SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT ON THE BOB FORMAT :
BOB FM Format turned 5 years old last March, and I thought it would interesting to look back at where we have come from with the format and where it may be headed to. First off a bit of history:
On March 4th 2002, CHUM Winnipeg’s Magic 99.9 flipped to 999 “BOB-FM” playing the “80’s, 90’s and Whatever!” When the spring BBM came out a few months later, the story went like this; in six short weeks “BOB-FM” had shot to #1 FM 12 + and #1 adults 25-34, 35-54, and 25-54. The success of that spring ratings period marked a turning point for CHUM Winnipeg, but also the beginning of a some big changes in markets across Canada and eventually the U.S. ROGER’s broadcasting soon jumped on the bandwagon and launched JACK FM in Vancouver on December 27th 2002 (NOT December of 2001 as claimed on Paragon Research’s website) and Calgary a year later to much success. Following the success in Winnipeg, CHUM subsequently launched “BOB-FM’s”’ in Ottawa, Canada (#1 Adults 25-54 Fall 2003 and then London Ont. (#1 Adults 25-54 fall 2003.)
There has been a lot of “ownership” and “expertise” claimed by people who have done nothing more than download song lists and spread sheets from Mediabase, or BDS and listen to it online. It is sad that these people are now trying to sell their empty reservoir of experience to desperate stations in the US. In many cases the execution has been botched, success has been limited and the format has been thrown out the window. The success of “BOB” is a result of unique market conditions that were uncovered by local knowledge and verified by research. It won’t work everywhere. “Jack-FM” in Toronto is expensive evidence of that.
This is how it happened. In the fall of 1999, CHUM, LTD. purchased a second FM in Winnipeg. In a fortuitous bit of timing, I attended a friend’s 40th birthday party. When I arrived, it was quite clear that Classic Rocker CITI FM was going to be the station of choice that night. Being employed at a radio station, it took only moments for me to turn the conversation to the music that was playing. Friends apologized for playing the Classic Rocker instead of the HOT A/C I worked at, but they said they wanted to hear something a little more familiar; more of a salute to their youth. Considering we were all around the same age (mid to late 30’s), there was an overwhelming thumbs up for artists like Boston, Supertramp and the Cars, but a real disconnect when Hendrix, the Animals or the Doors came on. General consensus was that those songs and artists were pretty old…. definitely not the soundtrack of our collective teenage and college years. There was also the feeling that radio in general was ignoring a lot of the other stuff we also remembered growing up with. Where were the Pretenders and Elvis Costello, where were Soft Cell and Tears for Fears? And what about some of that cool one or two hit wonder stuff from Wang Chung, The Tubes and the Romantics?
A few weeks later Mike Dorn from “Audience Research International, Inc.” and I put together a format montage that best described the “hunch” for this format. The ARI study showed good opportunity for this sound. Soon, based on our montage and other music type probing from the research study, a sound began to take shape. The study had also surprised us a little by indicating that some of the music from the 90s and today worked well with this core sound. We followed the research and put together a “BOB-FM” play-list, which would feature “Classic Hits” and “Pop Rock AC”music. It would stay out of the way of the 80’s pop from artists such as Madonna and Cyndi Lauper.
In addition to the music, we had to address the position and marketing for the station. We had a list of about 20 names…most of which sounded pretty generic. When “BOB” got plopped out on the table…it got a few laughs, but a quick thumbs up. I had heard the name on a country station in Minneapolis in the early 90’s and always thought it was a winner. To me it was instant personality defined with just three letters. Better than Joe, better than Jack, better than Dave …it just worked! Once we went through a sample hour of music, we needed a positioning statement that matched the “out of left field” feel for the station. During a break in the strategic session Mike Dorn and our VP of Programming were talking about the “W” hotel in Los Angeles. They both got a kick out of the way the front desk at the hotel answered the phone not by saying, ”Hello” but instead using only, “Whatever! Whenever.” It was Mike Dorn who thought that would make a great positioning statement and out of that came the “80’s, 90’s and …Whatever.” (It would have been too difficult to sing if we had left the ‘Whenever’ in the line.”) We came out of the conference room that day with a new format, a new name, a unique positioning statement and a great idea of the kind imaging that we would need to make this station click with a huge potential audience who told us if we built it…they would listen. We soon went on to examine the format hole in other markets and found the opportunity to be just as inviting….and of course so did the competition.
4years later we have approximately 96 Variety Hits Formatted radio stations in North America.
When the BOB Format first surfaced, many pundits said they saw this format before in the form of The ARROW, in the early to mid 90’s and wrote it off as another flash in the pan. Eventually as it spread some non-believers became believers, some believers became wildly successful, some became disappointed and still some refused to believe.
