Bill Virgin's Radio Beat July 27, 2006

Includes archive of Bill Virgin's columns fromJ une 2006 - March 2009

Postby radiofan » Wed Jul 26, 2006 7:03 pm

Thursday, July 27, 2006

On Radio: Lazlo rethinks KNDD's alternative

By BILL VIRGIN
P-I REPORTER


Lazlo (like a Brazilian soccer player he goes by one name) worked as both program director and afternoon drive-time host at his last radio posting, at an FM station in Kansas City. He remembers looking at program directors at other stations and wondering "what they do with those four hours" every day not spent on the air.

Now he's finding out. Named last month as the program director for Entercom's KNDD-FM (107.7), succeeding Phil Manning, Lazlo says this is the first time in his radio career he hasn't been on the air.

Even so, he says, "the day fills up pretty quickly" with meetings about the daily details of running a radio station, as well as the big picture questions of what's the future for KNDD and stations with an alternative-music format.

KNDD, marketed as The End, at one time was one of the top stations in the Seattle-Tacoma market, placing fifth in the overall Arbitron ratings in winter quarter 2000; in the winter 2006 ratings it languished at 20th.

Both the format and the musical genre are a decade old, raising questions such as what life is left in the format? And what is it an alternative to anyway?

"I see alternative as a mindset, a lifestyle," Lazlo says. "It's a way we look at things," a mix of humor and cynicism.

Lazlo wants to emphasize the humor aspect -- alternative, he says, sometimes took itself a bit too seriously. Part of that element is addressed with the morning-drive Adam Carolla show, which Lazlo plans to keep. "I'm a fan; he's a smart, funny guy," he says.

Carolla's show is talk rather than music-oriented, and national rather than local, but Lazlo says he's comfortable with having a syndicated show in mornings. "It's important in most of the day parts to be local," he says.

Alternative is also a music genre, and Lazlo says the label, while encompassing a lot of music, is now clearly differentiated from the music played by active-rock stations. Alternative stations "thought we had to play Korn, Limp Bizkit and Nickelback," he says. "It became clear we did not have to play them and shouldn't be playing them."



Instead KNDD will focus on new and current bands such as The Killers and Band of Horses, as well as mining the catalog of bands such as The Pixies or Social Distortion that didn't get as much attention from alternative stations as they should have. "We won't give up on the '90s either," he says.

Lazlo's move affects one other on-air personality at his former station -- his wife, Afentra, the morning host. She'll eventually do her Kansas City show from Seattle.

In other radio notes:


An update on an item from last week: Jim Dai, formerly morning host at KIXI-AM, has been named full-time to the morning hosting duties at smooth-jazz station KWJZ-FM (98.9), working with Gina Tuttle.


Steve Knight, a former news director and reporter for KIRO-AM, has been named news director of New York Times Radio and morning newscaster on WQXR-FM. New York Times Radio was established last year to develop audio content for broadcast and satellite radio and the Internet.


Bill Fischer, author of "Virtuoso Teams: Lessons From Teams That Changed the World," will be the guest on "The Men's Room" at 4:20 p.m. today on KISW-FM (99.9).


The Tom Baker Quartet performs on "Sonarchy" at midnight Saturday on KEXP-FM (90.3).


Kate Daniels interviews Karen Moyer, co-founder of the Moyer Foundation, on "Sunday Morning Magazine" at 5:30 a.m. Sunday on KRWM-FM (106.9).

P-I reporter Bill Virgin can be reached at 206-448-8319 or billvirgin@seattlepi.com.

Bill Virgin's Radio Beat - The Seattle P-I
Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who couldn't hear the music.
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