WMIA Flips To Bilingual AC Magic 93.9
iHeartMedia has flipped Hot AC "93.9 MIA" WMIA-FM Miami Beach FL to "Magic 93.9" with a mix of Spanish and
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Miami/Fort Lauderdale WMIA becomes Magic
- Thread starter Huff
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This seems to go with the kind of format that is decently popular in Puerto Rico (where iHeart has a semi-presence though Uno Radio Group) and kind of an update of the old Clásica 92 in Miami.WMIA Flips To Bilingual AC Magic 93.9
iHeartMedia has flipped Hot AC "93.9 MIA" WMIA-FM Miami Beach FL to "Magic 93.9" with a mix of Spanish and
Bilingual formats have never worked in the mainland, but Miami Latinos are different, more dominant and affluent.
It's a popular format all through Latin America, in fact.
This is essentially the WFID format from Puerto Rico, perfected in the 90's there by Pedro Javier González. PJ is not the manager of the iHeart Spanish formats so this is a nice transition. Of course, there is a huge difference between Puerto Rico and the Miami Hispanic market, so this will be interesting to watch.
This reminded me more of EstereoTempo during it's first few weeks rather than Clásica 92.
But to everyone who at iHeart approved with this idea: Why bother? Why not play Salsa, Bachata and Merengue on WMIA and have WZTU play and Reggaeton and Dembow or vice versa? This format will last less time than the last one did.
Esterotempo's first weeks were over 40 years ago, and were all Spanish language ballads/pop.
A salsa based format would target a 45 and over audience, just as it does in Puerto Rico. That is not an easy sale as most national Hispanic campaigns target 18-49 or some subset.
I'm sorry, I should've been more specific. I meant the first few weeks of the current version.
Well, maybe at this point, a wise move would be to sell off or lease out WMIA in my opinion. But at least it's not WRAZ.
The station hasn't been a winning factor since the legendary WLVE Love 94 and boy were those the good 'ol days.
Remember, iHeart only had one Spanish language station, while Televisa has 2 and SBS has 3. They were unable to offer a package, and were losing buys.
And, because there is duplication between the SBS and Televisa formats, introducing a distinctly different format is good marketing.
Profitable groups don't sell stations out of a cluster. A huge percentage of sales today are multi-station cluster combos.
It looks like they're musically doing iHeart's "Breeze" Soft AC format with 2 Spanish songs per hour or so mixed in
magic939miami.iheart.com
This would compete with 93.1's listeners I would guess. Those who are Spanish speaking (Which I would assume many) that also wouldn't mind hearing a Spanish presentation and song mixed in. That's right nearby on the dial. They could package sell it with WZTU.
Encuentra las canciones más recientes en Magic 93.9
Encuentra las canciones más recientes en Magic 93.9, Tus Favoritas De Siempre
This would compete with 93.1's listeners I would guess. Those who are Spanish speaking (Which I would assume many) that also wouldn't mind hearing a Spanish presentation and song mixed in. That's right nearby on the dial. They could package sell it with WZTU.
Are Haitians a significant presence in the Miami market? Their culture and language being French and African-based, do they listen to English or Spanish language radio, no radio at all, or exclusively pirates?
Boy, were those the good old days! WAXY with Rick Shaw, Love-94 with Don Anthony and (even though I was the wrong demo) Tanner and Cox on Y-100. WSHE sounded pretty good as well. What happened?
Let's go back to WQAM/WFUN! 
Remember, those who migrated from PR to Orlando are mostly true middle class. Professionals, doctors, engineers, accountants, etc. They don't mirror the Island population at all.
Those migrants from PR are almost all fully bilingual and the appeal of a station with English language songs and Spanish language announcers is much more limited as those migrants will not be nearly as attracted to something in Spanish.
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Time went by, tastes changed.
Mark in the Dark, The Madam, Footie, all of them were great. I loved working together with them!
Their language is Kreyol, a pidgin variation of French. They would not listen to Spanish language stations at all, as they have a different culture, different customs and different music.
There are many streams, lots of come and go pirates and a number of AM stations all in Kreyol.
Wikipedia (😖 ) says 335,000 Hatians in the metro: Haitian Americans - Wikipedia
Because not every Haitian likes the same music or programming, dedicating a full Class C FM to Kreyol would not reach them all. From anecdotal data provided to me by the company that used to do my AMT and perceptual test recruiting, "most" listen to English Urban or Urban AC stations if they have any English... the rest use the available AMs, pirates and streams.
As David well knows, most of the largest markets in Latin America support at least one version of English language hits with presentación en español. XHMM (Stereo Cien) in Mexico City and Aspen 102.3 in Buenos Aires being two successful examples. In fact, Aspen has consistently been the 2nd place music station in Buenos Aires (and therefore one of the most-listened to stations in South America.) for the last four years.
If we look ahead within 20-25 years based on the focus on demographics changes. For a format like this would this work in Los Angeles? Take KOST as an example and being replaced by Bilingual AC. Could this be the new AC in the future for some areas in the U.S?
So if I'm hearing right, going against Easy 93.1 but station ID's and personalities ONLY in Spanish? It almost sounds like a carbon copy of Easy for the Spanish language population in south Florida ~ am I reading this right?
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Yes, all Spanish presentation, but a mix of English and Spanish music.
I did Puerto Rico's first AC, 11-Q, in 1975 and it had the same exact formula: two English language AC hits per hour, the rest of the music in Spanish.
iHeart's current head of programming was across the street at WRAI, which did all US Top 50.
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