To add confusion to the mix soon you had a number of people who thought they had it all figured out, called themselves “experts” and took their own version of it on the road sold their “expertise” to eager stations who had read the press clippings…and failed.
To understand how the format works-you have to understand the underlying events that helped shape its acceptance in the first place.
• Timing is everything- In Canada those, 35-44 year demos are HUGE. If you where born between in 1960 and 1966, there are more of you than anyone. Those 35-44 year olds have been kind of ignored. We have been sandwiched in between the Boomers and the Gen X’ers (sorry for the labels) who got all the attention. We kind of watched it all from the sidelines.
• The 20 year thing-Every decade looks back 20 years- In the 70’s, the collective pop culture navel gazed at the 50’s (Fonzie and Ritchie Cunningham, American Graffiti) The 80’s it was the 60’s (Platoon, Full Metal Jacket etc.)The 90’s the 70’s (That 70’s Show, movies like Studio 54, Dazed and Confused etc.) And now that we are in the 00’s…it’s the 80’s all over again. As you approach your mid to late 30’s those pangs of nostalgia get louder. Could be that 20 year grad reunion looming around the corner. For me the 20 year grad reunion was when the Supertramp, Cars and Pretenders records came out in full force..
• Variety becomes the Niche -Every format has been sliced and diced. Every radio station claims that they play the most music, and the most variety. With BOB variety has now become the niche. Wide is now a format.
• The Internet and Peer to Peer and I-Pod’s.. Napster, Limewire, Kaaza, and I-Tunes have meant one thing and that’s music on demand. And to the 35+ crowd out there, its no exception. I have a number of friends and acquaintances who have all of their albums stored in boxes that have made many moves across the continent, but haven’t been out of those cardboard boxes since 1995. No reason to dig through anything, because Supertramp’s “Even the Quietest Moments”, and “Wang Chung’s” “Let’s Go” where on a hard drive somewhere. All they had to do to get them was point, click and burn,. Beginning with Napster and peer to peer in general, the last 6 years have become a real awakening period for people’s musical taste buds. That includes those 35+’s.. A lot of people I know around my age are past the downloading frenzy, because they have pretty much replaced most of their favorite vinyl tracks with mp3’s. The end result is that I think in some way, peer to peer has conditioned us to expect real variety. It enables us to create the greatest mix CD’s ever. Nothing weird about Tom Petty, Abba and the Clash in a sweep…not on my I-Pod anyway. It’s only natural that the wide acceptance of “any artist any time” has spread to the radio dial…that’s the appeal of a BOB or a JACK. A common refrain in any market where we have launched BOB usually sounds something like,”You know..my CD player has been collecting dust lately.”
What’s ahead for the BOB Format?
The BOB Format has faced many challenges over the last 5 years. You can’t stay in the top 3 by standing still. The wheels of reinvention have to always be moving. Good competition never sleeps. BOB FM Winnipeg is not the same station today as it was when it launched 5 years ago. Knowing when to make the change, riding just ahead of the curve and managing all those expectations when you have a great start out of the gate, are some of the biggest challenges programmers of the format will face:
Other things to think about:
• The format runs a pretty big library and attention will have to be paid to the ROCK/POP A/C balance. It’s real easy to sound like a classic rock station one hour and an a/c station the other hour if you are not careful as new songs enter the library (Yes..I said new songs).
• Contrary to popular belief this format is NOT about playing absolutely ANYTHING you want. Beware of the snake oils salesmen. The stations that will remain successful with the format are the ones that focus their resources on the music and find out what the right songs to play are.
• There will also come a time when the halo will wear off, and the shares will come down. That’s just radio physics. It happens EVERYWHERE. What are you going to tell your clients during this cooling off period and what kind of strategy are you going to implement once the station/format starts entering the mature stage of the product life cycle?
• People do get tired of the same joke after while. What’s the new punch line going to be?
• Jocks or no Jocks? (For the record my vote is to find the talent that is passionate about the format. You’ll never go wrong with the right people.)
• “How you do it” becomes as important as “what you do” How are you going to “do it” a year or two from now?
• How many times a year if any, are you going to test your music?
Bottom line. Feed your BOB three square meals a day, limit his television, make him do his homework, and don’t keep him up too late on school nights. Follow these rules and BOB should live a long prosperous life.
Hank FM is the on-air brand name of several radio stations in the United States and Canada. Stations using the Hank FM brand name typically air a country music format, and promote themselves as less strictly formatted than other country music stations, airing both new country and classic country music. They generally use the slogan (He) Plays Anything Country.