No Nickelback Guarantee

[iceman]

That's what the new alternative station here (www.x929.ca/) in Calgary is saying. I thought it was interesting but even though I like them I can't say I miss them just because they are played constantly on the pop, rock, classic hits and even AC stations.

Is Nickelback even that big on alternative anymore?

[Crushcrushchris]

I personally think that's lame to outright drop an artist or fanbase for any reason. That would make me want to stop listening to radio much more than an artist that I feel doesn't deserve as much airplay as they do.

[singingsparrow]

iceman said:

That's what the new alternative station here (www.x929.ca/) in Calgary is saying. I thought it was interesting but even though I like them I can't say I miss them just because they are played constantly on the pop, rock, classic hits and even AC stations.

Is Nickelback even that big on alternative anymore?

They're only popular on select Alternative stations, and not all across the format like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Green Day and Foo Fighters in particular are.

However, I will say that doesn't give any station the right to dump them just because. Decisions should be made democratically by public desire as well, and if a solid majority of the Calgary public wants to hear no more Nickelback, then I'll be more fine with that.

Sincerely,
Noah Eaton

[thisbeautifulmess]

This happened with Creed also.

[Pipa]

I'd like to see them try and still keep up with the CanCon standards.

[Devil Marlena Nylund]

I think Canadian radio station should be required to fulfill their CanCon requirements by using more than 10 artists. A no Nickelback gaurantee would certainly help with that. With the amount of airplay they'd get, there'd be room for an additional 4 or 5 artists!

[oscillations.]

This kind of practice isn't uncommon in the UK. It happened with James Blunt. Whatever it takes to freshen up the airwaves a bit.

[joker]

iceman said:

That's what the new alternative station here (www.x929.ca/) in Calgary is saying.

Yay Calgary. Live 105 (San Francisco) did something similar a few years back, announcing that they were "Creed-free".

[iceman]

picpak said:

I'd like to see them try and still keep up with the CanCon standards.

They make up for it by just playing more Billy Talent, Tragically Hip, Matthew Good and the more popular Canadian artists.

I think they may be avoiding Theory of a Deadman and Default as well.

[Pipa]

iceman said:

They make up for it by just playing more Billy Talent, Tragically Hip, Matthew Good and the more popular Canadian artists.

Of course...that's EXACTLY what Canadian radio needs more of.

[Adz]

I'm confused - what's happening.
I hope they are banning this band from the airwaves.

[Walking Contradiction]

My station stopped playing Nickelback a little while back, but as far as I know there wasn't any fanfare about it.

[Chato]

Personally , I loathe Nickelback , but if many people want to hear their songs on alt. radio I can tolerate a song of theirs being played every once in a while .
It really depends on what the listeners want to hear , but I'm pretty sure this station conducted some kind of research before deciding to drop Nickelback. So probably a majority of their listeners don't want to hear any Nickelback songs anyway.

[Pipa]

I'd personally prefer a no Matthew Good Band or Tragically Hip guarantee. The two worst Canadian bands IMO.

[roccorivers]

cherrycrush said:

This kind of practice isn't uncommon in the UK. It happened with James Blunt. Whatever it takes to freshen up the airwaves a bit.

and wren't we all grateful when that happened!!

[pen]

I think it says a lot about a station when the best advertising campaign they can come up with is that they are not playing a band's songs. I understand that Nickelback is without a doubt the most popular Canadian band around and since they release about five to six singles from every album now, their music gets played an awful lot, especially when Canadian radio has those rules about playing Canadian artists. Fair enough. Why not just play the band, I dunno, less? Even if they did drop them altogether, do they really think they're going to attract a lot more listeners to their station by making it a selling point? I mean, if they replace Nickelback with Hinder, for example, then is it really worthwhile? Why not make the selling point the bands that they are playing instead of the bands that they're not?

