They have two country stations that are pretty even with iHeart.
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December PPMs
- Thread starter BarryATL
- Start date
They have two country stations that are pretty even with iHeart.
I'm not understanding your points. For one thing, Cumulus' head of programming, Brian Phillips, was not at the company when Nash was created. Nash was intended to be more of a national format especially for small and medium market stations. And what does Citadel have to do with the current version of 101.5?
Country is in a slump, and the Atlanta market has changed demographically. Those are the reasons The Bull and New County 101-5 have poor ratings. IMHO, they both sound really good in terms of programming. And I do believe 101.5 has an excellent morning show though it hasn't gained much ratings traction. I don't like syndicated programming at night, but that's the way of the radio world right now. I think The Bull has the advantage in evenings because to non-radio people, Bobby Bones can sound local. I certainly do not believe that Cumulus is "clueless" about programming Country stations.
It's been reported that Cumulus board members, installed post-bankruptcy, want their money back, but there are just no buyers willing to pay attractive sums for stations. Other that that, I see no reason why Cumulus should sell the Atlanta cluster. In New York, all they owned were WPLJ and WABC, which made competing difficult.
Brian Phillips has not been good for Cumulus. The stations are in worse shape than when he arrived. 103.3 in Nashville is in unusually weak shape (even with WSIX? Not anymore!). Chris Huff reported that facility just scored it poorest AQH share since the 1970s. 94.1 in Cincinnati after showing brief signs of life is a raging dumpster fire. 93.1 in Detroit is a five alarm dumpster fire. 101.5 in Atlanta continues to underachieve. That's before I even get into the kerfuffle with certain of the company's news/talk personalities and the continued terrible performance of stations such as Rock 100.5.
This may be an unpopular opinion - but it appears Mike McVay did a better job in that role than Phillips.
This may be an unpopular opinion - but it appears Mike McVay did a better job in that role than Phillips.
Your point is well taken...to an extent. All of the stations you mentioned are Country, a format that's not in a good place right now.
I'm not trying to defend Brian Phillips, but I will say that the stations he created and/or programmed reflected creativity going back to 99X. The new version of 101.5 contained some creative elements IMHO.
Maybe Brian is sometimes too creative for his own good. He created the original Q100 at 100.5 in 2001 as a state-of-the-art CHR. But one thing sounded kind of strange to me. Once per hour, they played a 70's song. They would play Nelly, then Shaggy and then "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor.
After it launched, Q100 threw a client party. I walked up to Brian Phillips and asked what his thinking was regarding the 70's songs. He said they were the highest-recalling songs among women 25-34. Well, maybe so, but they didn't sound consistent with the format, and they were dropped fairly quickly.
That may be, but there are a lot of people between Phillips and the stations. Those people are responsible for programming the stations. That was one of the first things Mary Berner addressed when she became CEO. She believes in delegating authority, rather than the top-down management of Lew Dickey. So if the criticism is the station programming, it should be directed to the station PDs or format captains. You focused on the weak stations (and many were also weak under McVay), but ignored the success stories. While KDF underperforms in Nashville, WSM quite often beats WSIX. KDF just launched a new morning show. That seems to be where the problem is there. You mentioned the talk hosts, but the fact of the matter is that while Bongino rattled his sabre a lot, he's still there. So that problem was dealt with effectively.
Didn’t Leslie Fram take over programming from Brian in 2002 for both Q100 and 99X?
According to this, he moved to Nashville to run CMT in 2001:
Brian Philips Is New CMT Chief
Brian Philips, an award-winning radio programmer, will become senior vice president and general manager of CMT.
As I recall, Susquehanna transferred Brian Philips to DFW to rebuild KPLX in 1999 or 2000. That's where he created 99.5 The Wolf. At that point, Leslie Fram became PD of 99X. Brian was then asked to create the format for Q100 at 100.5, which signed on early in 2001. The first PD of Q100 was the late Ed (Mr. Ed) Lambert.
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101.5 has been country since 1968, when Wilder flipped WBIE-FM from BM/EZ to country ("Georgia's Country Giant"). In 1981 ABC changed it to WKHX Kicks.
Ever heard of "Moby"?
I am not really clear exactly what happened but didn't Moby end up at 92.9 doing traffic for a morning drive salary? I wish I had a contract where the station would pay me the full salary and keep me on the air no matter what the ratings were.
Rhubarb (RIP) and company had Y106.7 near the top of the 6+ ratings. IMHO some of the funniest morning radio in Atlanta was Rhubarb and South Side Steve at the end of The Eagle106.7's country days.
Kicks was way ahead of 106.7 during the years that Moby was there. His contract wasn't renewed because GM Victor Sansone did not care for him. Rumor was that Sansone was embarrassed about Moby (and his "peaches," etc) around his Buckhead neighbors. I don't have confirmation that that's true.
Moby, who had been in Rock radio prior to Kicks, was hired by Z93. But by that time, he had a Country style and was associated with Country in this market. Z93 listeners did not accept him. The station was obligated to pay him through his contract so they moved him to traffic reporting, probably hoping he would quit.
Moby, who had been in Rock radio prior to Kicks, was hired by Z93. But by that time, he had a Country style and was associated with Country in this market. Z93 listeners did not accept him. The station was obligated to pay him through his contract so they moved him to traffic reporting, probably hoping he would quit.
Moby had a successful run on 101.5, during the 90s country heyday until 2002 when Kicks got rid of him for being "too country". He popped up on Z93 for a short time, having been a rock DJ before Kicks and while Z93 was going through a series of morning shows (Greaseman, a self-admitted past-his-prime Gary McKee, and then Moby--the last two being obviously poor fits in both foresight and hindsight). Infinity or CBS relegated Moby to traffic in hopes he would leave voluntarily before his contract ran out, but he stuck it out before starting his moderately-successful syndicated morning show.
Rodney Ho on Moby: https://www.ajc.com/blog/radiotvtal...dio-before-retirement/JSBlkjpEjCjnjYwgBB4nQL/
Rodney Ho on Gary McKee: https://www.ajc.com/blog/radiotvtal...-former-wqxi-94q-host/FwfgI85Kqt6Mk2kizRODiK/
Something I learned: Apparently Clear Channel offered Moby the morning show on The Bull. Moby had one sticking point: he still wanted to do his syndicated show too as insurance, so that never came to pass.
Wasn't Moby still serving time doing traffic on 92.9 even after they had flipped to AAA Dave FM?
I don't recall, Jabba. But that does remind me of a funny story regarding that format flip (funny except to one person).
An email about the format change was sent to certain people at CBS Radio, then the owner of the station. Somehow the memo was sent to some people who were not supposed to get it...and somehow someone sent it to Rodney Ho.
Rodney called Z93 PD Frank Jaxon and said, "I hear you're being replaced" or something to that effect. Jaxon had no idea the format change was going to happen but of course was gone later that afternoon.
The Fish is doing that well ? Is this the Bible Belt or What ?
It was Christmas.
Both stations have the same HAAT on the Fish Stick, although WAKL has triple the power.
WFSH covers a wide area well thanks to the HAAT--I've gotten it up to about Cartersville or Adairsville.
In a car power doesn't matter that much, especially at higher powers. It matters much more going from a 250W translator to a class C3, but not as much from a class C1 (Fish) to a full class C (K-Love).
Where K-Love would have a distinct advantage is in a commercial building, getting through the concrete and steel, and way out in the metro on the west side generally.
Keep in mind on the southwest (and even west) side WVFJ 93.3 comes into play as well.
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