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Radio stations have their own rivalry over "Royals"

Mike Kalasnik
/
Flickr
Kansas City and San Francisco radio stations are taking different approaches to Lorde's hit song "Royals".

With the first ever wild-card World Series about to begin, two radio stations in San Francisco and Kansas City have taken up a rivalry of their own.

San Francisco radio station 96.5 KOIT began the commotion when it announced it would not play Lorde’s hit song “Royals” until after the World Series, as a show of support for the San Francisco Giants.

Brian Figula, program director for KOIT says the idea originated with Giants fans who contacted the station.

“Listeners started to pick up that ‘Hey wait a second, you’re playing “Royals” which is inspired by the National Geographic article with George Brett of the Kansas City Royals’,” Figula said. “Via emails and social media people were like ‘Hey why are you playing it? You should remove it.’”.

When the Kansas City station 99.7 KZPT heard about the ban, it decided to play the song every hour on the hour from 7a.m. to 7p.m. on Tuesday leading up to the first game of the series.

Tony Lorino, program director of KZPT says he is enjoying this rivalry.

“We know they’re a little bitter because there’s this big pop song that’s gotten a lot of attention by Lorde over the past year, which really is inspired by George Brett and his time with the Kansas City Royals and a picture that she had seen of him,” Lorino said. “So hey, you know, they’re just a little jealous they don’t have a song called Giants”

Lorino said the reactions to this decision have been overwhelmingly positive because this is the first time the Royals have been in the World Series in 29 years and fans could not be more excited.

The two stations have been going back and forth on Twitter with comments like “That’s right San Francisco… you’ll NEVER be royal” and “#Royals free zone”.

KOIT and KZPT are actually sister stations owned by the same company, Entercom Communications. Lorino says the two stations had not planned this interaction. But, both stations are hoping the attention this rivalry generated will increase listenership.

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