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Radio: Gauging the Current: One Year into Its New Life, We Size Up the Performance of MPR's 'Anti-Format' Station Alongside Two of Its Commercial Competitors.

Posted on: Saturday, 28 January 2006, 15:00 CST

By Ross Raihala, Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.

Jan. 28--Minnesota Public Radio's "anti-format" music station, the Current, celebrated its first anniversary this week. And the past 12 months have seen intense, almost obsessive scrutiny from Twin Cities music fans.

Seemingly moments after it went on the air, every listener had an opinion -- that it played too much of this and not enough of that and "I like the music OK, but (insert Current DJ name here) makes me want to drive into the ditch."

But what does the Current really sound like? To find out, we sampled it last week, along with its two closest competitors, Cities 97 and Drive 105. We listened to an hour of each station during afternoon drive time for three days -- nine hours total -- with a notebook and stopwatch in hand.

We fully realize comparing the Current to any other local station is a tricky, perhaps unfair proposition. The closest in spirit would be Radio K, which suffers from spotty reception, or out-of-range stations like Los Angeles' KCRW and Seattle's KEXP.

But given the Current's big 98,000-watt signal, it's just as easy to tune in as any of the town's major commercial stations. All three FM stations use the idea of "alternative music" as a base -- even if they spin that concept into different directions. And both Cities 97 and Drive 105 are reacting to the Current's heat, regularly airing barbed promo spots aimed at the station, trumpeting the benefits of free radio (that doesn't ask its listeners to make donations) and boasting a lack of "long-winded, self-important" DJs.

So, what did we learn? The Current played more songs, of a far greater variety, with an emphasis on independent-label artists. There was more talk, more news and far less self-promotion than the other two stations.

At the same time, though, both Cities 97 and Drive 105 are quite skilled at delivering a reliable, predictable stream of thematically similar songs. Plenty of listeners aren't necessarily looking to be challenged; they're more interested in humming along to a familiar U2 song while safely negotiating rush-hour traffic.

Here's a side-by-side look at how the stations measured up in our sample:

Call letters/frequency:

The Current: KCMP, 89.3

Drive 105 105: WGVX, 105.1; WGVY, 105.3; WGVZ, 105.7

Cities 97 97: KTCZ, 97.1

Owner:

The Current: Minnesota Public Radio

Drive 105: Disney

Cities 97: Clear Channel

Ranking in the market:

The Current: 17th

Drive 105: 20th

Cities 97: 12th

Drive-time DJs:

The Current: Mary Lucia

Drive 105: JP the Radio Slave

Cities 97: Brian Oake

DJ personalities:

The Current: Flirtatious, chatty

Drive 105: Cocky, flippant

Cities 97: Professional, verging on robotic

Topics of conversation:

The Current: Mostly about the music, with related gossip (the White Stripes will be on an upcoming episode of "The Simpsons," for example)

Drive 105: The songs that are coming up, how JP's friend brought $5,000 to the bar the other night, being hung over, that girl at Subway

Cities 97: Almost entirely devoted to the station's various promotions, with frequent mentions of that weekend's Big Head Todd and the Monsters show

Average number of songs played per hour:

The Current: 15.6

Drive 105: 13

Cities 97: 12

Minnesota artists played:

The Current: Cloud Cult, Bob Dylan, the King of France, the Magnolias

Drive 105: Information Society

Cities 97: Semisonic (two different songs)

Repeated artists played:

The Current: None (unless you consider Guided by Voices and Robert Pollard the same thing)

Drive 105: Beck (three different songs), Living Things (same song twice), Talking Heads (two different songs), Weezer (same song twice),

Cities 97: Coldplay (same song twice), Goo Goo Dolls (three different songs, as part of the station¿s daily 'Traffic Jam' segment), Green Day (three songs total, one played twice), Sarah McLachlan (two different songs), U2 (same song twice)

Other artists played once:

The Current: Add N to (X), Architecture in Helsinki, Joseph Arthur, Breakestra, Buzzcocks, Colder, Cornershop, Crackpot, Crystal Skulls, Jamie Cullum, Diamond Nights, Dressy Bessy, Editors, Fountains of Wayne, the Futureheads, Gang of Four, Generation X, G. Love & Special Sauce, Guided by Voices, Hot Hot Heat, Joe Jackson, LaBelle, Louis XIV, Dean Martin, Wilson Pickett, Robert Pollard, the Polyphonic Spree, Rilo Kiley, the Rolling Stones, the Sights, Frank Sinatra, Southern Culture on the Skids, Spoon, the Star Spangles, the Stone Roses, the Strokes, the Subways, Supergrass, Thievery Corporation, Thin Lizzy, Tom Vek, Visqueen, Arthur Yoria

Drive 105: Trey Anastasio, Better Than Ezra, Big Audio Dynamite, the Bravery, Coldplay, the Cure, the Fixx, Gomez, Gorillaz, Jet, the Killers, Marcy¿s Playground, Matisyahu, Nada Surf, Nine Inch Nails, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Queens of the Stone Age, Reel Big Fish, R.E.M., Secret Machines, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Smashing Pumpkins, Soul Coughing, Spacehog, the Strokes, the Thrills, U2, Zwan

Cities 97: John Cafferty & the Beaver Brown Band, Carbon Leaf, Eric Clapton, Collective Soul, Creed, Sheryl Crow, Duran Duran, Five for Fighting, Herbie Hancock (featuring John Mayer), Jack Johnson, Matchbox 20, John Mayer, John Mellencamp, Nickel Creek, the Police, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Sister 7, Cat Stevens, Tonic, KT Tunstall, Uncle Kracker, the Wallflowers

Average number of pre-recorded station IDs/promos per hour:

The Current: 1

Drive 105: 10

Cities 97: 9

Average amount of commercial time per hour:

The Current: 58 seconds (time spent mentioning station sponsors)

Drive 105: 11 minutes, 20 seconds

Cities 97: 10 minutes

Types of businesses advertised:

The Current: Condominiums, law firms, music schools, organic grocers

Drive 105: High-speed internet providers, ski shops, computer classes, auto parts stores

Cities 97: Banks with free checking, rum, dairy products, bridal fashion shows

Average amount of DJ talk time per hour:

The Current: 3 minutes, 58 seconds

Drive 105: 1 minute, 44 seconds

Cities 97: 2 minutes, 29 seconds

Average amount of news/weather/traffic per hour:

The Current: 2 minutes, 35 seconds

Drive 105: 10 seconds

Cities 97: 1 minute, 23 seconds

Pop Music Critic Ross Raihala can be reached at rraihala@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5553. Read more about the local music scene on his blog, "The Ross Who Knew Too Much," at www.twincities.com.

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Copyright (c) 2006, Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.

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Source: Saint Paul Pioneer Press (St. Paul, Minn.)

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