"We don't play Avril Lavigne," says Cat Thomas, sounding like a radio-station music director whose demographic, women 16 to 34, prefer Usher over Avril, Jay-Z to Hoobastank.
This wasn't always so. In 1988, when Thomas' arrived at KLUC 98.5-FM, heavy metal ruled the airwaves; the first record he spun: Poison's "Nothing But a Good Time." Today, KLUC is far removed from the days of boys-that-look-like-girls rockers. Everything's now enveloped in urban vibe, from the music down to the posters on the walls; about the only heavy metal you'd hear is if there's construction under way.
"Back then, it was all about hard rock," Thomas recalls. "Then it switched to Bobby Brown and Tone Loc, gangsta rap in the early '90s, pop music in the mid-'90s, with Britney Spears and 'N Sync; and now there's been a hip-hop explosion."
Into the urban radio fray came KVEG 97.5 (2001), V108 (2003) and 101.9 (2003), owned by Rupert Murdoch's Clear Channel media empire. Already here: KCEP 88.1, whose adult contemporary format, when not playing gospel (Sunday) and classic soul (Thursdays), pumped out Top 40 jams from the likes of Nas, Outkast and Kelis; and KUNV 91.5, whose Saturday night "Word Up Show" plays underground hip-hop.
But where there's an explosion, there's also detritus—stations unable to successfully navigate the format switch and resigned to the scrap heap. KLUC was among the successful converts, moving from Barbara Streisand and the Bee Gees in the late '70s and rock in the '80s to moving to the hip-hop side of the aisle. Not everyone's been so fortunate.
Thomas says one of KLUC's particularly mouthy competitors isn't faring as well and may be in for a drastic format change—to Spanish station—adding another name to the "Parade of Losers," a running memorial taped to a cabinet in Thomas' office. The list of the vanquished includes: Q100.5, which changed to adult contemporary in 1989; Q95.5, changed to country in 1990; Power 97.1, changed to classic rock in 1992; 94.1 Jamz, changed to hot adult contemporary in 1996; and 107.9 (V108), changed to urban adult contemporary in 2002.
Days after our interview, there's a new entrant in the hit-and-miss parade: 101.9 KISS (Wild 102). Once a hard-rock station, Wild 102 switched to a hip-hop and R&B format last year, adding a fourth contender to already convoluted urban-radio airwaves. Wild 102's wild ride ended last week with its conversion to ... you guessed it, a Spanish format (La Preciosa); it was an urban-radio defeat for Clear Channel and shocking because Wild, at times, pushed urban radio kingpin KLUC.
Coming in like a lion, with celebrity-rapper billboards, brash DJs and overt antagonism (lampooning KLUC as "the chicken station"), Wild went out like a lamb, a casualty of what's become the FM battleground—Vegas' urban radio market. Among the most competitive in the nation, it's in the top five in terms of FM signals per capita (38th overall, up from 74th in '88). As Wild's demise shows, being well-funded is no assurance of survival.
Even with one less competitor, the folks who work in the local urban radio market concede more carnage could be on the way, each insisting that their station will survive the fallout.
Says Thomas: "We can't all co-exist for long."
A May 29, 2003 cover story on the web site, blackcommentator.com, asks, "Who killed black radio news?"
The answer isn't as important as the reality it unveils: That the absence of black radio news has allowed the Ludacrises, Jay-Zs, R. Kellys, Musiq Soulchilds, Jill Scotts, Mary J. Bliges, 50 Cents and Eminems to barge in and set up shop on FM dials nationwide; the playlists of many urban stations are now determined more by Soundscan numbers than listener interest.
According to the story, urban radio skewed more newsy in the '70s: "On the streets and at press conferences, black radio journalists jostled with white and African-American reporters from 'general market' radio stations to form a local press corps that competed for the black public's attention and respect. Thirty years later, black radio is more relic than reality; among the few black-owned stations, few offer news."
These days, "news isn't even on the radar screen. Indeed, so insidiously have disc jockey patter and the talk show format been substituted for news that large segments of the Black public may no longer know the difference."
So who's to blame?
"While 1,200-station Clear Channel deserves every lash of the whip as the Great Homogenizer of American radio, the chain operates only 49 stations programmed to Blacks, and is dominant in no large African-American market. The Queen of black broadcasting is Radio One, and her dictum is, let them eat talk."
The nation's seventh largest radio broadcasting company (based on 2003 net broadcast revenue) and the largest company primarily targeting African-American and urban listeners, Radio One owns and/or operates 69 stations in 22 urban markets, reaching 13 million listeners every week. And it's scope is about to get bigger: On Sunday night, Radio One chief Alfred Liggins III agreed to buy a controlling stake in radio personality Tom Joyner's media company for $56 million.
