After less than a month, KUNV-FM (91.5) gave up on a short-lived attempt to transform its weeknight format into AAA programming (a mix of progressive rock, world music, blues music and other genres reminiscent of the eclecticism of college radio) and has returned to broadcasting the syndicated show Mainstream Jazz with Bob Parlocha.
According to KUNV General Manager David Reese, the return of Parlocha's show on weeknights is the result of the extraordinary number of complaints made by listeners. Reese says, "I didn't tally it up. But we are in the hundreds. We did get some positive response. But by far the majority of the people missed the jazz in the evenings."
In a July letter, Reese had informed contributors to the nonprofit station (which broadcasts from UNLV) that the station would be using AAA in the evenings "to feature a broader, more diverse playlist which tends to appeal to adults as well as college-age audiences."
Reese says now that the change was necessary for KUNV because the station has suffered from stagnation even as the number of potential listeners to KUNV has continued to grow. "As the Las Vegas population grows there is a certain percentage of those who are going to be into jazz and we haven't experienced that growth at the station. We know the population is exploding, and we seem to be pretty static over the last few years."
But when Parlocha's show was removed on Labor Day and AAA was added, Reese admits, he was caught off guard by the strong and heated response from the station's listeners.
"I was surprised. One of the reasons we thought we could experiment in the evenings is that when I look at the actual rating numbers they are very low in the evening. In many cases, we didn't even have the minimum number of listeners that get you to show up in the ratings. There was quite a bit of reaction."
Since, according to Reese, the station depends on two pledge drives to raise money from listeners—and, with one of these approaching on October 14—the decision was made to confine AAA to weekends (a time during which the station traditionally features more diverse offerings):
"The other option was to stick it out and see what happens in the long run. There is no doubt that that would have had some type of impact on our pledge drive since the other format (AAA) is so new that we would not gain much off of that. And we certainly would have had a big group of people who would say, 'You've changed the station; I am not going to support it anymore.'"
Having bowed to the demands of jazz fans, Reese is now counting on these listeners to support KUNV during the drive next week:
"I think it is a great opportunity for the station. Our fall fund drive kicks off October 14 and I am pinning a lot of hopes on the pledge drive.
"If you really want a viable jazz station in the Las Vegas market then we need more people to step up to the plate and become members."
Reese says he still remains committed to expanding the station's musical palette. "We want to make the jazz audience happy and experiment with the station a little bit and I think we can do both." For now, however, such experimentation will be confined to the weekends. In the long term, Reese says he is optimistic not only about bringing greater variety to KUNV, but also about preserving its basic character as a jazz station.
"I think Las Vegas should be a very good jazz market. It's a growing market. We do have a lot of jazz artists coming through and performing in Las Vegas, and we have a community of people who are into jazz. One of the perplexing things is, Why are we working so hard to keep this thing going? If there is going to be a successful jazz station it should work in Las Vegas."
Still, jazz fans in Las Vegas should not rest easy on their victory over AAA at KUNV. Reese notes: "If the fall pledge drive falls flat on its face, then I think that it's a whole new ballgame."