Every radio programmer in every city across the country will tell you their market is different than all the others. But few can prove it like Todd Nuke’Em. And they are, to a degree, because every city has unique histories and local quirks. But some places, like Salt Lake City — home of Broadway Media Alternative KXRX (X96) and Program Director Todd Noker, known to listeners as Todd Nuke’Em — truly stand apart.
Being the home of the Mormon Church has an outsized impact on the values of the market, giving it a highly conservative undercurrent. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t big city liberal influences as well. “It’s a different sort of culture,” Todd explains. “You have conservatives, but Salt Lake City proper is quite liberal and even in Salt Lake County you start to see things branch out.”
That’s the background where Todd has been involved with programming Alternative music since his career. He started in the late ’80s at KJQ-FM. According to Todd, the station “collapsed” in 1990, but by February of 1992 he, along with the morning show and other staffers, launched X96. Since that time, he has risen through the ranks to Program Director, a title he’s held since 2003. “That’s 23 years, wow! What have I done with my life?” he jokes.
The Music Guy
While he manages the highly successful morning show Radio from Hell. Which still features the people who came from KJQ, he also charts the musical course of X96. “In many ways I’m the music guy and even more so the historical music guy because I was there when Nirvana was a baby band,” says Todd.
He’s putting that knowledge to good use as X96. Along with a couple of other stations like 91X in San Diego and 99X in Atlanta, recently started featuring more first wave, pre-1991 Alternative product in the music mix.
“We started to see what was happening on Spotify and Tik Tok with younger people discovering that music again. And we realized era doesn’t matter to listeners,” Todd explains. “If it was a huge hit then, it’s a huge hit now.”
Reclaiming What Alternative Radio Left Behind
Bands like The Police, Tears for Fears, and The Talking Heads have come back onto the radio station, breaking the typical Alternative radio narrative. That narrative separates music into before and after Nirvana, with the earlier product being all but ignored by the format. This is something Todd disagrees with.
“It’s all alternative. Who cares if it’s from 1989? We just ignore that self-imposed stigma at the format of how we just can’t play anything that’s from 1990 or before,” he says. “You should not let the Classic Rock station steal U2 from you. That’s your band.”
He also adds that he isn’t talking about just a token song once an hour. The station tries to do something memorable at least once each quarter-hour. “Nobody remembers the station that only plays the top-researching songs. They remember when you break the rules. That’s what sticks with people,” explains Todd. “Yes, you still have to play the hits 80 to 90% of the time, but you’ve also got to break the rules sometimes and make a moment.”
Sometimes the Unexpected Is the Point
Part of the strategy for being memorable includes taking a lesson from Adult Hits stations. Much like how those formats purposely put songs next to each other that might not fit together. Todd isn’t afraid to play disparate songs back-to-back. “I think we as programmers can get sort of bogged down with which two songs shouldn’t play next to each other. But as the Jack FMs and the Bob FMs have shown us, sometimes those train wrecks are delightful.”
To be clear, by no means has the station abdicated playing new music. But like with the gold songs, X96 isn’t necessarily following the rest of the format’s lead when it comes to currents. Todd sees a lot of tracks being labeled Alternative that he feels are pop tracks being pushed to the format for market share. “You have to be careful when you start looking at streaming numbers to determine your playlist,” Todd says. “I’ve seen what my eleven-year-old niece does on Spotify and if you start programming your station based on that you’re going to be in trouble.”
Modest Mouse to Sleep Token — Old and New Can Coexist
While he has played pop-crossover tracks like Sombr’s “Back to Friends” and Hozier’s “Too Sweet,” he is also embracing the large number of new releases from legacy acts like Modest Mouse, Muse, Evanescence, and Sublime. Todd is also seeing success with some acts that come from the Active Rock side of the spectrum. Artists like Bad Omens and Sleep Token have been successful for the station. “I think those acts vibe really well on a station that plays Linkin Park.”
But he stresses that this approach might not work for everyone. Between his experience in the market and station research, the music on X96 is dialed in to fit Salt Lake City, where there has been at least one if not a couple of Alternative stations on the air since the 1980s. “I would emphasize that our approach works because we are locally programmed. We don’t care if this recipe works anywhere other than Salt Lake City, that’s where our meters are.”
In fact, when it comes to X96 programming, being locally focused goes far beyond the music. “We work hard to throw our arms around Utah, and I think listeners feel that,” says Todd. In fact, he believes committing to localism is the only real hope for radio’s future. “Being local is the only way radio survives. If it all gets homogenized into the same playlist on 50 stations with some overworked voice tracker, it dies.”
A big part of that local approach is having a morning show that’s celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. Radio From Hell is led by Bill Allred, Kerry Jackson, and Gina Barberi, who have built a large, devoted following and are not showing any signs of slowing down.
Unscripted, Unfiltered, and Unmistakably Local
The show is liberal and is not at all afraid to discuss politics. According to Todd, what really makes the mornings special are the segments spent discussing their lives, which, of course, take place in Salt Lake. “It’s like an episode of a local reality TV show. They have these discussions that aren’t planned about life that are the golden moments of the show. That’s where their natural talent for comedy and the chemistry of being together for forty years shines through.”
Another factor that allows X96 to stay intensely local is the freedom that comes with Broadway Media’s ownership rather than being part of a large radio conglomerate. Todd sees that independence as a major advantage. “They can’t be local. They’re centralized, homogenized, and automated. You can beat them by being deeply local.”
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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.
