached the Corey hot-line. $4.95 a minute. Here are some words that rhyme with Corey: Gory. Story. Allegory. Montessori."