My102.5 seems to riding a thin line these days between Hot AC and top 40 in some ways. Lots of Bieber, DNCE, Selena Gomez, Flo Rida. Power songs are now getting plays around 90 times a week(high for a Hot AC; on par with WFBC) and most of the songs are from the past 3 years. They say 90s to now but Mediabase suggests only a very tiny handful of 90s songs getting rotation, not enough to need billing on air really. This station has come a long way in the past year. Music is very modern and up to date.
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
My102.5 is a hot Hot AC
- Thread starter 101tm
- Start date
I'm not sure that Mediabase is 100% accurate in terms of the 90s stuff they play. Whenever I've tuned in I still hear quite a few 90s -- particularly ballads.
That said their playlist definitely seems to have shifted quite a bit towards Top 40 for the newer music they play.
Oddly enough, when I started to search for their Mediabase listing, their Wikipedia page came up first and it has them as an "adult Top 40" and not Hot AC.
Personally, the station still sounds like crap to me. It's got a long way to go if it wants to sound like the more adult leaning CHRs in Charlotte. And their ratings have not improved. They've been consistently in the mid 3s for a while, far from the 5-6+ from their old days. They also trail behind Magic, B and Hot by a large margin.
Magic itself has gotten a more modern refresh. Still AC but much improved and not as stale.
Maybe if they completely shift and dump all of their imaging, the could go full CHR. That is probably their only hope aside from a complete flip to something else.
Last edited:
Just looking through what MY has actually played recently, there was Alanis Morrisette "Head Over Feet", Matchbox 20 "Unwell", Plain White Ts "Delilah"... all 90s and not on Mediabase. Andy Grammar, Lumineers, Christina Perri, Ed Sheeran, Paramore, Jason Mraz, Taylor Swift for newer music.
All that is squarely Hot AC and actually one of the better sets I've seen from them lately to make the case for being Hot AC.
Still wouldn't rule out a (welcome) move to take on the abysmal CHR market in GSP with the Channel 96.1 and Kiss 95.1 getting harder to pull in.
But they're far from it currently.
All that is squarely Hot AC and actually one of the better sets I've seen from them lately to make the case for being Hot AC.
Still wouldn't rule out a (welcome) move to take on the abysmal CHR market in GSP with the Channel 96.1 and Kiss 95.1 getting harder to pull in.
But they're far from it currently.
Sorry to keep posting but since you can't edit previous posts...
I think that Mediabase listing is way off. MY plays hardly any of the songs on the "newer" music side. Listened for a while and it's still way on the Hot AC spectrum. Lots of Adele, 21 Pilots, Lukas Graham, Kelly Clarkson, etc.
I admit they are sounding more modern, but not that "hot" towards the CHR side.
I do wonder if that MB list is possibly a sign of an upcoming flip? Could be interesting.
I think that Mediabase listing is way off. MY plays hardly any of the songs on the "newer" music side. Listened for a while and it's still way on the Hot AC spectrum. Lots of Adele, 21 Pilots, Lukas Graham, Kelly Clarkson, etc.
I admit they are sounding more modern, but not that "hot" towards the CHR side.
I do wonder if that MB list is possibly a sign of an upcoming flip? Could be interesting.
MediaBase listings are based on actual electronic monitoring.
I've seen Mediabase listings that were completely wrong in the past. Hot 98.1 one time had all kinds of rock songs listed on it. Even talking to the PD about it at the time, he didn't understand how they got there.
I do not believe they are always accurate.
I look at X98.5's Mediabase listings and it is missing many regular played songs.
Was MediaBase behind the playlists generated on the old Yes.com site back in the early 2000s? If so, I can tell you that songs were missed routinely, while "phantom" songs appeared. Sometimes the "phantoms" were seemingly triggered by use in promos (A "'60s at 6" feature promo that used part of the Lovin' Spoonful's "Six O'Clock" as a musical bed, but the song was not on the station's actual playlist, to give one real-life example.), while others were just headscratchers. I would be listening to the station OTA at the same time I was monitoring Yes.com, by the way.
Not sure about this particular case, but I also believe this to be true.
Don't get me wrong, there are many songs being played on the listing but the huge listing of Beiber songs for instance is weird and not accurate. I didn't even hear a single song by Beiber listening today.
Last edited:
The sampling or fingerprinting algorithms used today don't generally result in anything but an occasional misidentification. A greater amount of time is required than that of bumper music, snippets in promos and commercials.
What will not get perfect detection will be mix shows where the mixer adds rhythm / percussion tracks and effects or plays short extracts.
If you connect rabbit ears to a home radio receiver, then 95.1 and 96.1 come in strong and clear. But car reception has indeed become spotty due to interference from more of these low power translator signals. But I am tired of complaining about that issue, although it continues to be very frustrating, particularly with 107.9-WLNK. But even with the Link the rabbit ears pull it in strong in the house, including the HD. Car reception is the prevailing problem.
And I agree Magic 98.9 is not quite as tired and stale as before; that honor now goes to Lite 102.9-WGTK which now ruins reception of WLKO on 102.9 for variety hits format.
