State of Radio in Kansas City
It's has been discussed lately that the station 96.5 that holds the claim of being Kansas City's alternative radio station will soon be changing to talk sports radio. 96.5 is from what I heard the number 14th station in Kansas City. I remember a few years ago there were only 3 or so less FM Stations. You had your Pop Mix 93, Country KFKF 94.1, Oldies on 94.9, Classical 96.5, 98.1 Soft Rock, 98.9 The Rock, 99.7 soft rock, 101 The Fox Classic Rock, 102 KY rock/classic rock music, 103 Jamz urban music, 104.3 Young Country, 106.5 Smooth Jazz, 107 The X Alternative music. That was how the stations were when I was in High School. Then bing bang boom the Alternative Station that winter changed to 107.3 Soul Music. I was quite furious about this at the time.

Alternative means a choice away from the conventional. Music that wasn't the mainstream was labeled alternative and I enjoyed that because it was great music that was different. However, if a type of music is suppose to be alternative meaning different or outside the convntional norms from society that means it should not be found on mainstream territory, which FM is a part of the mainstream media. Meaning that this music no longer could be considered alternative once it became the norm in society. Nirvana was once considered Alternative music then it became mainstream, Pearl Jam was considered alternative then it became mainstream, No Doubt was considered alternative and they became mainstream big time. All these groups and many more broke out as alternative artist then became mainstream, no longer needing to be under a radio station label as alternative.

The Alternative music in the early 90's was grunge, the alternative in the mid 90's was ska which was what I was into. Now the alternative is this punk music. Which a lot of it is rather pop punkish. With this being said is the 96.5 The Buzz really alternative, yes it's an alternative choice from the other styles of music you can hear in Kansas City, is the music really alternative, not really. It's a lot like the music that is played on the World Famous KROQ 106.7 in Los Angeles, California. Which I must say is a radio station that is way better organized than the Buzz and has a lot more support from it's owners and it's listeners. Listners to this so called "alternative" music in Kansas City don't last forever they grow up and their taste grows. It has been shown in the past that Alternative music in Kansas City as for as radio stations goes only last for little short periods of time and never has a large enough solid backing. We are city full of radio flippers never really sticking to listening to one radio station.

This has been bugging me lately because this is all I hear about is 96.5 and some of the listener who decide to call into the radio station saying that we need our jobs or we need and alternative. True people are going to be out of jobs, hey we didn't choose being DJs, i you want to stay DJs go find another radio stations if you are afraid you are going to lose your job, that's just common sense. Hey I want to be a DJ too, but if I were really into it I'd continue and if I got fired I'd go find another radio station, whether it be in the same city or a new one. Then onto the matter of losing an alternative station, that's what college radio is for. College Radio is alternative. It's usually not mainstream music. If more people would help out colleges with radio stations there would be more alternative choices.

Also I heard people calling into the Buzz saying stuff "like hey you guys can't go cause I don't want to listen to no Planet" and "man the people on the Planet are talking crap and are always talking not playing good music" Hey how would you know if you love the Buzz so much. See that's the problem. If you love a station so much and don't want to see it go then just listen that station. That is like a big reason why lots of radio stations disapear. When you don't have listeners advertisers don't want to waste money on those stations because they don't get anything at it. Without advertising radio doesn't really have other resources for money.

They tried the alternative music thing and it didn't work out. So I say go on try out the Sports Talk radio or Talk Radio, which ever the owners of the radio station are going to try next. Best of Luck to them in the fickle city of Kansas City. Kansas City has lots of people who live and breath sports so maybe sports talk on FM would be very successful. I remember when I was in High School that's all anyone cared about except me and a few other people.

However, I'm ok with things moving on and changing because who needs radio when you can listen to CDs. No commercials and only the music that you truely enjoy instead of half of the shit you don't even want to listen to again, because they play it like every 15 minutes.