First Listen: The U.K.'s First Jack FM
Written Oct. 18, 2007 by Sean Ross in Content with 3 Comments
The idea of doing Jack-FM in Europe has always presented a different set of challenges. After all, it's not that long ago that most stations played more than 1,000 songs and spanned four decades -- and that was just the Top 40s! And the BBC's Hot AC/Triple-A hybrid Radio 2 has done a pretty good job as establishing itself as the home of eclectic variety for adults. So we were very eager to hear our friend Clive Dickens' Jack-FM 106 Oxford, U.K., which launched this morning.
The good news is that if you're in the U.K., Jack-FM will begin to stream the minute you open its Website--something we strongly believe in. Unfortunately, because of British industry licensing issues, that stream won't open if you're outside the U.K. But we did manage to hear Jack-FM on its first day to pass along the details.
Certain elements of the station will be familiar to anybody who has heard the version that became the U.S. template. The station is, at least on its first day, jockless, although there is a morning show and news reports in afternoons. There are liners about going into stopsets ("It's not you, it's us. We need a break"). There are a lot of cold segues. There's a liner about an "iPod on spin cycle." And there is, of course, "Playing What We Want." (Our favorite liner: "Two radios did it and Jack-FM was born. We might not have been planned, but we are loved.")
What's different? The voice of the station isn't Howard Cogan, but one Paul Darrow. There are also a few more attempts to explain how the station works, compared to its U.S. counterparts, which sometimes felt like they didn't need any stinking positioning beyond "playing what we want." And the Grace Jones song notwithstanding, this station is more focused pop/rock than many of its U.S. counterparts. (And if there's anywhere where you'd have permission to go heavier on Rhythm and goofy one-off pop novelties, it would be the U.K., where both of those have always been part of the pop charts.)
If this Jack works in the U.K., it will do so by pulling off one or both of the following. It will function as the Classic Rock station--a format that has only gained any kind of traction in the U.K. in the last decade or so. Or it will manage to position itself as a more focused version of BBC Radio 2 (and, to a lesser extent, Virgin Radio).
"Variety without the gratuitous eclecticism" is a hard position to pull off, but some of the U.S. Jack-FMs did manage it. For all that was written about Jack-FM's ability to destroy the variety image of Hot ACs, it also stunted the growth of some heritage Triple-A stations, as some listeners came to realize that they were happier with a variety of familiar songs than just variety for variety's sake.
Here is Jack-FM at 2:10 p.m. local time on its first day:
Duran Duran, "Save A Prayer" (1982 in the UK)
Guns N' Roses, "Sweet Child O' Mine" (1989 in the UK)
Bryan Adams, "Cloud No. 9" (1999, UK/Canada hit)
Wings, "Live & Let Die" (1973)
Coldplay, "Speed Of Sound" (2004)
Cutting Crew, "(I Just) Died In Your Arms" (1986)
Eagles, "Life In The Fast Lane" (1977)
Maroon 5, "This Love" (2004)
Bon Jovi, "It's My Life" (2000)
Grace Jones, "Pull Up To The Bumper" (a UK hit in 1986)
Andrew Gold, "Never Let Her Slip Away" (1978)
ZZ Top, "Gimme All Your Lovin'" (1984 in the UK)
Lighthouse Family, "Run" (2001)
Squeeze, "Take Me I'm Yours" (1978)
Iggy Pop, "The Passenger" (1977)
Human League, Mirror Man (1982)
Oasis, "Champagne Supernova" (1995)
James Morrison, "You Give Me Something" (2006)
Free, "Wishing Well" (1973)
Carly Simon, "Why" (1982)
Aerosmith, "Dude (Looks Like A Lady)" (1990 in the UK)
Jackson Browne, "Doctor My Eyes" (1972--although, interestingly, it was actually Michael Jackson (!) who had the U.K. hit with this song)
Prince, "The Most Beautiful Girl In The World" (1994)
Rolling Stones, "Tumbling Dice" (1972)
Julian Lennon, "Too Late For Goodbyes" (1985)
Five For Fighting, "Superman (It's Not Easy)" (2001)
Reader Comments
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Actually, this list seems pretty damn narrow to me, especially with just two point something female voices on it, but once again, male programmers, like male politicians, have a very very specific view of what's mainstream on its face and what is marginal.
P.S. I think "Doctor My Eyes" is credited to the Jackson 5, and is another in the great line of UK Motown hits-we-missed, like "There's a Ghost in My House," "The Night," and of course, "Tears of a Clown."
Nice write-up of the UK Jack FM. I've been able to get the stream to play for me (and I'm in the Nashville area), though I'm sure results will vary.
The idea of a classic hits/Hot AC hybrid (Variety Hits), when properly applied, can be quite powerful. Good luck to the UK Jack FM crew.
Lou Pickney
VarietyHits.com
They do play all the adult mainstream hits, but they also play many songs that do not get regular airtime on UK radio and from what I've heard the full playlist actually seems to be larger and less repetitive than on many US variety hits stations. The more popular songs tend to get rotated more often however - up to once a day. They need to play a large number of mainstream hits because stations that don't have never got off the ground historically here in the UK and have only ended up switching to a mainstream format after just a few months on air. Formats that do not include a large amount of mainsteam music simply don't work due to the limited number of stations in the UK. Many areas still only have one or two commercial FM stations. Oxford is priviledged in that it now actually has 3 local commercial FM stations which is rare for a market of its size. Only the large conurbations have more choice on the dial.
Personally as a UK listener sick to death of just about every FM station playing the same 200 or so songs over and over again on endless repeat, JACK FM is a breath of fresh air. I hope it doesn't end up following the trend of just about every other UK commercial station in dropping less popular and less familar songs after a few months to get a bigger slice of the mainstream audience. But what happens will ultimately depend on the first audience figures in 6 months time. If the station is a hit then you can expect the music variety to remain the same or even increase. If the listeners don't take to such a large playlist and the largely presenter free format however then the station will soon end up sounding more like what is already on offer here in the UK. If the station still cannot get good audience figures you can expect the JACK FM name and variety hits format to be gone from the UK in two years time.
It's an interesting experiment and it will ultimately decide who is right, the large commercial radio companies with their tight, highly familiar playlists or the people who believed that JACK FM and the Variety Hits format could work in the UK. The problem is that UK listeners are very different to US listeners. US listeners it seems tend to like to try something different, interesting and new on the radio, whereas UK listeners like the radio to always sound the same and familiar and immediately hear their favourite tunes every time they tune in. So far every station that has dared to depart too much from the mainstream has failed.