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Alt 92.3 to Become WINS Simulcast

... Audacy actually seems to be putting some effort in its New York Country subchannel on 94.7-HD2. It's hosted and i believe there are some sponsors, so I guess we'll see what they do with Alt.

One thing I will say is that K-Rock never sounded better musically than during the time it was on HD2 during the 92.3 NOW-FM days. You never know, Alt might actually improve when they move to HD and there's less pressure to micromanage the playlist. Probably way fewer spot breaks too. Maybe there will be a bright side to this for HD Radio owners.
Audacy has done a pretty good job with the HD2 continuation of New York's Country on 94.7 HD2. They run hosted programming from 10 AM to midnight on weekdays. They have one local personality. The rest are from their national Country shows. All the personalities are familiar to those who had listened to WNSH 94.7. It seems the cost to run this is minimal, and they do have at least one steady sponsor.
So I think it is likely that Audacy will seek to do something similar with Alt on HD2. Though I don't know whether they are running any national shows with the format that could be utilized.
HD2 seems to work quite well in cars, at least with recent models. There needs to be a way to promote it better.
 
Alternative as a whole has some of the most passionate listeners of any genre and if you find the right sub-set, I think you'd hit a gold mine of listeners. There's plenty of different Alternative artists releasing music right now.

They're passionate in terms of what they like. Each person wants something different. When a station finds a subset that's big enough to get good numbers, the other subset complains that the music is too old, or too burnt out, or too pop. It's easier to just shut down the music and replace it with something people agree on.
 
I think it is likely that Audacy will seek to do something similar with Alt on HD2. Though I don't know whether they are running any national shows with the format that could be utilized.
Right now, Kevan Kenney and Brady are syndicated out to other Alt stations in the country. It's likely that they will continue to be heard on HD2.
 
They're passionate in terms of what they like. Each person wants something different. When a station finds a subset that's big enough to get good numbers, the other subset complains that the music is too old, or too burnt out, or too pop. It's easier to just shut down the music and replace it with something people agree on.
The thing is that I think a quorum can be found and was found in the past - it’s a mixture of indie and rock with some quirky pop and hip-hop thrown in as accents. That’s the Alt formula. That’s what the listeners seem to want. it’s what the format needs to go back to, and it seems to be what’s gradually happening.

If you don’t want to go back to that formula, then yeah, flip the station. It’s not going to work any other way.

If Alt stalwart The Black Keys can crank out top 5 hits on Active Rock every cycle, the divide isn’t that significant. Rock seems to be healthier when Alt and Active seem to compliment each other. We’re already seeing signs of this happening when Falling In Reverse of all bands is just outside the Alt top 30. Adds this week has a couple of Active/Alternative crossovers as well.

There will always be room for pop on Alt. “Romantic Homicide”, which is climbing up Alt right now, is killer lo-fi indie pop. Alt getting on board with it suits the format. But they got perilously close to just becoming an offshoot of mainstream pop especially with the Audacy Alts, and the listeners won’t tolerate that. But they’ll tolerate or even enjoy a bit of offbeat poppy or even hip-hop fare if it sounds different from the mainstream and sounds good. A reminder that De La Soul holds an Alt #1 in collaboration with Gorillaz!

The pop initiative was the longtime brainchild of Mike Kaplan, WNYL was the centerpiece of his grand, decades-long ambition to transform the format. With the catastrophic failure of his plans, it’s only fitting that WNYL falls. But I don’t think it had to; I think Allers and Brad Steiner could have fixed it and the ratings would have shot back up. But we’ll never know.
 
The pop initiative was the longtime brainchild of Mike Kaplan, WNYL was the centerpiece of his grand, decades-long ambition to transform the format.

So now it appears he's out of the company. Here's the story from Inside Radio:

The station plans to celebrate alternative rock radio in New York on the air until the signal handover to WINS on Oct. 27. Inside Radio has confirmed that WNYL PD Mike Kaplan will be leaving the company later this year. Audacy decline to comment on the future of the station’s airstaff. However, since some are heard in other Audacy markets is it reasonable to assume that some will remain with the company.

That's the risk. You take a chance on what seems to be the next big thing, and when it fails, you get fired. So who will be the next person all the alt fans target because he doesn't play what they want?
 
He was called out because he was the brainchild behind multiple failing or struggling stations in multiple large and major markets. People on the outside could see the icebergs he was steering these stations into. The programming miscues extended beyond just the music.

