The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 105

THE BOSTON GLOBE WEDNESDAY, JUNE 14, 2000 F9 Loud, crude FM rivals airing sounds of sameness 'Modern rock used to be the format where women went to rock if they wanted something hipper than Top 40. Now, clearly, it's a male-driven WFNX-FM (101.7), which launched with that format in 1983, began showing some ratings growth. But by the early '90s the bands that helped define that sound, such as Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and R.E.M., started filling stadiums. Bigger stations, such as WBCN, switched to the format, and the alternative became the mainstream. There is, as any fan of college radio knows, still a real alternative.

Small labels put out rock music that doesn't fill stadiums. And some "modern" stations have avoided the conflict by focusing on the dance music that formed one branch of New Wave. But a big station like WBCN doesn't want a niche format. "Basically in the mind of a lot of programmers, modern rock isn't the alternative format," agrees Ross, of Aii-play Monitor. "It is simply the contemporary rock format." And so the "modern" format, which is based on novelty rather than a particular sound, is pitted against the "active" format, which is based on a distinctive sound, all across the country.

In fact, unless a great new musical movement comes along -another popular upsurge like grunge or punk or hip-hop, which could steer the "modern" playlist away from the "active" staples the two will continue to butt heads indefinitely. And WBCN will probably continue to try to out-gross WAAF, in every sense of the word. It's a battle that could bring out the best of both, but right now it seems to be a question of who can dig down to the lowest common de-. nominator first. the last two weeks, both stations had such heavy-guitar bands as Staind, Korn, and Limp Bizkit in heavy rotation, along with contemporary heavy-metal stars Metal-lica.

WBCN's Oedipus stresses the breadth of his station, pointing to hip-hop and electronica acts like Cypress Hill and Moby that make up the modern rock station's mix. However, the crossover between the stations is so great that in the last few weeks a flip of the dial could land a listener in the same song, such as "Kryptonite" by 3 Doors Down, on either station. And although some shared bands, notably Pearl Jam and Stone Temple Pilots, may be more closely associat- ed with the modern-rock format, the sound that now dominates both stations is overwhelmingly guitar-heavy and male-fronted, a very hard or "active" rock sound of "hard-rock songs that have a melody," as WAAF program director Dave Douglas describes them. The primary motivation for this shift is clear: WAAF has been steadily climbing in the ratings, particularly among that core audience of men, ages 18 to 34. "We're really zeroing in on targeting men," confirms Douglas.

Oedipus dismisses the idea that WAAF offers serious competition to WBCN. "Let's see where they are in a year," he says. Overall, WBCN does retain the lead in ratings, with a 3.9 percent share of the adult audience, compared to a 3.1 for WAAF in the most recent account-' RADIO Continued from Page Fl WAAF, meanwhile, had built its listener base on hard or "active" rock, in trade terms, that appealed primarily to young white men. The 32-year-old station had a solid core audience, which rewarded the station with a steady rise in ratings when it moved from its Worcester base into Boston studios last summer. And the Entercom Communications station was consistent, which meant that not only was the music guitar-based and fairly simple, but the Js played to a frat-boy mentality that matched the music.

The popular afternoon team of Opie and Anthony, for example, promoted such stunts as "WOW," or "Whip 'em Out Wednesdays," which encouraged women to bare their breasts on request. Their on-air feud with the WBCN DJ in the same time slot, Nik Carter, grew personal, as insults flew off the air as well as on. But Opie and Anthony's misbehavior seemed to be their undoing: The team's WAAF shenanigans peaked just over two years ago when, as a bad-humored April Fools' Day prank, they announced that Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino had been killed in a car crash. The two were fired short-ly afterward.

But the ratings leader was watching, and the two weren't off the Boston airwaves for long. The difference is that now one of Opie and Anthony's prerecorded spots invites listeners to make an obscene gesture if they see the WAAF van, because these days the duo are regulars on WBCN, phoning in their "bits" from their New York base at CBS sister station WNEW. Nor are they the exception: The duo, whom WBCN program director Oedipus calls "great entertainers," now make their caustic appearances on WBCN's afternoon show, as guests of the similarly puerile Carter. Although he is African-American, he too now plays to the "laugh at the outsider" crowd, at times imitating a stereotypical immigrant taxi driver or making sexual comments about the station's own female fans. The arrests and sexist behavior at the River Rave may have gotten the majority of the media attention, but they were just the culmination of a gradual change.

Over the past few years, the two stations have nearly switched places, with WBCN abandoning its earlier ethos to co-opt WAAF's frat-boy sound and attitude. "Modern rock used to be the format where women went to rock if they wanted something hipper than Top 40," explains Sean Ross, editor of the Billboard radio publication Airplay Monitor. "Now, clearly, it's a male-driven format" According to the winter 2000 Arbi-trons, men over the age of 18 make up 66 percent of WBCN's listeners and 70 percent of WAAF's. The result can be heard in the music as well as the patter. Within on-air.

tone. "With Howard Stern now firmly in place, WBCN is a different radio station than it was before his arrival and he raises the competitive pitch," says Taylor. The growing similarity may also be part of a national shift. In terms of music, as a recent study by Airplay Monitor magazine shows, the "modern" and "active" formats are growing much closer. In May 1998, the magazine found that the two formats shared 44 percent of their playlists.

In May 1999, that percentage had grown to 53, or more than half. And last month, 54 percent of the songs on both formats' playlists were the same, with both active and modern rock's Top 10 lists sharing a whopping 62 percent of their titles. It's a trend that is particularly pronounced in this market. As Paul Heine, vice president and executive editor of the Friday Morning Quarterback trade weekly, explains: "In Boston, the blurring is exacerbated because 'AAF is harder, edgier, and more aggressive about embracing new bands than most active rock stations. 'BCN is a hard, edgy, musically aggressive modern rocker." The problem, industry watchers agree, may lie in the definition of these formats.

What is now usually called "modern" was more widely known as "alternative" in the '80s, largely because its indie-label sound presented an alternative to more mainstream rock. At that point, smaller stations, such as SEANROSS, of Airplay Monitor ing. But in individual time periods, the modern rock leader has been slipping. Except for the morning hours (during which Howard Stern on WBCN dominates), WAAF has begun challenging and often beating WBCN in recent quarters. Add in that WAAF was named "station of the year" of all Boston-area stations at the 1999 Massachusetts Broadcasters Association Achievement in Radio awards, and it's clear that the two are battling for the same audience, with nearly the same sound.

Some listeners have further linked the change in attitude at WBCN to Stern. Before the syndicated New York show came to WBCN in 1993, the station played primarily music. When the show was moved to mornings in 1996, taking up the valuable morning drive time with its humor about dwarves, breasts, and the mentally impaired, it readjusted the station's r. TT7 Jit' ii r. II if II iiivk.

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