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90’s Country
November 30, 2022
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Last week I drove down from Nashville to my hometown of Eunice, Louisiana to spend the Thanksgiving Holiday with my family down in the bayou. The drive is exactly 671 miles from my parking space at my complex to my mom’s back door. It took me exactly 9 hours to drive it and thanks to a miracle, I only had to stop twice. Only once on the way back (#truth). Needless to say, there isn’t much in the way of radio throughout the drive unless you find one of the carbon copy iHeart or Cumulus stations they operate in tiny markets where nothing is local, and no one is in the building. So, when I’m home, I spend most of my time flipping through stations, trying to find something decent to listen to on the radio while I am there. I used to have my favorites, the ones I grew up listening to, but they have all changed so much after corporate takeover.
So, I was pleasantly surprised to discover a station that captured my attention right away and kept it the entire time I was home. The station was 99.1 KXKC, a station licensed to New Iberia, Louisiana which broadcasts in the Lafayette Metro area. It’s a Cumulus station and ironically one I use to work at back in the early 90’s. The station is oddly still branding itself everywhere and online as “Acadiana’s Original Country.” It’s always been a traditional “Country” station, but on air, it’s been branding itself as “90’s Country,” at least for the last week (hard to tell exactly when they switched).
I have to admit, it’s kind of brilliant. Now don’t get me wrong, I love me some NASH Icon, and some old school country, but I have been telling a few of my clients for a few years now that “90’s Country” is a thing, and someone needs to jump on it. It’s just like all the stations playing 90’s Hip Hop and winning, or 90’s Alt. It’s an era and genre that’s now relevant to the largest available population and demographic out there. And because it’s (in theory) specific to the 90’s, the playlist is smaller than most classic Country stations which means they are playing only the hits. The only time I ever tuned out was when I heard something from Faith Hill or Lonestar that got beaten to death on a lot of AC stations over the years. Otherwise, the “Oh Wow” factor kicked in and it brought me back to my college and early career days when I was still going to the clubs and line dancing like a good little Country girl should (even though I was far from Country).
The imaging is fresh, relatable, and relevant to the demo and the station has good energy. Its average vintage year is 1993, the majority of songs played were released between 1988 and 2003 and it’s second tier starts at 1996. That means monster artists like Reba, George Straight, Randy Travis, Tracy Lawrence, Sammy Kershaw, Garth Brooks, Keith Whitley, Brooks & Dunn, Tim McGraw, Brad Paisley, all during the beginning stages and/or “hay days” of their careers. I could go on and on with the list of A Listers who thrived during this era.
I have to say the above description is the perfect combination for a station which had my TSL for long periods of time while I was home. My guess is there would be instant reaction indicated in the ratings if the market were measured by PPM (and Total Line Reporting), but the good news is, they still use KXKC in the branding so hopefully that will help in the diary world.
I am happy to see that programmers are catching on to the concept of the 90’s Era in all formats, but especially Country, because we haven’t tapped into enough yet. I just hope they will do it right this time, unlike the 80’s stations back in the day, when they finally caught on to that concept and then beat it into the ground, only to discover that playing Flash of Seagulls “I Ran” 50 times a day would kill the format as fast as it started it. The key is to rotate songs in and out of a library (hit songs), have live and relatable talent, and constantly update imaging in a manner that is relevant to the available audience. That is a sure way to win in a Diary or PPM World.
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