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The iHeart/Entercom "Alt" battle has hit Philly... very quietly.

A

atthestars

As mentioned in a different thread, 96.5 WTDY-HD2 has flipped to all unplugged/acoustic, but in their legal ID, has been identifying themselves as "Alt 96.5- Philly's New Alternative."

Well, I checked 104.5 WRFF-HD2 today, and they are ALSO now branding as Alt. Simply "Alt 104.5 HD2". They're still running the same satellite fed Active Rock format as before, just with Alt imaging.

I'm not sure who officially claimed the "Alt" name first, and of course, no one but myself and the other 3 people who use HD radio noticed. But both companies are jockeying for position.
 
atthestars said:
As mentioned in a different thread, 96.5 WTDY-HD2 has flipped to all unplugged/acoustic, but in their legal ID, has been identifying themselves as "Alt 96.5- Philly's New Alternative."

Well, I checked 104.5 WRFF-HD2 today, and they are ALSO now branding as Alt. Simply "Alt 104.5 HD2". They're still running the same satellite fed Active Rock format as before, just with Alt imaging.

I'm not sure who officially claimed the "Alt" name first, and of course, no one but myself and the other 3 people who use HD radio noticed. But both companies are jockeying for position.
Click to expand...

Haha. All of this makes absolutely no sense to me. WRFF changing their name is pointless and possibly counter-productive. And 96.5 even bothering to call their not-at-all-Alternative HD2 station (that approximately no one listens to) Alt makes even less sense. Why Entercom would even bother/pay to have Alt 96.5 imaging created is beyond me. If they ever had even one fleeting thought of flipping WTDY (or WZMP for that matter) to Alternative to compete with WRFF (for a handful of worthless beans), then maybe that whole cluster is in danger. haha.
 
It’s no muss, no fuss.

Reminds me of things like WMGK using “magic weather”long after dropping the magic name as a practical matter, so as to (as the story goes) to maintain the use. Not sure how long that lasted. And didn’t 101 HD-2 use the B name for a while?

Amusing little things.
 
AbrahamJSimpson said:
It’s no muss, no fuss.

Reminds me of things like WMGK using “magic weather”long after dropping the magic name as a practical matter, so as to (as the story goes) to maintain the use. Not sure how long that lasted. And didn’t 101 HD-2 use the B name for a while?
Click to expand...

Yup. When 101-HD2 wraps up it's Christmas music run, they'll revert back to "B101-HD2- The Eighties Channel." That keeps anyone else from pillaging the "B" name for themselves.

Gotta love how HD radio has become a dumping ground for station imaging. WYSP on 94.1-HD3... Alt on 96.5 AND 104.5 HD2, JJZ on 106.1-HD2, B on 101.1-HD2 etc.
 
atthestars said:
Yup. When 101-HD2 wraps up it's Christmas music run, they'll revert back to "B101-HD2- The Eighties Channel." That keeps anyone else from pillaging the "B" name for themselves.

Gotta love how HD radio has become a dumping ground for station imaging. WYSP on 94.1-HD3... Alt on 96.5 AND 104.5 HD2, JJZ on 106.1-HD2, B on 101.1-HD2 etc.
Click to expand...

Interesting that WBEB cares about the B name since they openly wanted to flush the image altogether. If B104.5 were to debut, I don't know if I think anyone would even think of B101. As amused as we are by what these folks do, I'll bet they quietly read sites like these and are mightily amused by us. haha.
 
Is this like year three or four of More? I’ve lost track. But in any case, it might be not long enough, in their estimation. Heck, I know people who still call it B. The association is there. So, yeah, I get that if you have a (cheap and easy) way to block someone else from maybe causing confusion, why not do it?

Sure, they wanted to be rid of it, but that’s not the same as wanting someone else to capitalize on the work you did for years to build the brand. And in fairness, they do know how to build a brand.
 
AbrahamJSimpson said:
Is this like year three or four of More? I’ve lost track. But in any case, it might be not long enough, in their estimation. Heck, I know people who still call it B. The association is there.
Click to expand...

WOGL hasn't been "Oldies 98" since about 2003... yet I still hear people refer to it as "Oldies 98" It's amazing what people will just hold on to.
 
Established branding isn’t always easy to dislodge. A blessing and a curse, perhaps. I’m sure people called the B “Easy” for a time, albeit pre social media.

And since WOGL maintained consistency of style, of personalities and of some music by moving gradually, I totally get that association.

Hypothetically, purely, if 6ABC changed their news brand, it would probably still be called Action News by the citizens of Philly for eons to come.
 
I have been listening to the 3 hour two week old redundant format of 96.5 HD2 for a few days. I must admit it sounds refreshing compared to the stale formats on all the main signals. I think it would be a good format for the HD2 if done in-house with a good library, is there a good amount of this music available for a full time format.
 
I remember when 96.5-HD2 was automated dance music since 96.5 was Wired. They never played anything newer than 2012, seems like the playlist was never updated from 2012-2016. No imaging except for a legal ID once an hour. But it played four Geico commercials in a row every half hour, almost like Geico exclusively sponsored the HD2.
 
nkd said:
I remember when 96.5-HD2 was automated dance music since 96.5 was Wired. They never played anything newer than 2012, seems like the playlist was never updated from 2012-2016. No imaging except for a legal ID once an hour. But it played four Geico commercials in a row every half hour, almost like Geico exclusively sponsored the HD2.
Click to expand...

I wonder if the bandwidth was on-sold to become (a pretty piss poor attempt at) branded radio.
 
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