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Why Is a Seattle Radio Station Sponsoring Rock Concerts in New York
City?
By Martin Edlund, The New York Sun - February 3, 2004
Just before the headliner Sea Ray went on at Sin-e last week, a young
woman got on stage to thank the capacity crowd for coming on behalf of a
local radio station. This in itself is not unusual: Local radio stations
sponsor shows all the time. What is unusual is that the sponsor of this
particular show, KEXP, is located almost 3,000 miles away, in Seattle,
Wash.
In an age of multinational media companies like Clear Channel
programming local stations from centralized playlists, and satellite and
Internet radio stations available everywhere but rooted nowhere, KEXP
represents a different model: a listener-supported, truly local station
with a national presence.
KEXP DJs make no effort to disguise their localness. They complain about
the weather outside their windows (usually dreary), and run down the
concert calendar of local Seattle clubs. Yet in the last few years, this
tiny station has won a substantial national (and increasingly
international) audience, with listeners tuning in over the Internet from
as far away as Rome, Singapore, China, and Saudi Arabia.
In many ways, KEXP reflects the changes happening elsewhere in radio. As
commercial radio becomes less adventurous, KEXP's eclectic programming -
which includes college rock, ambient, world, roots, rockabilly, and
hiphop shows - stands out all the more. "People really appreciate having
the kind of diversity in music that we play," said KEXP online director
Vickie Nauman. "Radio has become more and more bland in the U.S. and
that's starting to happen internationally."
The traditional commercial broadcast radio model is one of standardized
genre formats (oldies, urban contemporary, adult alternative, etc.)
competing within regional radio markets for finite audiences. The
competition is naturally fiercest for popular formats where the most
listeners can be found. This usually leaves the
indie/eclectic/underground music to college and public radio stations.
Through the Web, KEXP has its cake and eats it, too, continuing to play
its varied, non-commercial music, while expanding beyond its tiny local
niche by piecing what elsewhere becomes leftover scraps into a visual
feast.
According to Nauman, KEXP's online audience represents about 40% of its
overall listenership. The standard unit of measurement in the radio
industry is total weekly listening hours. KEXP.org logs about 183,000
listening hours in an average week. That represents about 23,000 unique
listeners tuning in for an average of more than eight hours a week -
numbers that "should put us in the top 15 Internet radio stations in the
country," says Nauman. Some 40% of those listeners come from outside of
Washington State.
The story of how KEXP got to that point is one of fits and starts. It
began as KCMU, a tiny, 10-watt station associated with the University of
Washington back in 1972. The signal was boosted to 182 watts in 1975 and
400 watts in 1986, giving it a reach of 15 miles around the greater
Seattle area. In 2000, KCMU became the first station to offer
uncompressed, CD quality audio on the Internet 24 hours a day, seven
days a week.
The station got another major boost in 2001 when it partnered with
Microsoft founder Paul Allen and his Experience Music Project (housed
in an undulating Frank Gehry building in downtown Seattle). The wattage
was upped again from 400 to 720 and the station changed its call letters
to KEXP. But the most significant changes were the financial resources
and focus on technology that came with Allen's involvement - changes
that put KEXP on the cutting edge of Internet broadcasting.
The results are there for everyone to see at KEXP.org. The site is a
treasure. Beyond the live streaming, you can listen to two-week archives
of the programs and in-studio performances from indie acts that have
toured through Seattle. "It's not a good environment for real music
fans," KEXP morning host John Richards said of the Web site. "When they
find a station like ours that's commercial-free they don't want to
leave, they've found a home." Even if that's a home away from home.
As the online audience has expanded, KEXP has actually begun courting
listeners in other cities, beginning with New York City. In 2003,
Richards came to New York twice to broadcast from a small room at the
Museum of Television and Radio. The shows featured acoustic in-studio
sets from popular independent acts such as Clem Snide, Stellastarr*,
Death Cab for Cutie, the Stills, and others.
Now, for the first time, KEXP is even sponsoring a band's European tour.
Clem Snide, a New York indie favorite, began its tour in Brixton, U.K.
Sunday night, and will continue for the next month through Scotland,
Ireland, France, Spain, Holland, Germany, and Austria - proselytizing
for KEXP at every stop. KEXP's website is giving away tickets to each
show, and will have promotional materials at the merchandise table every
night. "It gives us a lot of credibility over there," said Richards.
Ironically, KEXP's success may be reshaping the behavior of the
commercial giants at home in Seattle. Last December, KNDD - "the End" -
a popular commercial station, switched from a modern rock format to what
people have begun calling "golden alternative": a mix of familiar
early-1990s alternative songs and newer independent music. In other
words, it's a format that looks a lot more like KEXP's.
"I think a station like ours has influenced that quite a bit," said
Richards. "But you can't say you're the authority - you can't say you
have the hip factor - if we're out there, because you're not."
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