When 11-year-old classic-rock station KCBS-FM (93.1) changed formats, it went from an arrow to a shotgun.
The playlist for the new station, dubbed "93.1 Jack FM," is so scattered -- by design -- that listeners can hear current heartthrob singer-songwriter John Mayer following '80s heavy-metal band Def Leppard, for example.
"It's like the ultimate CD collection on shuffle. Everything from the Rolling Stones and Bob Marley to Dave Matthews and No Doubt," said Kevin Weatherly, senior vice president of programming for Infinity Radio, parent company of KCBS and six other stations in Los Angeles.
The new format, which has also been compared to an Apple iPod, or a barroom jukebox, kicked off at 5 p.m. Thursday playing Devo's "Whip It," then "Jumpin' Jack Flash" by the Rolling Stones, then C+C Music Factory's "Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)."
"It's built around a lot of train wrecks," KCBS General Manager Jeff Federman said of the playlist, "but that's the magic of the station -- a lot of 'oh wow' records."
The old format, in which the station called itself "Arrow 93," has been the target of rumors about a change for years, and Weatherly said they pondered several more conventional formats before settling on Jack's eclectic mix about seven months ago. Work began in earnest around the beginning of the year.
"Arrow 93" debuted in September 1993, and initially grabbed 3.2% of the local audience, good for 11th place in the market. But by 1997 it had slipped to 2.7% and 13th place, and fell to 2.2% and 19th place in 2001. In the latest ratings available, polling listeners from September through December, KCBS finished tied for 19th place with 1.8% of the audience.
Arrow played what it called "classic rock" by artists such as Bruce Springsteen, the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton, the Eagles and the Beatles. Jack FM is still drawing heavily from that roster but also promises to play tunes from the 1970s through today. Weatherly said the station would start with a library of 1,200 songs, about four times what most stations play.
Infinity has already tried this experiment in Dallas, where it changed a contemporary hits station to the Jack format last July. In the most recent ratings, KJKK took 2.9% of the audience, up from its previous 1.9%.
