That was fast... TSQ makes the move... The New Star 96.1 Shines in Buffalo, New York
-
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
The New Star 96.1
- Thread starter GlennT
- Start date
This will be interesting. Will Star 102.5 listeners move to KISS or the New Star 96.1? I think it depends on how much they tweak the music and presentation on KISS. I have a feeling Star 96.1 will be a little "softer" than KISS, but time will tell.
Last edited:
Neither the midday or afternoon host are local or anywhere close to Buffalo
Yet. Stay tuned.
From Townsquare's standpoint, this change has no downside. The Breeze had been hardening up its presentation for the better part of a year and months before Audacy announced it would be divesting 102.5. I'd be a surprised if a single Breeze listener goes anywhere else, and, if it even gets a handful of 102.5 listeners, it improves. I suspect it'll get more than a handful, but time will tell.
While the talent at 102.5 might've been local, I'm pretty sure Rob was the only live personality on the station. From what I understand, Sue's other duties in the cluster were quite-a-lot, and she was rarely, if ever, live.
Concur. From the looks of Persons 12+ posted on this board, the Breeze had become nothing more than a wisp. Star's 12+ numbers were in decline after the Christmas music surge. You wonder how much of the numbers for both Star and Breeze are attributable to the nature of Hot AC product. The question is, will Rob Lucas show up doing mornings from the Rand Building? If so, what becomes of Dave Fields, who joined 96.1 for mornings when it was Mix 96, then successfully transitioned to afternoon drive at WYRK when Joe Chille took over mornings after Mix became the Breeze. When Chille left for WECK, Fields returned to morning drive at 96.1 and has been there since.
Star closed with Iris, by Buffalo's Goo Goo Dollas, which ended around 10:04 a.m. This was followed by two minutes and forty five seconds of dead air, after which a simulcast with Kiss 98.5 began with a WKSE Legal ID, followed by a song, which was followed by a 7+ minute talk break by Janet and Pickle. The dead air probably burned off every listener save for the radio geeks and historians. If the nearly three minutes of dead air didn't motivate midday at-work-music listeners to bail out, the nearly seven minute talk break probably did.
It's an interesting move and brings up more questions as to how this happened.
I wonder if the dead air was technical in nature, switching 102.5 to broadcast the 98.5 feed. Seems to me, being that they are next to each other on Corporate Parkway and with weeks of advance notice, it should have happened in less than a minute. But I'm not an engineer, so....
The extended period of dead air may have been intentional, one of the contractual provisions when Townsquare purchased the Intellectual property ("IP") from Audacy. Rather than immediately switching to Kiss, a period of dead air, the purpose of which was to literally clear the deck and make listeners search for an alternative may have been agreed to. That having been suggested, Star 102.5 had been airing promos directing listeners to Kiss 98.5, and those promos and reminders were ever present Friday morning in the waning hours of Star's Hot AC format. Then again, a digital router may have become temperamental. I'm going with "intentional."
§
And to answer my earlier question regarding Dave Fields' role, the Star 96.1 websites explicitly states that Dave Fields "will continue to wake up Western New York every weekday morning from 6 am to 10 am." Where this leaves Rob Lucas is open to speculation.
Last edited:
What makes one think they bought the IP? It is a Generic Brand, just like Breeze.
96.1 wins for this simple reason.
"Casual" fans ( here at work ) keep asking me why did Star go to 96.1
for the know you know crowd, that
knows news isn't live, tesh / seacrest isn't at 695 delaware and for the casual fans thinking it's all
"on computer" ( whatever that actually means ) _ will be why
96.1 steals this one from wkse.
"Casual" fans ( here at work ) keep asking me why did Star go to 96.1
for the know you know crowd, that
knows news isn't live, tesh / seacrest isn't at 695 delaware and for the casual fans thinking it's all
"on computer" ( whatever that actually means ) _ will be why
96.1 steals this one from wkse.
I tend to think you'll be proven right on this one.
I haven't seen the breakouts, but an educated guess would be that WKSE and Star already shared a lot of the same audience. Star listeners preferred Star to Kiss for a variety of reasons, but they ultimately were primary Star listeners because it wasn't Kiss. Trying to steer one station's listeners to a consolation prize rarely works, especially if the market has another station that's more similar to the one going away.
I think 98.5 is still going to see CHR.
You may very well be 102.5% correct. Just speculatin' on my part.
It’s just adding some of the Hot AC songs from “Star 102.5”. Seems to be moving to an Adult-leaning CHR format with “Star” being a hybrid of Hot AC and AC and being a little softer than the “Star” on 102.5.
It's a generic brand until its used in a specific market. Then it becomes a trademark for that market.
I'm curious how a competitor can legally use this brand without any waiting period.
Perhaps using the Star name with a different frequency doesn't tread on the trademark. That's up to lawyers.
- Status