Yes, car reception is the issue and that's where I'd be listening the most. At home, I can always stream those stations.
B93.7's problem, partly driven from my own preferences, is that it leans pretty heavily rhythmnic. That's probably the direction it wants to be to try to carve off a little the urban listeners from Hot 98.1 and JAMZ.
Channel 96.1 and Kiss 95.1 play a much wider and more adult leaning mix that I prefer and think would do well in this market as well. I think Channel goes more rhythmnic at times during evening and overnight day parts.
The website used by IHeart can malfunction with the recently played feature because they use filler songs on the online stream during commercial breaks and the website picks them up as recently played and doesn't distinguish what's going on over the air and what's online only..
But a quick 30 minute listen of the station on the air can back up what Mediabase says. They've gone very recent in the past few weeks and yanked the ballads from the 90s and changed the clock to give more attention to new songs
Here's another Mediabase report that's available to the public that monitors current and recurrent songs played over the air at least once in the past week and gold songs played at least twice. http://www.mediabase.com/mmrweb/7/stationplaylistrequest.asp?c_let=WMYI-FM
The only thing really dated on that list for a hot AC may be Lisa Loeb and Aerosmith but some...especially smaller market Hot AC's still play a little bit of 90s music like Lisa Loeb and Dave Matthews.
Magic isn't bad for an AC, I notice they play 10 songs in a row every hour now.
But a quick 30 minute listen of the station on the air can back up what Mediabase says. They've gone very recent in the past few weeks and yanked the ballads from the 90s and changed the clock to give more attention to new songs
Here's another Mediabase report that's available to the public that monitors current and recurrent songs played over the air at least once in the past week and gold songs played at least twice. http://www.mediabase.com/mmrweb/7/stationplaylistrequest.asp?c_let=WMYI-FM
The only thing really dated on that list for a hot AC may be Lisa Loeb and Aerosmith but some...especially smaller market Hot AC's still play a little bit of 90s music like Lisa Loeb and Dave Matthews.
Magic isn't bad for an AC, I notice they play 10 songs in a row every hour now.
Last edited:
Yes.com was a tin can and a string website that had a tracking system set up to a online stream or a physical radio. Every time a song played, be it in a commercial or music bed or whatever that played long enough to be detected was registered on the site.
Some stations like WMYI carry some countdown shows that may include some songs that aren't in the general rotation but can be recorded on the station's Mediabase. You will normally be able to tell if it just got 1 or 2 plays in a week..
Some stations like WMYI carry some countdown shows that may include some songs that aren't in the general rotation but can be recorded on the station's Mediabase. You will normally be able to tell if it just got 1 or 2 plays in a week..
Strange though that even that Mediabase listing isn't showing the Matchbox Twenty, Alanis Morisette and some other 90s that I actually heard on-air so it should have picked it up.
I don't know. Just go by my ears I guess.
Edit: Missed what you said about gold tracks played at least twice in a week. Maybe there are 90s that are only played once a week or so. That could account for it.
Noticed that list has fewer Beiber songs which makes sense where the straight Mediabase page had like seven or eight.
Last edited:
102.5 needs to be more like Q935 in Columbia. They are also Hot AC, but they sound really good with fresh jingles and mostly newer music.
Haven't listened to Q935, but I used to think Star 94 in Atlanta was top of the game for Hot AC (although I've heard that is no longer the case). The problem with MY is, regardless of the newer music, they do still focus on slow to midtempo songs -- Sam Smith, Adele, Kelly Clarkson, etc. That combined with blah imagery is making it still sound more AC than Hot AC.
MY needs to completely dump its imagery, change the name, everything...and be more upbeat. Period.
That was the mistake from the get go with the flip to Hot AC. They hung on to 80s and even an occasional 70s for probably at least a year after the flip. When the cut to 90s to now, they still made the whole MY thing so tepid.
I honestly do not think they can recover no matter how much they update the playlist without a complete reimagining and re-launch. Their ratings have continued to dive. Something more drastic needs to happen.
Be bold or flip to something else. That's my opinion.
Last edited:
John Tesh out at Magic 98.9 with a replacement coming soon. I also noticed recently that the station is beginning to add current artists to their playlist(Shawn Mendes, Ellie Goulding, Adele,etc.)
Last edited:
Anyone can edit Wikipedia. There was no source for that change so I was justified in changing it back. Based on most of the comments here, I think I did the right thing, even though this site would not be allowed as a source.
Considering how Ace & TJ are the "de facto" local morning show (as Charlotte is a few miles away) and sister WHQC is a Top 40 station there that is the flagship of the show, they may tweak their format to Mainstream Top 40 and compete with WFBC, WHZT and sister WQNQ in the north side of the market (Asheville). The only thing that may change is that the iHeartRadio Countdown will be switched from Mario Lopez (Hot AC) to Romeo (CHR) and AT40 CHR Edition may come in to the station.
Thank you. Good call IMO. Yeah, I know anyone can change Wikipedia. I just never have bothered myself.
- Status