[MusicJunkie]

Did they conduct some type of poll or something before deciding this? They should just try to play them less or put a limit to their airplay (e.g. only 10 Nickelback song per week), but not drop their music altogether. What if they score another monster #1 hit like How You Remind Me? I doubt this "guarantee" will last long.

[friday]

This reminds me of KNDD's recent promos where they had their DJs asking for "forgiveness" for playing bands like P.O.D. and Nickelback.

I mean, I'm sure there are other rock stations in Calgary that are more than willing to pick up the slack on any Nickelback spins that are lost from this station. Besides, I don't think their intention is "Well, we won't play Nickelback, but we'll play every other post-grunge band you've heard a million times already." I don't see what's wrong with offerring listeners something different than what's normally available on the radio, nor with what the radio charts currently dictate as the top songs in the country.

[Devil Marlena Nylund]

I think it's just that a lot of people that listen to rock radio are sick of Nickelback all around and since Hot AC, AC and Pop stations are also playing them just as much as rock should, it would make a good promo point. I also think rock radio is the most likely to do something like this just because the music aired is as much about image and background as country is. I've heard promos on rock stations that go "You won't be hearing any of this (clip of a britney spears song) or this (clip of a rap song) but you can expect to hear tons of this (rockin' guitar solo)."
I'm willing to bet that this promo works quite well as well, at least for fans of rock music, especially rock-only hits and classic rock.

[jaxxalude]

themaxonline said:

I've heard promos on rock stations that go "You won't be hearing any of this (clip of a britney spears song) or this (clip of a rap song) but you can expect to hear tons of this (rockin' guitar solo)."

Which springs these questions to my mind: why is it that this kind of demeaning promos ONLY appear on rock stations? Are they trying to prove a point? I mean, you already had that when disco came along (and we all know how it ended, right? )!

[iceman]

friday said:

I mean, I'm sure there are other rock stations in Calgary that are more than willing to pick up the slack on any Nickelback spins that are lost from this station.

Oh for sure. If people really want to hear them on the radio then they do have a choice.

[oscillations.]

This is all just more proof that rock radio is on it's knees.

[iceman]

moto702 said:

Did they conduct some type of poll or something before deciding this? They should just try to play them less or put a limit to their airplay (e.g. only 10 Nickelback song per week), but not drop their music altogether. What if they score another monster #1 hit like How You Remind Me? I doubt this "guarantee" will last long.

I don't know for sure but personally I think it's just because of the other rock station overplaying them.

I have to agree with you about this possibly not lasting but if it does I don't think it'll really matter if they do have another huge hit. This reminds me of one of our stations back in 1997 which made the switch to pop but promised no country. So when "How Do I Live" and "You're Still the One" both went top 5, the station didn't touch them. This only lasted a year though and they went to playing everything. The reason they did this was because one of the other stations, basically a hot ac, would play roughly 1/4 country songs.

[Devil Marlena Nylund]

I think it's probably more of a case of a band being too mainstream for rock people which goes into the idea that people that like rock music can be (now, don't jump down my throat here but...) close minded when it comes to music that is considered to be super-mainstream. Nickelback probably cater more to the pop and mainstream audience then they do rock audiences. Maybe that's why there's so much dislike for them from people that listen to rock radio.

[pen]

friday said:

I don't see what's wrong with offerring listeners something different than what's normally available on the radio, nor with what the radio charts currently dictate as the top songs in the country.

But that's exactly my point. They've chosen not to advertise what they're offering, just what they aren't offering. Maybe it does work because it's rock radio and people expect that kind of smartass grandiosity, but I can't help but think in any other kind of business that would be a real shady and unconvincing way of promoting a product, and radio is all about promoting a product. Several products, actually. I still think if they want to improve their ratings, they should talk more about what they offer that the other station doesn't rather than the reverse. Unless of course they don't have anything to offer, which just proves my point.

[oscillations.]

penance said:

Unless of course they don't have anything to offer, which just proves my point.

exactly.