All this imperiously assumes that urban exclusively means black and discounts that millions of white kids can recite 50 Cent's lyrics verbatim, Eminem has become Elvis for generation of angst-ridden suburban youth, and rappers like Fat Joe and Jin have inspired legions of Latinos and Asians to dress in baggy clothes, sport bling and consider careers in rhyme.
Viewed threw a macro lens, suddenly urban becomes less a matter of what you look like and more a matter of what you like.
In the late '80s, radio airwaves were distinguished by subsets: urban, country, alternative, rock and jazz. The explosion of alternative music added stratification—from neo-soul to classic soul, emo to grunge, rap to underground hip-hop.
KVEG and KLUC compete (as did Wild 102) in what's dubbed the rhythmic category, with publicly owned KCEP as the wild card, its varied format containing programs geared toward classic soul, blues and gospel, in addition to hip-hop and R&B. Comparing their playlists over several days in October revealed overarching homogeny—cycling the same popular songs. Call it the power of Soundscan, or operation by Billboard fiat.
A quick experiment over several days in November: Within the same hour, each station played "Big Chips," the R. Kelly-Jay-Z collabo. On another day, within the 10 minutes of each another, all four stations broadcast "Shorty Wanna Ride With Me," by 50 Cent protégé Young Buck (who recently turned himself in on attempted murder charges for allegedly stabbing a man at the recent Vibe Awards in Los Angeles).
Thus produces our local urban radio conflict: How to be distinguishable when the songs you play aren't?
There'd be less of a quandary if there weren't, by comparison to larger cities, a wealth of urban radio options. Neither Los Angeles nor Oakland can boast of Vegas' bounty—at one time having four stations dedicated to urban music.
How the former "Mississippi of the West," a city whose growing minority population, still comprises less than a third of the city, a place with a malleable ethnic demography (interracial neighborhoods and churches) became a battleground for urban radio is actually quite simple: Money.
The hip-hop was a highly profitable scratch that needed itching.
THE CIVIC ACTIVIST
KCEP (Power 88)
Target Demo: 25 to 44
Genre: Urban Contemporary
"D," on-air personality King J tells me, "here's the difference ... we 'bout the community. Where are all those other stations? They ain't over here. I'ma keep it real, cause we're keeping it real. Look where we're at."
Look indeed. KCEP's time-worn environs contrast with KLUC's tawny, two-story digs on Sahara and Rainbow. Exit Interstate 15 off of Washington, turn on D Street and you're there, at KCEP and also in the hood.
Across the street is Ethel Pearson park, a frequent hangout for the homeless; further west on Washington, the offices for the Economic Opportunity Board, the much-maligned government funded anti-poverty agency that runs the station; further still, at 'H' Street, a government housing subdivision known for gang activity.
D Street is churchville—ditto for E, F and G streets, likely giving the area the city's highest per capita church-seat-to-resident ratio. The sanctuaries not only stand as testimonials to the spiritual center of the city's spread-out black community, but serve as refuges for the hungry and homeless, drug-abusing and destitute. There's gravel strewn across the parking lot and paint chafes away from the weather-beaten exterior of KCEP studios at 330 W. Washington. King J feels at home.
"It's good to be in the 'hood," he says.
King J and Billy Thompson (Billy T) are in the middle of a Classic Thursday mix, spinning back-in-the-day grooves from the likes of Kool and the Gang and Luther Vandross. They've got a easy rapport, like two cousins—Thompson drives the show, King J is the trusty sidekick, often punctuating Thompson's thoughts with a throaty "Yea."
A Detroit native, Thompson joined KCEP six years ago and refers to it as the "heritage station," citing a 30-year history of catering to a variety of musical tastes and addressing community needs with an expansive list of programming that includes hosting student achievement conferences, running a summer internship program for high school students, offering various talk shows (covering economic empowerment, community-police relations and local news), along with free PSAs for community events and more. As is customary, Thompson begins his mid-afternoon show with the top news of the day, telling listeners about the aftermath of some important election the night before. "Bush has been president for a day and we're still alive," he jokes.
Not so funny, he says during a station break, is what he calls "corporate America's destruction of urban radio": conglomerate-run stations crowding the airwaves and diluting the product. Always a driving force in music, the paradigm shifted when hip-hop and R&B became a cash cow, rappers outselling rockers. Nineties' boy bands emerged from the New Edition (and Jackson 5) blueprint; radio stations changed formats en masse. Jay-Z is now heard on stations that Jon Bon Jovi once ruled. Pressure mounted to play what's popular. Don't play it and you risk obsolescence.
