Did Atlanta ever really have a classic hits station. The river is classic rock
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Classic Hits
- Thread starter CassChopper96
- Start date
Before The River was "The River", in the 90's and early 2000's, it was WFOX Fox97. They played 60's-80's. The morning show was Randy and Spiff. There were bumper stickers "Spiff Happens". Before Fox was oldies, it was a combo of CHR and AOR in the 70's and 80's. I also recall in the 90's that 104.1 had a "Soul Oldies" format. Lots of Motown and R&B. It was actually pretty cool. I don't know how it did in the ratings though.
When WFOX moved in with a bigger transmitter and tower in the early 80s, they flipped from 97W-F-O-X "The Fox" Top 40 to a 60s/70s/80s adult contemporary format, that lasted until they went all-oldies Fox 97 by the end of the 80s. That oldies format was centered on the post-British Invasion 60s, with a smattering of early-70s AM gold.
WLKQ Lake 102.3 had a 70s-centered AM gold format in the 90s before they flipped to Regional Mexican La Raza 102.3 in, I think, the early 2000s.
WNSY Sunny 100.1 had a 1960s-centered oldies format until they became a sister simulcast station to La Raza 102.3.
Cumulus put 80s/90s adult/variety hits on the 97.9 translator as Journey 97.9 for a couple of years.
Cumulus also put the True Oldies Channel on 106.7 after flipping it from country Eagle, which spanned the 60s and into the early 70s. After that, it became Atlanta's Greatest Hits, a classic hits station centered on the 70s and early 80s. That lasted until they went to all-news.
Today, there's 103.7 Chuck FM, which comes in okay on the northeast side of town. This is a Cox move-in of the old AOR WPUP Rock 103.7 out of Athens. It's adult/variety hits centered on the 80s and early 90s.
Both Star 94 and B98.5 were running all-70s and all-80s weekends in the 90s and into the early 2000s.
Oldies/classic hits hasn't gotten much traction in Atlanta since Fox 97 flipped out of the format, and they were struggling the last few years anyway ("good times and eight oldies"). Not sure why a variety/adult hits station hasn't taken its place with some permanence. Atlanta's Greatest Hits never got good ratings (although Journey got decent ratings for a translator), and Chuck isn't considered an Atlanta-market station.
WLKQ Lake 102.3 had a 70s-centered AM gold format in the 90s before they flipped to Regional Mexican La Raza 102.3 in, I think, the early 2000s.
WNSY Sunny 100.1 had a 1960s-centered oldies format until they became a sister simulcast station to La Raza 102.3.
Cumulus put 80s/90s adult/variety hits on the 97.9 translator as Journey 97.9 for a couple of years.
Cumulus also put the True Oldies Channel on 106.7 after flipping it from country Eagle, which spanned the 60s and into the early 70s. After that, it became Atlanta's Greatest Hits, a classic hits station centered on the 70s and early 80s. That lasted until they went to all-news.
Today, there's 103.7 Chuck FM, which comes in okay on the northeast side of town. This is a Cox move-in of the old AOR WPUP Rock 103.7 out of Athens. It's adult/variety hits centered on the 80s and early 90s.
Both Star 94 and B98.5 were running all-70s and all-80s weekends in the 90s and into the early 2000s.
Oldies/classic hits hasn't gotten much traction in Atlanta since Fox 97 flipped out of the format, and they were struggling the last few years anyway ("good times and eight oldies"). Not sure why a variety/adult hits station hasn't taken its place with some permanence. Atlanta's Greatest Hits never got good ratings (although Journey got decent ratings for a translator), and Chuck isn't considered an Atlanta-market station.
IIRC when Cox bought FOX 97.1 they were a top 6+ ratings oldies station. Of course 6+ alone is unsaleable as is "oldies". After a couple of years Cox flipped 97.1 to Jamz 97 (or something like that) in an attempt to mess with V103. After that disaster they became 97.1 the River and crushed 96.1 after The Regular Guys imploded. At that time WKLS was mentioning "classic rock". Cox used Classic Hits and it works(ed) well.
IMHO: Atlanta is a "young" urban market so anybody who tries a real classic his station (top 40 like WCBS FM) would most likely be selling a 20 to 40% discount per point verses a sports or Urban station.
That is not true.
And we have a well known and experienced media person who posts here who may want to chime in... Roddy, your cue!
Advertisers have specific age targets, along with either broad or specific ethnic targets.
If a product is widely used... let's say laundry detergent... it will likely target women both younger and older. So such a product might buy 25-54 women, and the actual buy would try to achieve Gross Ratings Points ("Grips") in younger women, middle of the target women and higher end women. It also might want to do the same among African Americans and Hispanics, depending on the percentage of minorities in the market.
