You got it! And this isn't the end of the madness. I foresee FM100 coming back down the road. I see 98.9 flipping formats again down the road, possibly to Adult Hits or Classic Hits, and who knows how long Flinn stays Hot AC before they start modifying it by going Rhythmic. I can also see 98.1 skewing a bit older to try and get disgruntled ROCK 102 listeners to make the switch. If WMC-AM had a translator, I could see it switching to Classic Hits just to try and attract a few listeners.
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
WMC-FM Dominoes
- Thread starter Huff
- Start date
WXMX still exists on a 100,000 watt stick for rock listeners.
Does Memphis have a CHR
I would argue that 107.5 is CHR. It's Gold based like 103.5 KTU or KC101.
I should have said 8,500-watt 101.9 is the only Classic Rock station now. Cumulus-owned 98.1 WXMX (100,000 watts) plays a wide range of rock, about half classic (Bowie, Clapton, Foreigner) and about half post-2000. If you live 25 miles or more from Memphis, this will likely be the only rock station you can get.
I guess WHBQ-FM is an almost-Top 40. It calls itself "Memphis #1 Hit Music Station." This change must have caught Flynn Broadcasting by surprise. The website still says "107.5 WHBQ - All The Classic Hits." The website is fairly weak. No list of DJs or shows, no "Just Played Songs" option, no contests or station promotions. It's there mostly for on-line listening.
I guess WHBQ-FM is an almost-Top 40. It calls itself "Memphis #1 Hit Music Station." This change must have caught Flynn Broadcasting by surprise. The website still says "107.5 WHBQ - All The Classic Hits." The website is fairly weak. No list of DJs or shows, no "Just Played Songs" option, no contests or station promotions. It's there mostly for on-line listening.
They call themselves Adult CHR, not Hot AC, which is splitting hairs over a few songs. That's like me telling my doctor I'm "undertall", when she says I'm "overweight".
While the new "Rock 102" is 8,500 watts, it's at, or near, the maximum height for a Class C3 station. So, it's roughly the equivalent of 25,000 watts. It's a substantial downgrade from what it had at 102.7, but it's not nearly as bad as the impression just looking at the ERP gives. Also, keep in mind that, while 100,000 watts, 102.7 is a Class C1, which means it's limited by height. With the exceptions of 99.7 and 105.9, all of the 100,000 watt commercial FM's in the Memphis market would seem to be Class C1's. WGKX was downgraded to a C0 shortly after that class was introduced because it wasn't at the minimum height for a Class C FM (but was 100,000 watts and above maximum for a C1) when another station wanted to upgrade. Can't remember which station that was, though.
I'm not an engineer (and if one reads this, (s)he could explain better than I could), but my understanding is that horizontal overcomes buildings and other obstacles, including potential interference from other signals and man-made interference, while vertical lessens interference to other stations. I also understand vertical power helps reception on most car radios and home stereos that use dipole antennas. Seems like I remember AM typically is vertical while FM is usually circular in antenna polarization. A handful of noncommercial FM's at least used to operate with solely vertically polarized antennas, but, last I'd heard, that wasn't permitted in the commercial FM band.
I don't know if that has been announced yet, though it likely has been decided. 94.1 and 94.9 have similar signal contours despite the difference in power. WLFP, despite being a Class C2, is directional and doesn't go very far to the west to minimize interference to KKPT 94.1 in Little Rock. That has never been that great of a signal, which is probably one of the reasons Audacy was willing to part with it, though the current signal is a lot better than what it was at 94.3.
The stream on the website shuts down every few minutes.
I haven't listened since it dumped classic hits, but I wasn't having that problem last week.
If you're using TuneIn on your desktop machine, it will periodically pause the stream and insert its own ads, which is a bit of a pain. Guessing it won't do that to stations that are paying subscribers, but it would seem to be happening with more and more stations.
Still remember all of those Rock 103 plates that I used to see on the fronts of cars all over west TN back in the '80s. Wouldn't be seeing that now!
Intro to Antenna Polarization - JEM Engineering Blog
In this blog post, we touch upon antenna polarization and how it affects an antenna's performance. Learn more...
jemengineering.com
107.5 went Rhythmic with Wild back in 2001 and that only lasted a few months. Of course that’s 22 years ago.
Having only been to the Memphis downtown area a number of years ago - how disadvantaged is the 107.5 signal? On paper, it looks like downtown as well as the area south of downtown and the MS area around Southaven are outside of the 60dbu which I would think would put them at an automatic disadvantage against 102.7 unless the owners of 107.5 really invest in getting the station promoted and investing in it. Doesn’t exactly seem like that kind of organization, but JMO.
Perhaps adult hits would do better than classic hits/oldies which would be a nice choice for 98.9 as mentioned by a previous poster. Just don’t bring back Kim FM’s variety hits format. 🤣 Didn’t 94.1 do fairly decent for a while with classic hits as KQK?
Perhaps adult hits would do better than classic hits/oldies which would be a nice choice for 98.9 as mentioned by a previous poster. Just don’t bring back Kim FM’s variety hits format. 🤣 Didn’t 94.1 do fairly decent for a while with classic hits as KQK?
I honestly think that one of the following will happen. The Wolf will fail on 99.7 and whatever company that owns it if Audacy runs out of town will turn 99.7 back into Fm100 and will possibly go classic hits. Or Kiss will fail on 102.7 and Rock 103 will return to its home. I can’t see 98.9 going classic hits and taking listeners away from its sister station 98.1 the max. Who knows though with the people making these decisions now a days. None of these decisions have made any sense so far.
Don't see FM 100 or Rock 103 ever reverting right back to their previous incarnations. That would be like admitting failure, and radio doesn't do that. Of course, Rock 103 gradually returned following the Z-103 debacle of a year earlier, but even then, they didn't revert back to the "Rock 103" name right away. They went through the "Eagle" version first.
When did WEGR change its city of license from Memphis to Arlington?
Looks like October 2006.
I worked for Flinn at a station in a market far from Memphis so i saw a little bit of the inside of their operations.
Theyre full of people who know memphis and their audience well and are very promotionally active, their MD/OM, Chris Taylor KNOWS the music well and back when i was following Q107.5 much more closely they were getting lots of good response on social media it seemed.
Theyre a bit unconventional overall, but the people besides Chris that i dealt with on a regular basis in management were smart, good people.
they wouldnt do this if they didn;'t think it was worth it.
When the original Rock 103 went CHR as Z103, the 98.1 frequency attempted to go after the disenfranchised Rock listeners and became Rock 98. When Z103 opted to return to AOR in 1986, they changed the calls letters to WEGR and branded themselves “The Eagle”.
WEGR made fairly short work of KWLN (Rock 98) and Rock 98 flipped to CHR as KMPZ (Z98). It wasn’t too long after WEGR brought back the heritage Rock103 brand.
98 has had more call letter changes, name changes, format flips, ownership changes, etc., than I can keep track of. And they are currently a rock station now. If they have a better signal than Rock 102, then they may ultimately win out in the end.
I seem to remember 98.1 doing better than Rock 103/Rock 102 for quite some time now. The two aren’t quite the same format, though, or at least they weren’t the last time I listened.
98.1 tended to be a little bit hampered by having its transmitter in Arkansas as it was licensed to Osceola and had to find a way to cover the bulk of Memphis while also hitting its COL. That problem, of course, was solved in 1992 after it moved its COL to Millington and moved onto the main transmitter farm. It has had fewer changes since then, though it still tried making a go of oldies/classic hits under a few different names when the imaging wasn’t the real problem.
- Status