Though not totally immune from ratings pressures, KCEP's public status allows for a try-to-please-everyone kind of approach.
"We have a lot of demographic segments," Thompson says. "Kids may not know about history of urban music from the early days; parents may not know much about hip-hop. We play music that satisfies both of them. If you like old school, we got that. If you like gospel, we got that. We decided not to follow the trend of stations going completely to hip-hop because we've always offered something for everybody. Back in the day, urban stations played everything, Isaac Hayes to Gladys Knight. That's how they stayed relevant and that's how we're able to stay relevant."
And don't underestimate the power of free.
"We do a lot of stuff for free," Thompson says. "Other stations are part of conglomerates, so they can spend more, offer cars or trips as prizes. We can't do that. There's maybe not as much pressure on us in terms of ratings and revenue—you don't see billboard and TV commercials—but we do have to make money and we do want to compete ... we compete well."
THE NEW KID
KVEG (Hot 97.7)
Target Demo: 18-35 women
Genre: Urban
Youth is being served at Hot 97.5. And doing the serving, too. Nevada's newest station, as the sign proclaims from its offices behind a McDonald's across the street from Mandalay Bay, is all about newness. Starting with all the young people. They're everywhere, the street teams looking a lot like the target demo.
About a dozen folks solidly entrenched in the 16-24-year-old demo enter and exit the station during a mid-week during an early November afternoon. Which isn't to say the 3-year-old station exudes youthful enthusiasm, but that the privately owned station might be on to something: Young people can appeal to young people, so why not use them?
Over the phone, program director Sherita Sausberry is reticent about the meeting—"Some questions I can't, and won't, answer."
Maybe it's distrust of the media or protectionism borne of the station's private ownership: The station's isn't an open book. Music director Jessie Garcia (Jay Noise) sits in the interview.
"We're in this for the long haul," Sausberry tells me. "It's not everyday you can build a station from the ground up. We're committed to staying here and we're committed to winning."
How KVEG will win, well, that's as secret as KFC's secret recipe. At least two strategies are obvious—utilizing young people and pushing community involvement, a la KCEP. Under its belt already: participation in local parades, offering PSAs to community groups, supporting the American Lung Association's asthma walk, recently putting on a huge youth conference at Cox Pavilion. "Morning Madhouse" personality Mike P (an alumni of KCEP's summer internship program), who lists his favorite class in school as recess and conducts hilarious prank calls on local businesses, volunteers a lot.
KVEG's also successfully penetrating the club scene; its DJs giving "men and women need to get a chance to hear the music we play," Garcia says.
Mention the High School Takeover, perhaps the perfect meld of youth-and-community-oriented initiatives, and smile creases his lips. "This is probably what we're most proud of. We get to go to high schools and promote school spirit and positivity. We also get a chance to let the students put real faces to the DJs they listen to."
All this sounds good and even generates goodwill, but is it working?
Sausberry: "Yes."
"How can you tell?"
Apparently, that's secret, too.
Given Wild's impending demise, I ask how they can ensure KVEG is around three, five and 10 years from now? What's its defining characteristic? How is that different from the competition?
"We're not going to talk about our plans other than to say we're focused on winning and dominating the market," Sausberry says.
"How?"
"You hit on it already."
"But the playlists of the stations are almost identical. What's differentiates you?"
"If you listen to the station for 10 minutes, you'll hear the difference....we're a younger, fresher station not run by a huge conglomerate. We're local and we know Las Vegas...
"When we started there was only one rhythmic station, KLUC. KCEP is a public station and they play a variety of music, then came Wild 102. We were on an AM station initially. It's rare to see a company go from an AM to an FM station. We saw a need on the FM dial and took advantage of it."
It helps to think of the urban radio market as a ripe apple and everyone wants a bite. For awhile, KLUC had the biggest mouth, therefore taking the biggest bites. Soon V108, 97.5 and Wild 102 invited themselves to the table, hungry; meantime, KCEP kept nibbling (garnering respectable, middle-of-the-pack ratings). That there's now one fewer mouth doesn't mean everyone automatically gets more. There'll be no earning bigger bites without a fight.
"There was simply not enough room for four stations...LA doesn't have this many urban stations," Sausberry says. "This is a competitive market. It couldn't have three urban stations and now it's a 2-pony town.
KING OF CRUNK
KLUC (98.5)
Target Demo: 16-34, women
Genre: CHR-rhythmic
Cat Thomas likes numbers.
