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Big 95.5

Indeed, Rover would be MUCH worse.

What cracks me up about the Woody Show is they boast of their ratings in their former markets (San Francisco and St. Louis to name a couple), and then when their show returns to said markets, it winds up being a complete flop. The show earned horrendous ratings on KFOG in San Francisco and horrendous ratings on Alt 104.9 in St. Louis.

Might they go for a three-peat in Chicago? (They anchored mornings at Q101 for a time.)
 
TheBigA said:
In all fairness, KFOG had horrendous ratings before Woody.
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And had been rather horrendous for a number of years. Nothing they did made it better. Adding the Woody Show was sort of like appointing a new captain to the Titanic after it had struck the iceberg.
 
Very true; I don't at all disagree.

95.5's playlist is brutal. If this is the permanent sound of the station, this will be a 2.2 or 2.3 share station at best (and more likely, mid/upper 1's). WIIL has absolutely nothing to worry about; WDRV and perhaps WLS-FM could see minor, temporary dips.

I honestly don't care what the "research" showed; I know a trainwreck when I see/hear one!
 
I wonder if the staff at KEGL 97.1 The Eagle, it's hard rock sister station in Dallas will help in some way in making this station work in the Windy City. I think they need to study how the current almost 13 year old second incarnation of The Eagle worked.
 
Re:

I think the PD of the new 95.5 might be more clueless than the guy who programs Rock 100.5 in Atlanta.
'
That's saying something!!!

Bryan Adams?
Matchbox 20?
Nickelback spun four times a day?

This playlist looks like a horrible mashup between a rock-based Variety Hits station and an Active Rock station.

Corporate radio keeps getting lamer and lamer.
 
MarkW said:
I think the PD of the new 95.5 might be more clueless than the guy who programs Rock 100.5 in Atlanta.
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A change in a Top 10 market has to have been done with considerable collaboration within the company as well as a format search, perhaps an Awareness/Trial/Usage study for music types, and a music test.

There has been a lot of talk as well as research discovery of interest in formats or streams that "bounce around" different genres and styles and eras. That is the way many people program their own downloads or set up their streams.

The thinking is that Internet listening has broadened the scope of some formats to cross over various styles that might have each been a separate format in the past. So radio is tying to present a curated equivalent to what initially sounds like a music collection on shuffle, but which is actually the way a lot of listeners want to hear music today.
 
"Bryan Adams?
Matchbox 20?
Nickelback"

All good artists who have released excellent rock tracks and deserve their place on this station.

Variety is the spice of life and the various rock styles presented via the playlist of this station make listening an enjoyable experience. Hopefully, they won't listen to the whiners and will continue doing what they're doing!
 
Barf.

Hey, maybe they should add Rod Stewart and Phil Collins, too!

Great stations with phenomenal reputations such as WRIF, KUPD and KISW would NEVER play Bryan Adams and Matchbox 20 in a million years. Nickelback? Perhaps in light rotation; certainly not 3x to 4x daily!
 
MarkW said:
I'm not sure I understand your point.
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If this particular mix of music isn't in someone's taste, they can just flip to WXRT. This station is threading the needle between a bunch of different things, so it's not going to sound like a station from some other market.
 
MarkW said:
Plenty of people will be flipping away from this station!
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I'm not so sure. WDRV aka "The Drive" has been Chicago's only true "rock" station since the Loop was flipped, and WDRV's longtime blind spot is a complete and total reluctance to touch anything released after 1990. WKQX has steadily drifted to a pop lean since its revival and now has enough 2010's golds that they've been phasing out the 90's and 00's music so they could go all in on the pop trends. WXRT does play some 90's and 00's alt and rock hits but they won't touch the edgier stuff - and as it is material like "Smells Like Teen Spirit" sounds vividly out of place next to artists like Black Pumas and Michael Kiwanuka.

There was a wide opening for a rock station to play a lot of 90's and 00's rock and "hard alternative", especially for a station that will lack the baggage of The Loop that prevented that heritage station from changing with the times successfully. Like it or not, Gen X and older Millennials are the 25-54 demographic now and that is what this station is targeting. I think it could potentially do well as long as iHeart doesn't do their usual schtick and screw it all up.

Of course, since this is iHeart, we'll see what happens... there's a lot of directions this station can go. It won't stay the way it currently is, with this huge variety of songs being played in seemingly random order. They're trying to find out what people want to hear.
 
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macattack said:
I'm not so sure. WDRV aka "The Drive" has been Chicago's only true "rock" station since the Loop was flipped, and WDRV's longtime blind spot is a complete and total reluctance to touch anything released after 1990. WKQX has steadily drifted to a pop lean since its revival and now has enough 2010's golds that they've been phasing out the 90's and 00's music so they could go all in on the pop trends. WXRT does play some 90's and 00's alt and rock hits but they won't touch the edgier stuff - and as it is material like "Smells Like Teen Spirit" sounds vividly out of place next to artists like Black Pumas and Michael Kiwanuka.

There was a wide opening for a rock station to play a lot of 90's and 00's rock and "hard alternative", especially for a station that will lack the baggage of The Loop that prevented that heritage station from changing with the times successfully. Like it or not, Gen X and older Millennials are the 25-54 demographic now and that is what this station is targeting. I think it could potentially do well as long as iHeart doesn't do their usual schtick and screw it all up.

Of course, since this is iHeart, we'll see what happens... there's a lot of directions this station can go. It won't stay the way it currently is, with this huge variety of songs being played in seemingly random order. They're trying to find out what people want to hear.
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I'm seeing a lot of positive reaction to the station on social media. A lot of people were looking for a station like this. I'm sure there will be refinements to the playlist in time.
 
Fingers crossed it goes in a more Active Rock direction if it has to change focus, and does something similar to what WZZN-FM 94.7 was doing before it switched to Oldies.
 
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