Clay Church is Program Director for Throwbacks 105.1 The Bounce and Urban Adult AC KISS 105.9 Detroit. He joined the cluster in September of last year. He also co-hosts mornings on 105.1 The Bounce, which is today’s featured brand.
Church admits to being one of the newest to the station but recalls watching the station’s strong launch while he was working in nearby Flint, MI.
“I’m one of the newest people at the radio station. So I got the unique experience of watching it get launched from Flint. Detroit and Flint share a little bit of listenership, but when The Bounce launched, it was a firestorm.”
“They started showing up in our book; they debuted at number one. Nobody thought it could sustain, and then slowly and surely it did. It surprised a lot of people. But I think the fact that it’s built on such solid ideas is the reason that it stays so well.”
Built for Everybody: The Coalition Station
These solid building blocks include a coalition audience strategy, gold-based music that crosses generational and cultural lines, and hyper-local Motor City credibility on-air and online.
“It is a true coalition station where you get everybody listening from upper teens to a soccer mom on her way into work listening to her favorite old school song that she heard in the club. Everybody is welcome into the fold, and I think that’s what gives Bounce real longevity.”
Throwbacks and the 50-50 Ideal
I asked if the concept of Throwbacks was similar to Class Hits or Classic Rock in that it provided a safe place and comfortable memories for its listeners.
“At the root of it, it is exactly that. It’s a different genre of Classic Hits, Classic Rock. When Rhythm was introduced as a legit format — maybe 2000, maybe ’99, ’98 — it was one of the first formats where it was really like we want a 50-50 audience, and not just 50-50 race, but 50-50 men and women.”
“A lot of the formats are going to target a certain race and a certain demo, and that’s it. Whereas a throwback rhythm station is kind of an extension of that first rhythm ideal of, hey, we want half and half of basically everybody. We’re going to blur all the lines, and we’re going to be everybody’s favorite station. Definitely a sample multiple times through the day.”
Gold Advantage in a Fragmented Youth Landscape
Church acknowledges that the younger demo is easily distracted and not always invested in radio.
“It’s not lost on me that the younger end of radio listenership is not as passionate, they’re not as invested. We have to fight for their attention. When you’ve got a gold base or you’ve got a library that’s tried, true, and an audience that loves it, it gives you a definite advantage when it comes to the ratings game.”
Keeping a Gold Library Fresh
The question then becomes, how does the Church keep the station sounding fresh and the library from burning?
“Being in Detroit, we’re blessed with a lot of artists that are core to the genre. So that right there helps us out a ton. We get to really focus on, hey, this is the city and this is the music, and they are the same thing.”
“We lean into mix shows a lot, because playing the same 300 songs — or however many — can get monotonous. Especially when you already know all the words to every song. But when you’ve got talented DJs, you can push the fringes to not just those songs that tested top tier. You can play the Oh Wow song and vary it between two power-tested songs and get a little bit more variety and breadth in your library and still make it interesting.”
Digital = 50% of the Job
When I inquired about the station’s digital content, I was surprised to learn that a significant portion of the content is specifically designed for digital consumption.
“When we hired the morning show host with me, Alicia B, on the air, it was almost assumed that 50% of our content, if not more, but a base of 50% of our content, is going to be online exclusives.”
“Where there was kind of a gap with the digital reach before we started this, now the rest of the staff is searching out community members to interview. To have in the studio for video and to interact with socially. We definitely showed the way and said, Hey, this is important.”
Knowing that it is virtually impossible to push an audience anywhere, how does the station pull them along to the digital content?
“We’ll create video content using a piece of audio in the show. The piece may have aired once, and then it’s gone. So we’ll take that small piece and put it into a video that we put up on our socials. On those socials, we point back to hear the full thing on air and set an appointment for the next day.”
A specific bit has proven a good vehicle for that.
“It’s called the Bestie Battle. We’ll take one small segment of that and create an online reel, story, or maybe even a full video. And say, hey, here’s the piece of the Bestie Battle. If you want to jump in on it, it happens Tuesdays at 8:15. We’re not just taking one thing and repurposing it. We’re taking a piece of it and expanding on it.”
Community Outreach
Community outreach is essential to the DNA of 105.1 The Bounce.
“We do a bunch of stuff with different organizations. We work with a couple of different food pantries and Eminem’s organization for a big coat giveaway every year. Our big touchpoints are teachers, healthcare, and people doing grassroots good in Detroit. Detroit’s full of a lot of people helping other people.
“We have a daily segment that’s called “What’s Good Detroit,” where all we do is feature one of the people who are going out of their way to help other people. A perfect example is a couple in the city of Lafayette who started a food pantry out of their front yard. That was five years ago. Now they’re opening up this full-on warehouse of a food pantry because they knew their neighborhood had needs.”
Changes in Ratings Measurement
I asked for any insight on Nielsen’s 3-minute qualifier.
“This is Nielsen’s way of saying, well, we’ll have less crime if we just make more things not illegal. This is no different than the system they had set up. All they did was try to shorten the qualifier to make their results look better. Everyone’s numbers went up a touch, but how could they possibly not?”
Sound Like Your City — or Someone Else Will
Church concluded with a challenge to fellow programmers.
“Do whatever you can to stop this trend of everything sounding the same. Detroit is a city unlike any other city in the country. And it should sound like no other city in the country.”
“If your station is in a very unique city and you don’t sound like your city, you’re opening the door for someone to come in and knock you out. Or not even care what you sound like because they don’t really identify with it.”
Listen to 105.1 The Bounce here.
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Jeff Lynn serves as Editor of Barrett Media’s Music Radio coverage. Prior to joining Barrett Media, Jeff spent time programming in Milwaukee, Omaha, Cleveland, Des Moines, and Madison for multiple radio groups, including iHeartMedia, Townsquare Media, NRG Media, and Entercom (now Audacy). He also worked as a Country Format Editor for All Access until the outlet shut down in August 2023.
To get in touch with Jeff by email, reach him at Jeff@BarrettMedia.com.