Like the fact that KLUC's parent company, Infinity Broadcasting outbilled Clear Channel last year despite 15 percent of the stations of Murdoch's behemoth. And the 320 events KLUC hosted last year (450-500 are on tap for 2005). Its haul of 208,000 weekly listeners (he says KVEG has 144,000 and KCEP, 80,000; Wild 102 had 154,000). The 98,000 toys donated during last year's toy drive. The $500,000 in monthly revenues (he says Wild generated $200,000 and KVEG, 170,000). The 80 to 100 listeners queried each week on their musical tastes. That these 16 to 27-year-olds determine the station's Top 20 play list. He dissects Arbitron data (blacks comprise 9 to 10 percent of the audience, Hispanics 22 to 23 percent) with a researcher's verve. Add it all to together and it spells larger market share for the 56-year-old station.
"We want to be better in all facets of the game," says Thomas, who loves sports analogies. "We want to have the most presence—the most bumper stickers on cars, the most people at a big event. That's why we have sticker hits, where we offer prizes, that's why we're in a club seven nights a week, that's why we host events: We had (the now closed) Wet 'n Wild all summer. We have more market heritage than anyone in town."
KLUC has leveraged its history, longevity breeding familiarity with listeners and advertisers. Because KLUC can promise 50,000-plus more listeners, it can charge more for ads. Higher revenues mean more money to invest in talent, marketing and promotion.
"I ask advertisers: What kind of car do you drive? It's usually a large car. 'Why don't you buy a Kia? It's smaller and does the same thing.' I end up telling them that sometimes you have to pay more for quality. In the end, it's about winning."
KLUC has snagged its share of hardware. Billboard station of the year (four times), Gavin station of the year (three times). As has Thomas, nominated for program director of the year at the Radio Music Awards, a Clear Channel-sponsored event. Certainly not a slam-dunk testament of KLUC's reach, but a coup nonetheless: Thomas was recently invited to listen to J.Lo's new CD.
Still, as recently as May, Wild 102 seemed to be making inroads, finishing neck-and-neck with in one ratings period. Perhaps Wild's lampooning of KLUC—commercials featured the sound of clucking chickens—and a popular midday program featuring old-school hip-hop was having an impact. Of the name-calling, Thomas says it was a ploy to rankle staff, "to try to pull us offsides," he says, usually a football analogy. "To respond to them would have given them more exposure. They were desperate. Wild had hoped to be No. 1 or No. 2, but they're the third dog in a 3-dog race. They could be a Hispanic station in 12 months."
He overshot by 11 months. Wild 102 converted to La Preciosa weeks after our interview.
"We no longer play urban music," a lady says when I request an Usher song: "We have a Spanish format."
Largely because the station is 100-percent local—Clear Channel has been criticized for piping in programming from other cities; like a San Francisco DJ doing a morning show in Oakland; Thomas says KLUC's local Morning Zoo show crushed 101.9's show hosted by a Los Angeles-based DJ Rick Dees—KVEG has a chance to survive, Thomas says. It's a tepid compliment at best: He said survive, not win.
The battle for the urban ear has been largely congenial. In other cities, urban radio wars have moved off the wavelengths and into the streets. A story in Oakland's East Bay Express recounts the beef between Clear Channel-owned KMEL and upstart station Power 92.7. Power employees told the newspaper that KMEL and its sister station Wild 94.9 hired young Oakland toughs to plaster stickers over their stickers, tag the new station's building with epithets and follow them home.
No such vindictiveness here. Says Thomas: "We just wouldn't deface other people's property. Vindication doesn't move the needle."
Thompson and King J echo the respect factor—there's no need to trip. King J slips in a jab at the competition. "The problem with the other stations is that their DJs don't really know Vegas, don't know the community, don't know the hood. I'm from Louisiana but I've been here since 1977. Ask any of those DJs where the Big 8 was. I bet they can't tell you."
"Where was it?" Thompson asks.
"In the Nucleus Plaza."
Says Thompson: "Man, I'm going to ask people where the Big 8 was and if they can't tell me, I'm going to say, 'You ain't from the Westside.'"
As the classic Thursday show winds down, Thompson says being a public radio station is both a gift and a curse: "We're largely self-sustaining. Our underwriters have to compete with the big guys, so we try to give them a good product to sell." Empowered and handicapped at the same time. "Our competition is not as intense as 97.5, Wild and KLUC, but we still have to compete."
Promises of civility aside, there's a battle that needs fighting—and winning. Whatever the tactic, steering larger numbers of ears toward their frequency is the goal. Because to the victor goes urban radio's highly profitable spoils.