I wonder who thinks of Miami as a place filled with rock fanatics. Granted, I don't have BIG expectations for 105.9, but given that they are almost the only game in town for rock music, rock fans would coalesce to the station by default. And they used to have higher ratings with practically the same playlist approach they are doing now.
Don't know if this will be the best approach, as Miami is not Denver. I lost count on how many rock stations Denver has; there's a load of them in that place.
The market is getting more and more Hispanic as well as African American and Afro Antillean. None of those groups is particularly attracted to any kind of rock.
Patterned after The Dove in Tampa EZ was older and "lite-er" in its first years. But it did not do well and Cox discovered that there was not a big community of 65 and over non-Hispanic white folks in Miami any more. They started researching among Hispanics and more accurate demos and are typically in the top 3 stations in 25-54 now.
And then WDUV became practically a pop-leaning classic hits station, maybe just short of being called "classic hits".
I couldn’t agree more, they had kinda morphed into
Easy listening? WFEZ started out close to that and evolved into something completely different.
Yes, they failed to succeed thinking that the format they had in Tampa on The Dove would work in Miami. South Florida decades before had ceased to be where retirees went, and it took them several years to realize that.
Only after they abandoned the easy listening approach of WDUV did the station succeed. They learned enough that they changed WDUV, too. They spent about 3 years failing before they woke up to the demographics of the market.
But the biggest group of WFEZ listeners is Cuban-Americans... something that can't be replicated in any other market north of Miami.
They also promoted the crap out of it with TV ads. Always helpful.
Much of the promotion was when it launched. It did not work, as the station was targeting the long-gone retirement community listener. Once they researched and started targeting Miamians, both Anglo and Hispanic, they moved up into the top couple of stations.
