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By Kathy Michaels
Country music fans are lamenting the loss of Kelowna’s B-103.1, but there just weren’t enough of them to keep the station afloat.
“Country music isn’t viable in Kelowna,” said Bruce Davis, the station’s vice president and general manager. “We gave it our best shot and we lost too much money on it.”
Davis explained that radio stations’ “currency” is BBM ratings, and B-103 consistently earned low marks. With the switch to adult contemporary music on the revamped Q-103.1, that should change.
“It’s a far more popular format with a wider based appeal,” he said. “Country has a very loyal audience, but there are not enough of them.”
What there are plenty of in this area, is media outlets.
Numerous radio stations, newspapers and online publications serve a city with just over 100,000 population base, and that makes maximizing one’s reach all the more important as it correlates directly to accessing a limited pool of advertising dollars.
“Advertisers like the media, and this has always been a good radio market, but they can only buy (advertising) on so many stations and if you are down in the rankings, it’s not where they want to be,” he explained. “But if you are ranked where you need to be, it’s a powerful medium.”
He added that it’s a very personal medium and the changeover will be hard for many of the station’s fans to take, which is something he empathizes with.
That said, the new station launched yesterday and there’s a little something for everyone.
The Q will feature a Hot AC format, but without hip hop or electronica. Their aim is to present an up-tempo station with long sets of music, while also introducing some new and dynamic on-air personalities to the marketplace that will make the station fun and interactive.”
Included in those personalities is the New Q Morning Show hosted by Steve Thompson, formerly of Bob-FM in Winnipeg, who will make his debut with well known Kelowna on-air personality Heather Adams, on Monday, Feb. 8 at 5:30 a.m. Drew Ferreira, who moved to Kelowna from Toronto, will anchor mid-days, while Troy Scott will host weekday afternoons.
kathy@kelowna.com
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we had a country station??
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Of course some will disagree but, we need a dance music station. 99.9 is a pop/top 40 station.
I am talking about Electronic music, 90’s and 80’s dance music, classic disco jams(who does not like Good Times?), old school hip hop etc.
Rock is dead. ie The turntable out sold the guitar in the late 90’s, and now time to get on with the future.
Of course many people will disagree, but that is just the view of a 30year old that has been in the music biz for 13 years.
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Missed this part …..”but without hip hop or electronica.”
I guess you guys did not read the last station ratings report that had 99.9 near the top? They play hip hop and some electronica. Why? Because the turntable out sells the guitar!
At the end of the day that is the statistic worth noting because it gives a marketing agent the biggest view into the wants and needs of the next generations on people.
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They did a dumb thing by dumping ‘talk’ radio for a country format. When the switch was made everyone turned to AM 1150 making it one of the success stories in AM radio. Now they are moving to an easy format that appears to draw ratings. For this really to work for them they need to overall the announcers. Give me a reason to turn you on for more than just the music.
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They dumped talk because they said talk didn’t make money. They dumped country because they said country didn’t make money.
I love country music…just couldn’t stand their on-air personalities. They’ve hired a couple new people, but for the most part, its the same crew.
No point shuffling the deck chairs on the titanics…
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oh that’s not fair, I love country music , I am going to miss 103.1 very much.
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if this must be, would it be possible to have a mixed station with country too?
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radio in kelowna is nasty. i grew up there and i’m thankfull to be in vancouver now where they live in the real world and not in some little bubble. kelowna likes to think they are big time but in the end they are just a small town with small town persoanlities… i mean zippy gilmour is still at the lizard or power or whatever new name…he was there when i was in high school and still has a job? pathetic!!!!
…..time to hire new talent kelowna….if only the fox and team 1040 could move into ktown
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I must say that I listened to that station all the time and know of a huge amount of people who did too. There better be another one because we are rightly pissed off. We figured the station was very popular and it was run correctly so gained a lot of listeners. This new station that has replaced it is horrid, and we want our country music back!!
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It was not a good station anyways, who cares.
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We were faithful listners to Contry B-103. The announcers were great. The station could of used an update to their music rather than the same old music all day long. Howevr we will be back listening to Penticton or Vancouver. I wonder how they survive. The new station is certainly not what I want to hear. Silk is possibly the next best local station
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Maybe B103 should have continued to play what they started off with in their pilot days! Alot of variety, alot of the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s you didn’t hear the same song played over and over again 14 times a day! After a while they continued to play the same “canned” program and no variety in their selections. You could almost set your clock by the next song that came on. I belonged to the B club hoping that we actually did make a difference in the playlist but apparently that was not the case. This does not only apply to B103, it also applies to ALL the stations in Kelowna. Quit sticking to the canned computerized playlist and add some mixture, some variety to it. This is not rocket science people…not that hard to figure out. too bad the managers etc of B103 couldn’t see this, there would still be a country staion in Kelowna.
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I loved country music and miss my station and this was the closes one… from Mb.
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How many Adult Contemporary channels can Kelowna support???
Does anyone listen to radio anyways? (Right, people over 50). Seriously iPods killed off AM and FM radio. Why would someone put up with uninspiring talent, amateur (I mean terrible!) commercials and 4 songs an hour (!?) when the option of a personalized, commercial- free playlist is at your fingertips. It’s a no-brainer. And that’s just one alternative. Then there’s satellite radio which actually has a variety of music and would be better than anything on Kelowna’s airwaves. Radio is the newsprint of the 21st century, it’s a dying media.
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