Other than having a few very peripheral assignments I’ve never worked in Country radio. I have a personal vision of the target listener but no real experience with who they are or how to effectively reach them. The same must hold true for people who have never worked in Classic Rock or Classic Hits. They likely have a preconceived notion but haven’t interacted with the listeners.
Thinking there are some lessons to be learned in how people see the audience vs. the reality, I sat down with Dave Farra, Jason Mahoney, and Audrey Drake, better known as The Dave and Mahoney show. It’s been almost two and a half years since they moved their morning show from their longtime home at Alternative KXTE/Las Vegas to Classic Rock KSLX/Phoenix. Their show had been a mainstay on the Alternative station since 2005. It was already being syndicated by Compass Media when they made a Classic Rock station their home base.
Now, with almost thirty months of time in the Classic Rock world, I was interested to find out how they have managed the change in audience, what they felt the differences were, and if they had any regrets.
In the spirit of full disclosure, the show is a client of mine. They have been since my pre-Jacobs Media days when I had my own coaching business. I’ll skip any references of having a great coach who has helped them adjust, but feel free to infer that. With that said, let’s start by talking about the show’s perceptions of the Classic Rock audience vs. the reality.
For Mahoney, his perception was that the audience would be more uptight or straightlaced than Alternative listeners. “When you realize that songs like “Cocaine” are regularly played on classic rock radio stations and that a lot of the songs are about subjects like drugs, sex, and debauchery, you discover that kind of applies to what the alternative audiences are interested in as well.”
For Drake, the show’s only millennial, her perception was that the audience would be much older than it is. “I was worried that going from Alternative to Classic Rock I wouldn’t be as knowledgeable as I need to be. That I’d be found out to be a big phony.” But now that she’s spent time with the audience she’s discovered that many listeners are quite easy to connect with. “That makes it so much easier to be ourselves and have fun, lighthearted conversations because we’re already with friends.”
Mahoney echoes that sentiment. He says that on the Alternative station he felt the character he presented on-air had to be more specifically defined. “I think there’s an expectation with Alternative listeners that you need to be the most knowledgeable. You need to be the coolest.” But he has found Classic Rock to be more accepting or at least more casual. “I feel like I can be me with all of my flaws as opposed to a version of me that still needed to impress the average listener.”
Having worked in Alternative since 2005, Farra says the Classic Rock audience at KSLX reminds him of a lot of the people who had been fans of their show since the beginning at KXTE. People that stuck with the show for 20 years have grown up with him. They mirror the listeners he has met at KSLX. “People who grew up loving music from the grunge era are very similar to the people that we see every day interacting with the show that also like CCR and ACDC.”
The show has found common ground with most of the audience but what about winning over the upper-demo listeners? Listeners outside the 25-54 demographic may not relate as readily to them but they’re a big part of the audience.
Farra says winning that audience segment over has been a slow and steady process of wearing them down. “Anytime that you come in and upset somebody’s routine, the thing that they know and love, there’s going to be some blowback,” shared Farra. “And there was a lot of them that were older voices.”
But now, over two years later, it feels like the tide is starting to turn. The key, according to Farra, is that they never dismissed any listener, even the ones who openly hated them. In the last six months, he feels those who were active haters have become some of the show’s biggest fans. “They’re listening all day, every day, participating in topics and events that we do and everything else. It wasn’t a quick process. We didn’t expect it to be,” added Farra. “When the loudest voices against you eventually become fans it’s a testament to the idea that were doing things right.”
Now that we know the perception vs. reality of the Classic Rock audience for Farra, Mahoney and Drake, I’ll drill down next on how the change in audience impacted content decisions, causing effects on their syndication efforts. That will be in my next column.
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Mike Stern is a Classic Rock columnist and Features writer for Barrett Media. He has been with Jacobs Media consulting stations in the Classic Rock, Rock, Alternative and AAA world for more than a decade. Prior to that he programmed stations in Chicago, Detroit, Denver Las Vegas and other markets. He also worked as News/Talk Editor for Radio and Records, wrote about Top 40 Radio for Billboard Magazine and had his own radio talent coaching business called Talent Mechanic.