On the male side, a beer brand might do the same, but looking for males across a broad range of ages. Or, it might be a craft or premium beer that find that its prime target is men 35-44, so they would only buy stations that are strong there... and none of the younger demos.
Nearly every product has a sweet spot where ad expenditures produce the greatest sales impact. Many advertisers specify older demos or include them in their buys. Of course, above 55 buys are rare simply because folks that old have stronger brand preferences and are harder to change... although I believe that we will see 55-64 become more attractive over time (CBS, though, has been trying to convince national advertisers to use 25-64 as a target... pretty much without success).
Some of most market's highest billers are 35-54 targeted.
Oh, and the median age in Atlanta, just over 36, is higher than, let's say, Nashville which is two years younger. It's also two years younger than Birmingham and one year older than Charlotte. So it's pretty much in the middle of the age range for southern cities that are not retirement centers.
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I don't think any of those places have classic hits. Just adult hits, which is more like The River.
96.3 Jack FM in Nashville (which gets incredibly strong ratings, I might add) has very substantial music rotation differences when compared to 97.1 The River:
http://wcjk.tunegenie.com/
WCJK focuses on music from the 80's, 90's and early 00's (although not exclusively) and is much broader from a genre standpoint than 97.1.
I think a station like WCJK would perform fairly well in the ATL. Certainly better than the piles of rubbish found at 105.7 and 100.5 on the FM dial. Music wise, it would fit *perfectly* between 97.1 The River and B98.5. Cumulus, for some reason, seems to hate Variety Hits. iHeart still has a number of significant stations in the format, including Charlotte. I cannot recall the last time they launched a new station in that format, though.
As much as I've been harping on Entercom in other forums on this site lately, I must admit they generally do one helluva job in programming Variety Hits stations effectively. (Example: Simon 98.7 in Greensboro.)
It's too bad they didn't choose to rebrand Star 94 and move that station to such a format. I presume Star 94 is still a decent biller (probably mid-pack or slightly below among the full coverage FM signals in the market?), and that's the reason Entercom continues to hang onto the brand.
http://wcjk.tunegenie.com/
WCJK focuses on music from the 80's, 90's and early 00's (although not exclusively) and is much broader from a genre standpoint than 97.1.
I think a station like WCJK would perform fairly well in the ATL. Certainly better than the piles of rubbish found at 105.7 and 100.5 on the FM dial. Music wise, it would fit *perfectly* between 97.1 The River and B98.5. Cumulus, for some reason, seems to hate Variety Hits. iHeart still has a number of significant stations in the format, including Charlotte. I cannot recall the last time they launched a new station in that format, though.
As much as I've been harping on Entercom in other forums on this site lately, I must admit they generally do one helluva job in programming Variety Hits stations effectively. (Example: Simon 98.7 in Greensboro.)
It's too bad they didn't choose to rebrand Star 94 and move that station to such a format. I presume Star 94 is still a decent biller (probably mid-pack or slightly below among the full coverage FM signals in the market?), and that's the reason Entercom continues to hang onto the brand.
David, you pretty much nailed it. The only thing I'll add is when I worked on a major packaged goods account in New York, women 25-54 was the target audience for most of their brands. But the reason for not targeting older people was not so much that their brand preferences were established. It was because those are the years when the kids are in the home. Households with kids buy more of virtually everything--food, detergent, toothpaste, SUV's, furniture, clothes and more. Every year we had to put the figures from syndicated research in our plans to rationalize the target audience despite the fact the client saw it every year.
That is a good point. I have always focused on the fact that the older that we get the harder it is to sell to us. But the fact that older households usually have fewer residents is just as important.
My excuse, of course, is that I'm used to 3-generation households going back to my teen years. So among a number of ethnic communities, the "empty nest" axiom is not true or not as true.
River started out as somewhat closer to classic hits, but as time went on (and after 96 Rock flipped out of their classic+new AOR format), they shifted more towards classic rock. I think they succeeded where Z93 and 96 Rock sort of floundered by aggressively testing and turning their playlist--basically the B98.5 formula. Z93 specialized in "deep cuts" which I don't think works for today's listeners who want familiarity (if they want a deep curated playlist they will do it themselves elsewhere), and 96 Rock had the same problem that Rock 100.5 has today of trying to be everything to everybody in the AOR space.
Despite the "classic hits" branding, River wasn't ever a true adult/variety hits station in the vein of all of the "Bob" and other "name" stations. River throws "classic rock" around in their imaging quite a bit despite nominally calling themselves "classic hits". Heck, they were still the "New 97.1 The River" 5 years in.
When The River launched, it used Classic Hits to connote Classic Rock without the hard stuff. Not long after, the Oldies stations started dropping the 60's along with the Oldies format descriptor. The former Oldies stations started calling themselves Classic Hits. So in Atlanta, Classic Hits means something different from what it does in most other markets.
