Anyone know where Axel may be headed? His FB page says he will be coming back once his No Compete is passed. He mentions ‘Rock’ so wondering if it’s The River.
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Axel
- Thread starter acheron1982
- Start date
I only see the 6+ but The River seems to be flowing OK even after Steve Craig left. If 97.1 hires Axel I hope whatever shift they give him stays music intensive and none of the boring rambling he did on 100.5.
Axel gave another hint on his FB page. Back on Atlanta airwaves. Motley Crew will be played and it’s coming in October.
My bet is he is moving over to iHeartRadio and 96 Rock is coming back.
My bet is he is moving over to iHeartRadio and 96 Rock is coming back.
Where would they put it? Aren’t all iHeart stations in Atlanta finally doing consistently well?
Axel is also teasing River on his FB page, FWIW.
Motley Crue is on the hard end for River.
With River's numbers, it wouldn't surprise me if someone tried to grab some of the AOR space. Even a third of it would be a 3-4 share.
Would iHeart consider putting 96 Rock on 105.7? Would iHeart pull the plug on Power 96? I know they did crappy last month, but that's just one month. But iHeart doesn't seem to be investing a whole lot in Power 96 (vs. Q99.7).
It's also interesting that iHeart pulled 96 Rock off of WWPW 96.1 HD-2.
I wonder what that Alabama station would charge iHeart for the WKLS callsign, or if iHeart even cares.
Wasn’t his fault. Much like other big cities, Atlanta just didn’t respond well to active rock. Demographics
Define trainwreck playlist
I agree with you
Mark, after all these years railing both here and on your Buzzboard, do you really not grasp how little certain companies programmers have over the music on their stations?
Not just that but your idea of a “good playlist” is someone’s garbage and Vice versa. I have noticed a consistent theme that if you don’t like a few songs on a station they must be terrible. Everyone’s ears are different. Music is so personal that there’s no way you get to be the arbiter of what is a good or bad playlist. Not to mention, radio is so much more than a playlist of 185-200 songs.
What you write is simply untrue. I criticized Rock 100.5 because month after month after month of ratings books proved the station was programmed poorly vis a vis local listener preferences. My personal tastes have nothing to do with it. I do not like 98.1 The Max in Memphis's playlist, but do you ever see me criticize *that* station? Heck, I do not like WSRV's playlist very much personally, but when have I ever raked that station across the coals? The fact is - WSRV is programmed darn near perfectly given its extremely impressive performance.
A rim shooter from 40 miles away (WSRV) regularly creamed Rock 100.5 in the ratings in male demos.
Axel was brought back to Atlanta from Cincinnati for the specific purpose of retooling Rock 100.5. Sorry, I refuse to buy the narrative that he was an innocent bystander in the ensuing ratings debacle with little to no actual programming decision making ability. This isn't John Dickey era Cumulus we're talking about.
Where I will cut him some slack is the Elliot in the Morning mess. I suspect the decision to bring EITM aboard was not his call at all. However, 100.5's ratings were already in the toilet before that move was made. EITM was salt in the proverbial wound.
A rim shooter from 40 miles away (WSRV) regularly creamed Rock 100.5 in the ratings in male demos.
Axel was brought back to Atlanta from Cincinnati for the specific purpose of retooling Rock 100.5. Sorry, I refuse to buy the narrative that he was an innocent bystander in the ensuing ratings debacle with little to no actual programming decision making ability. This isn't John Dickey era Cumulus we're talking about.
Where I will cut him some slack is the Elliot in the Morning mess. I suspect the decision to bring EITM aboard was not his call at all. However, 100.5's ratings were already in the toilet before that move was made. EITM was salt in the proverbial wound.
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I can’t believe iHeart would cede the CHR format to Cumulus, but considering the state of the format, maybe they would. With CHR in such bad shape, Power is fighting a losing battle with Q because they have nothing to offer personality wise that Q doesn’t. When Power launched, CHR was still at a high point so it made sense. Q100 was a bad CHR at the time, coming off that weird Jan Jeffries hot AC lean. But now…Atlanta just doesn’t seem like a market where 2 CHR’s make sense. Personally I do not see the CHR format that was strong 10-12 years ago coming back. CHR has had “doldrums” before, yes. But during those “doldrums” there weren’t options like TikTok and Spotify having such impact on what’s popular, and overall radio usage/TSL among the 18-34 demographic was much higher.
Knowing IHeart and their history with the frequency, maybe 96Rock comes back on 96.7? 🤣 🤣 🤣 horrible signal for the format, but it was for regional Mexican, classic country, and AC as well.
Other than some success with The Bull, which hasn’t been completely consistent, Atlanta hasn’t been a good market for iHeart in a while. They’ve just gotten by. I actually did enjoy Wild 105.7/96.7 in its later days as well as the initial Radio 105.7.
But just because a station gets low ratings, is it necessarily “bad”? Different things work in different markets. 20 years ago, country music ruled throughout the south (and Atlanta). Nowadays? Not so much. Tastes change, people change
If you think holding onto so-so currents for too long, ignoring smash gold hits from those same artists, only playing cuts off Metallica's "Black" album and later albums, and playing Bon Jovi alongside Twenty One Pilots are all good things - then Rock 100.5 is a station you would've clearly liked.
That's correct, the company sought to replace the top-down programming management that existed under Dickey. However, they replaced it with a number of levels of programming management, both regionally and by format. All of those people are overseen by Brian Philips, who is based in Atlanta. There's a wide gap between the Dickey era and what you're talking about. I doubt very much that he was programming a major market station based on his own personal taste without any input from the format captain and the regional programming VP.
I don't know of anyone in radio who would do otherwise in the same situation. That doesn't mean he was the only person involved in music decisions.
I dont think a playlist is the sole reason for any stations successes or failures. It’s only one slice of the pie.
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