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Cumulus' New Year's Day Surprise! Return of 99X?

I don't think Q100 is going anywhere, even back to 100.5. Ditto with Kicks (which is neck and neck with Bull).

But Rock 100.5 and News 106.7 could be in play, as well as the two translators (although the 97.9 one gets respectable ratings for a translator).

Could the Jason and Southside morning show translate to alt?

Oh, and www.newsmakerline.com redirects here: http://jerryfarbersshowbar.com/
 
jabba17 said:
But Rock 100.5 and News 106.7 could be in play, as well as the two translators (although the 97.9 one gets respectable ratings for a translator).
Click to expand...

If Alternative goes to 100.5, it can't still be called 99X. Branding a weak translator 99X at 97.9 - 98.9 is one thing. But 99X at 100.5 would be absolutely stupid.
 
Alternative for some reason is out of favor with the ad agencies, which spend most of the money in this market. It amazes me that a format aimed at twenty somethings is not an “Advertising Agency Darling”. If 105.7 billed really big dollars maybe someone would make a run at them. 105.7 is doing OK for it signal and coverage area, but a market wide Alternative station will not happen soon unless some wins a lottery. It is hard to find a market that has two Alternative stations. I doubt Atlanta will be one of them.
 
SecondChoice, if you don't think it will be Alternative, then what is this all about?
atlradio16 said:
As if we needed any greater confirmation of what the new format will be, we have more anyway. I'm told that a concert being held tomorrow night down at the Buckhead Theatre, featuring the Revivalists (an alt. group out of LA), will doubly serve as the launch announcement for the new station, culminating with a launch on January 1st.
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Let's Keep This In Perspective

ANYBODY can go out and buy a bunch of radio stations (if you have enough money). BUT, to run one and make it successful, you have to have some expertise, ESPECIALLY in a major market, where the competition will EAT you ALIVE.
 
RadioFreak69 said:
SecondChoice, if you don't think it will be Alternative, then what is this all about?
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Is it the return of AAA? AAA used to be all the rage. Now you hear nada about that format.

Still, the biggest holes on the dial today remain variety hits and soft AC. We already have an alt station and couldn't support two. Warm 98.9 kinda sorta covers both variety hits and soft AC; it can be generous with the definition of soft since the other two AC players lean Hot AC.

Atlanta is considered a "young" radio market, so you can forget about boomer oldies and the return of Fox 97 (good times and eight oldies!). What is interesting is that we have two classic rock stations, neither of which can get any separation from the other format-wise. Rock100.5 has toyed with both alt and active, but keeps finding its best luck with classic rock. Both stations, though, are skewing much younger lately than classic rock generally has, although a lot of this seems to run into a "90s wall" drawing the line at 90s alt and youthifying the stations with a reliance on 80s hair bands vs. 60s boomer rock. Maybe we could see a "classic alternative" station that specializes in old alt from the 80s (i.e., MTV era) to the 00s. This would appeal to GenX classic rock fans, 80s variety hits fans who like the MTV one-hit wonders, as well as the traditional alt constituency. 99X tried this but IMO never did it well; instead, they kept trying to relive their glory days.

One crazy thought: Could Cumulus be trying to head off any ideas at Cox about growing TOSOTR?

FWIW, www.99x.com redirects to www.atlantasclassicrock.com .
 
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I think Rock 100.5 goes bye bye. The fact remains that a lot of the programming people who remain with Cumulus are idiots. I wouldn't put it past them to flip 100.5 to alternative, even though it would make zero business sense. I can only hope such a move would prompt iHeart to flip 105.7 to either mainstream rock or active rock (classic hits or variety hits would be good, too).

Let's not forget 100.5 already has the WNNX calls. I don't think they'd brand the station as 99X, though. They'd probably use the word "Next" somewhere in the brand name based on the clues so far.
 
The Cloud Company is merely trying to survive. Their new CEO has a grasp of advertising, but is clueless about radio and consequently is dependent on underlings to suggest ideas. Unfortunately, with one or two notable exceptions, the radio people with good ideas bailed some while ago, and the current ones are all looking. As a result, they're liable to do anything. Might even do something that works, even a blind pig finds an acorn now and again.
 
I predict 100.5 will flip to alternative rock as "Underground 100.5."

"It's What's Next" will probably be used as a positioning statement for the new station.
 
MarkW said:
I predict 100.5 will flip to alternative rock as "Underground 100.5."

"It's What's Next" will probably be used as a positioning statement for the new station.
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Very interesting and makes sense with the calls, but Clueless is too stupid to do that.
 
Two tweets of note with the aforementioned dreadful "It's Whats Next" hashtag came out today:

1) WGKA's Bryan Crabtree, seemingly unrelated.
tweet 1.jpg

2) Buckhead Theatre confirming what I've been hearing since late last night about a "concert announcement," akin to what Clear Channel did with Power 96-1 back when they launched (they announced its launch at a Justin Bieber concert if memory serves me correctly).
tweet 2.jpg

Regardless, I think it's safe to say something in the alternative realm will take place on Jan. 1, however with all the strange doings of this sequence of events, nothing would surprise me. Also, Cumulus threw out logic years ago (for that matter, I don't even know if they ever had it). You've gotta give it to them for being "chancy" though :)
 
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Couple of thoughts on this. Cumulus going for the alternative piece of the pie is smart. Cumulus going for alternative on 98.9 is idiotic and a waste.
 
Cumulus has launched the "Underground" Alternative format in New Orleans and Kansas City. This very well might happen to Atlanta. I am curious though, if Cumulus brings back Alternative, say on 100.5, what will they do with 98.9? I hope they don't put Alternative on 98.9...what a waste!
 
RoddyFreeman said:
The 99X rumor does not sound logical on multiple fronts. For starters, I don't think there is any more life in the 99X brand.
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Good point, Roddy. I guess we'll soon find out how viable the brand still is. I've been trying to figure out what number launch this will be - maybe 4? The original relaunch was web only (99x.com), then came 99X @ 97.9, then 99X @ 98.9 (although, that was really more of a frequency change instead of a relaunch).

The only question now is how long before the format wheel for 98.9 is flipped again???
 
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