He certainly should be held to account for the mess he created.
 
Typically when a format change is coming they open up the playlist a bit and we have fantastic radio a for month or a few weeks. I remember the WRXP 2.0 placeholder format got over a 3.0 just before they flipped to the WFAN simulcast.

No such luck so far looking at the WNYL playlist today. The most played out classic ALT of all time, just awful. Good riddance to that tired old worn out garbage.
 
He was called out because he was the brainchild behind multiple failing or struggling stations in multiple large and major markets. People on the outside could see the icebergs he was steering these stations into. The programming miscues extended beyond just the music.

He certainly should be held to account for the mess he created.
As Theater of My Mind so accurately said, Kaplan failed upwards. He presided over dark, poorly billed eras for KRBZ and KNDD among others before he found his way into KYSR and lucked into iHeart luring Woody (who gleefully humiliated Mike on air whenever he had the chance). He is called “The Show Killer” for a reason. He never should have been allowed this much power and responsibility.

Audacy paid a hefty price for his incompetence and ludicrous misread of the Alt audience. He will find work somewhere again, he always does, and he will repeat the same mistakes all over again because he never learns from them.
 
Really long thread this has become here, eh ?
I haven't gone through all 17 pages, but I guess we'll find out in 17 days how WINS begins referencing themselves.
See, loud-by-us KYW has been saying 1060 less and less since their wee 103.9 simulcast began. That 103.9 FM now takes prominence at times of mention. And Great Caesar's Editorial Ghost -- what a RACKET that station has become! The dual ID's and dials and HD stuff are like verbal toll booths. One can only imagination what this WINS venture is going to sound like with WCBS News Radio 880 personnal getting admittance to the mayhem. But expect WINS to do the same with the frequencies --maybe sooner than KYW's chore took. NYC's 92.3 is a much huge-r signal than half-sister 103.9 is.
Ha -- I'm sure that the serendipidous numerology of the 1010 and 10-10 will be gone even before it completes making the rounds. And ha again : '10-10' (as in Ten-ten WINS) is the only way my wife -- raised in Philly -- remembers my own birthday.
 
Really long thread this has become here, eh ?
I haven't gone through all 17 pages, but I guess we'll find out in 17 days how WINS begins referencing themselves.
See, loud-by-us KYW has been saying 1060 less and less since their wee 103.9 simulcast began. That 103.9 FM now takes prominence at times of mention. And Great Caesar's Editorial Ghost -- what a RACKET that station has become! The dual ID's and dials and HD stuff are like verbal toll booths. One can only imagination what this WINS venture is going to sound like with WCBS News Radio 880 personnal getting admittance to the mayhem. But expect WINS to do the same with the frequencies --maybe sooner than KYW's chore took. NYC's 92.3 is a much huge-r signal than half-sister 103.9 is.
Ha -- I'm sure that the serendipidous numerology of the 1010 and 10-10 will be gone even before it completes making the rounds. And ha again : '10-10' (as in Ten-ten WINS) is the only way my wife -- raised in Philly -- remembers my own birthday.
10-10 WINS, Now at 92.3FM
 
If im the owner of two pizza joints that sit right next to each other in nyc, that serves the exact same menu, no one would think in a few years that it might be an issue?
Starbucks does that exact same thing in NYC. Two coffee shops within spitting distance of one another. They get different folks in there (walking down opposite sides of the sidewalk), they are making a profit, and it keeps the competition out of the game.
 
They'll almost certainly emphasize the 92.3 dial position with the "1010" AM references gradually de-emphasized and eventually eliminated (with maybe an occasional "you can also hear us at 1010 on your AM dial" reference).
KNX totally eliminated references to 1070AM last December except for top of hour ID.
 
It'll be a shame to lose the "Ten-Ten Wins" branding. It's so easy for the hosts to say. It's like the verbal equivalent of the 212 area code -- "you barely have to wiggle your finger", as they said back in the rotary dial era.

And their traffic tip line is 844-JAM-1010. 923 isn't going to fit as a replacement for that. Maybe 844-JAM-WINS? But it's hard to dial all letters, especially in a vehicle.

p.s. This was the headline when the national minimum wage was raised to $10.10 back in 2014:

1010_wins.png
 
You mean 94.7? Because Audacy was much more favorable to Alternative than it was to Country.
He means 97.1 in Los Angeles, which flipped to KNX with little fanfare ahead of it, no hosts saying goodbye, etc. The station never acknowledged it was going away.
 
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