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"New York's 95-5" downplaying the PLJ part?

A

atthestars

I've noticed recently, that 95-5 PLJ seems to be greatly downplaying the PLJ part of the name, in both imaging and jocks, more simply saying "New York's 95-5." Pretty much identical to how Lite FM briefly called themselves "New York's 106.7" (and we see how it didn't work, at least for them).

I'm not expecting any full-blown changes other than this name shift and the shift in the playlist towards a more AC playlist with Hot AC power spin totals. But interesting nonetheless
 
Call letters have become less important for ratings since PPM. Dial location is the main push. The question is if there's any marketing benefit to heritage letters. That depends on how much the letters relate to the format. In this case, they really don't.
 
Genuine question and apologies if this is an obvious answer (I'm new around here!) Do you think there would be much harm in flipping PLJ to a female-leaning alt-rock station (much like 104.5 in Philly). Seems like we're at capacity for CHR/AC/Hot AC in the city. A lot of the playlist these days would overlap (Fall Out Boy, Imagine Dragons, George Ezra, X Ambassadors, Hozier, Of Monsters and Men) while bringing in 90's alt classics (Pearl Jam, Green Day, Foo Fighters, Alanis Morisette, etc.) I also had a similar thought about Fresh 102.7 since they seem to play a similar mix and their holiday concert looks like it could also be a Modern Rock holiday show (Fall Out Boy, George Ezra, Elle King).
 
TheBigA said:
Call letters have become less important for ratings since PPM. Dial location is the main push. The question is if there's any marketing benefit to heritage letters. That depends on how much the letters relate to the format. In this case, they really don't.
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Aside from radio aficionados, nobody cares about "heritage" call letters. Either people like what the station is playing or they don't. They're not going to keep listening because they have known the same call letters for 30 years.
 
ansky212 said:
Aside from radio aficionados, nobody cares about "heritage" call letters. Either people like what the station is playing or they don't. They're not going to keep listening because they have known the same call letters for 30 years.
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CBS FM still proclaims it proudly ;o)

I'm more interested in what the new owners plan to do to 'fix' PLJ. the old music with the new music doesn't mesh well. and the morning show is a mess. todd sounds grumpy as hell, even more so than he was with scott...cause now he's surrounded by women and monk talking about things he could probably care less about, like reality tv. it's not a fun show to listen to.

i'm surprised they haven't put that syndicated show filled with kids that plj ran (at least as far as a few months back) in their time slot. it's basically scott and todd for 20 somethings.
seems like a no brainer, despite the fact that they'd loose their older audience.
 
Shredder said:
I'm more interested in what the new owners plan to do to 'fix' PLJ. .
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New owners? It is still a Cumulus station. What did change were a couple of people at the very top, but otherwise there is nothing new except for new rumors like this replacing old ones.
 
Not every station can get the numbers that the top tier stations are getting, but if they can get plj to perform a little better with their adult female numbers, they will make good money.

It seems that they are doing better now. It will take a few more months to see how they are truly trending, but there is an improvement at 955 going on.

Adult females do know "plj", but the question is, is that a good thing or a bad thing? The 90s were 20 years ago now, the last time that plj was fairly successful. Now for years after that they still billed well but it was on the back of those 90s numbers which created the belief that the station still had something going with suburban females. I'm sure you could extrapolate data from some of the New Jersey little sub-set markets and see some decent adult female numbers, but that ship has sailed.

Right now they are going with being a "harder" version on lite fm with playing hits songs from the past 30 years. It seems strange to hear Justin Bieber What do you mean along with I love rock and roll, but if the adult contemporary stations can do it with mixing old and new, maybe you can do a harder version of that and find some moderate success. They could blow it up and do an adult urban format, get much better numbers, but I doubt they will bill more, most likely they would bill less.
 
gr8oldies said:
"CBS-FM" and CBS in general are still strong brands. WPLJ really isn't
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How can you say that WPLJ isn't a strong brand? That station has had the same call letters since 1971!!! Not too many stations can say that. Sure, it's gone through some format changes over those years (as did sister station WABC) but WPLJ (White Port and Lemon Juice) IS a serious brand in NY.
 
AMRocks said:
How can you say that WPLJ isn't a strong brand? That station has had the same call letters since 1971!!! Not too many stations can say that. Sure, it's gone through some format changes over those years (as did sister station WABC) but WPLJ (White Port and Lemon Juice) IS a serious brand in NY.
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I was thinking the same thing.

I wonder if they are thinking of doing a call letter change for a station rebranding?

I bet you people STILL think of Scott and Todd and people like Rocky Allen when you hear the call letters PLJ. Now, with most of those people long gone, if you want to do a rebranding, maybe first thing that goes are the call letters. Big Business doesn't usually care about heritage. they care about branding.
 
AMRocks said:
How can you say that WPLJ isn't a strong brand? That station has had the same call letters since 1971!!! Not too many stations can say that. Sure, it's gone through some format changes over those years (as did sister station WABC) but WPLJ (White Port and Lemon Juice) IS a serious brand in NY.
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A radio brand is only as strong as its recent ratings. Assuming that call letters associated with a station most people have abandoned have any value is to ignore the way listeners think.
 
DOB said:
Now for years after that they still billed well but it was on the back of those 90s numbers which created the belief that the station still had something going with suburban females.
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New York is a mostly agency-driven transactional market where you are only as good as your last book or the average of your last 3 to 6 months. Agencies don't buy based on a station's past history... they buy off rankers of the most recent books for the demo each client is seeking.
 
"WPLJ (White Port and Lemon Juice) IS a serious brand in NY." I always remembered the calls by thinking of President Lyndon Johnson.
 
Does anyone remember when WPLJ briefly became WWPR (Power 95) in December 1987 returning to WPLJ in December 1988?
 
I remember that people who had Arbitron Diaries had written WPLJ even though the official calls of the station at that time was WWPR. I think they parked the WPLJ calls at a small station in Pennsylvania and reverted to WPLJ at 95.5.
 
jmtillery said:
Does anyone remember when WPLJ briefly became WWPR (Power 95) in December 1987 returning to WPLJ in December 1988?
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It seems to me that there was something at the time about a competitor referring to them as "World Wide Puerto Rico" or something similar.
 
jmtillery said:
Does anyone remember when WPLJ briefly became WWPR (Power 95) in December 1987 returning to WPLJ in December 1988?
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I do. They tried to push a "Power 95" brand during their near decade-long effort to top Z100 as the number 1 CHR in NYC. No one called it that. Everyone always just called it PLJ. Most people still do.
 
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