Seems to me that's also the case in Houston.
I love this, right up the street from Metro.
https://tunein.com/radio/WFLI-1070AM-977FM-The-Big-Jet-FLI-s28777/
https://tunein.com/radio/WFLI-1070AM-977FM-The-Big-Jet-FLI-s28777/
Houston has a very successful variety hits stations, 95.7 The Spot.
Atlanta has no variety hits, no classic hits, and no traditional sounding AC station. If you are a middle aged Caucasian who isn't into (faux) country, safe classic rock, or Christian music, options on the Atlanta dial are sparse.
I wish Entercom would take 94.1 in a direction similar to its successful 98.7 in Greensboro or 95.7 in Houston.
The common thread between 107.5/106.9 in Houston and 97.1 in Atlanta? Both are owned by Cox, both began as Oldies stations, then evolved to Classic Hits, and then to Classic Rock (with a mature presentation). Of course, the history of The Eagle (Cox owned) in Tampa Bay also followed a very similar path, although it bears noting Tampa Bay also has Q105.
Atlanta has no variety hits, no classic hits, and no traditional sounding AC station. If you are a middle aged Caucasian who isn't into (faux) country, safe classic rock, or Christian music, options on the Atlanta dial are sparse.
I wish Entercom would take 94.1 in a direction similar to its successful 98.7 in Greensboro or 95.7 in Houston.
The common thread between 107.5/106.9 in Houston and 97.1 in Atlanta? Both are owned by Cox, both began as Oldies stations, then evolved to Classic Hits, and then to Classic Rock (with a mature presentation). Of course, the history of The Eagle (Cox owned) in Tampa Bay also followed a very similar path, although it bears noting Tampa Bay also has Q105.
My Grandparents lived in Dalton about 30 miles south of Chattanooga. In the 60's and 70's Jet FLI was smoking hot. It was only the AM in those days. The morning DJ, Tommy Jett, had built a tremendous following as "T.J. the DJ". Around 1976, after I had been in radio for a few years, I first toured the station. A guy named Billy Benz owned it and had built his own transmitter. The transmitter was huge and had a final amp tube that was lowered by chain into water. Darnedest thing I ever saw.
According to Neilson of the top 10 markets Atlanta is 34% Black the next nearest is DC with 26%. I do stand corrected on the “young” part. I was surprised to find in major SMA’s (Metropolitan statistical area) Atlanta’s median age is mid pack 36.6 while LA is 35.8, DFW is 34.1, DC is 33.9 and Boston is surprisingly 32.1.** I was thrown off by the amount of school construction in the last few years especially Gwinnett County and by the number of young "silver spoon" clients my employer has.
Didn’t you state that in general sports stations (used to, who knows now that there are no sports) bill higher than their ratings show and Classic Hits station bill “at a discount” compared to a AC at equal ratings. The 20% to 40% number comes from the +55 folks that few ad agencies are ordered to go after by their clients.
*https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1...&ved=0ahUKEwihvrbh5e_oAhWriOAKHZu6BK4Q4dUDCAw
**https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1...&ved=0ahUKEwjQ0LWF4-_oAhWJUt8KHTJ1ByIQ4dUDCAw
I'm not the one you addressed this to, but, yes sports stations typically outbill their 6+ and 12+ ratings. Their audience is almost all 25-54 men, and they have a ton of avails. Plus, when it comes to play-by-play, you don’t need numbers to sell it. Also, yes, there is evidence sports stations are starting to encounter difficulties as there isn’t much in way of sports to talk about right now.
Pretty sure classic hits is billing about what one would expect. I seem to remember its median listening age is in the mid-40’s. Oldies became a 55+ format and suffered a massive hemorrhage in its billing about 15 years ago, and you won’t find it in too many places now.
Then again next week is the NFL draft and I imagine there are some Falcons & Bulldogs fans who will be interested in that.
The 55+ does not matter, as agencies don't look at them.
Look at how a station does in 25-54 (or, generally, 18-49 for ethnic stations) and you will see how they bill.
There are formats that under-bill their rank, such as Alternative Rock in most markets. Ethnic formats, particularly Spanish, may not bill in proportion to their rank.
But in general, agencies don't first think of the format... they think of the rate offered and the Cost Per Point that the offer yields. Sure, an agency may not want to buy two AC stations due to duplication, but much of the rest of the deal is about delivery and cost.
This is why, with rare exceptions, I never look (and never looked) at 12+. I look at the target audience, and don't pay much attention outside that focus area.
The NFL draft and, presumably, the NBA draft this summer -- although it's still anyone's guess what becomes of the suspended 2019-20 season -- will be sports talk's last hurrah for 2020 if none of our professional or college sports restart.
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