Commentary: KGB Still Needs A Tune-Up! (Sep 21, 2010)

How many years has it been since we told KGB-FM that they need to return to its progressive roots? 8? 9? 10? 11? I forget. It's been too long.

KGB-FM is basically playing the same kind of rock and roll songs it has been since they first broke out on radio some 30, 40, almost 50 years ago! You would think that a radio station that plays music nearly half-a-century old would be a nonprofit college radio station in the 88.1-91.9 Mhz band like those that play classical, traditional jazz, standards music, or other kinds of music that's no longer appealing to advertisers.

With oldies music dating back to 1964, it's very much nonprofit radio territory now.

There's nothing wrong with a good classic rock song every once in a while, but for bands that had their day such as Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Van Halen, AC/DC, The Cars, etc., their glory days are over.

It's time to retire the classics, relegate them to weekend morning blocks, and face the fact: when KGB-FM (and other stations) first broke out the songs when they were once new, did they care whether we liked the songs or not? Back then, they took chances on songs back when they were new.

It's great to hear a brand new rock song get a break and get some airplay. If it means forcing me to listen to my classics on XM or Internet, so be it. These classics had their day in the sun. It's time the new rock acts get theirs.

If it was the 1970s and every radio station was afraid to play a new song when it was new back then, we would be stuck listening to nothing but standards and nostalgia music today on all music channels. Radio stations have to take chances to get new listeners by playing new music that's relevant to their generation.

A great example of this is the online radio station New Normal Music, at http://www.newnormalmusic.com/ run by radio show host Tom Leykis. His radio station is taking chances all the time by playing nothing but rock and roll songs no older than a year old in release. Listeners have been enjoying this station since it was launched on July 2 of this year.

The result is that it's paying off for his venture. In recent weeks, new rock music stations like KPRI, 91X, and 94/9 have been adding some of the songs New Normal Music broke out weeks before.

To many of the listeners, it's what rock and roll radio stations should have been doing all this time to attract new listeners, and that is, break out the new rock songs and let the listeners make them either classics or garbage, and that's what rock radio back in the day did.

If KGB-FM had been breaking out new records continuously since 1999, and swappped out the songs that got too old for newer releases, it would have a steady listening audience after the unevitable happened: the station lost the popular Dave, Shelly, and Chainsaw show in early January. It wouldn't have taken a nosedive in the PPM numbers when they lost The DSC for whatever reasons there were (and we're not going into that subject since it's beyond the scope of this commentary.)

The result is that The DSC are now on Jack picking on KGB every now and then on their morning broadcasts and archived on the show's podcast page on the San Diego Jack FM website. Dave Rickards, the lead man of the team, said on the Jack-FM airwaves last week that KGB called him back to talk about getting the show back on KGB. Dave told them that he wanted what he had before. He said that KGB hasn't called him ever since.

For many years, The DSC had been propping up the numbers for KGB while similar competetor, Jack-FM, had been hanging on. Now with The DSC on Jack, the numbers for Jack are propped while KGB's ratings are now where Jack used to be. In either case, people are tuning out Jack to another streaming or broadcasting music choice after The DSC sign off.

Not only does it look like KGB should have been a progessive rock station, but it looks like Jack needs to improve their worn out 200-song classic rock and classic modern rock playlist. Jack-FM's playlist of mostly 70s and 80s music are lacking in terms of variety and doesn't represent the full music culture of what the decades in music were like when I was growing up.

It's the Internet age. The new normal is listening to streaming radio stations on the Internet in the morning before going to work, listening to their favorite music on their iPods, and for the most part, it's not what the broadcasters think their listeners want to hear, turning on their favorite streaming radio station or listening to their iPod for their music while they work, listening to streaming radio stations on their Smartphones, and about 66 percent awating the day when in-dash Internet car radio will finally become a reality.

Many people are still listening to radio while commuting to work, but marquee morning shows like DSC on Jack, Cliff and Company on KSON, AJ on Star, Mikey on 94/9, and Jagger and Kristi on Magic have dedicated listeners, while non-marquee replacement morning shows on Channel 933 (imported from Phoenix) and KGB (at least they're local and live) are struggling for listeners.

People want live and local, but they also want what's new in music. It's time radio took the radio audience more seriously, stop with the gimmicks and get back home to reality. It's time to take chances on good new music that people might like to hear once again, and put them where they really belong: on the main HD1 and analog FM radio channel.

To KGB, it's time to retire the classics, and bring The New Normal rock music to the San Diego airwaves.