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89X To Return?
- Thread starter umfan
- Start date
All the corporate giants are realizing that the only viable audience left for terrestrial is the demographic that grew up with the stations, formats, and imaging from the 80's and 90's that made radio fun to listen too. Many kicked what's now the "classic" alternative audience to the curb in the early 2000's for the garbage that's been out there the last 20 years. Funny how things come full circle and the brains are realizing that they need them back. This flipback is clearly following the returns of 91X, 99X, Live 105, and others.
89X Returns To Windsor/Detroit
Bell Media's "Pure Country 89" 88.7 CIMX-FM Windsor ON/Detroit is teasing a change on Thursday, August 28 at 8:08am.
radioinsight.com
Article updated with info on the reborn 89X.
First recurrent is “Rushmere” by Mumford & Sons. That’s as good of an indicator as any that there will be at least a small commitment to new music.
EDIT; Second recent recurrent is “Stick Season” by Noah Kahan. Still nothing truly new yet but it’s another hint they won’t stay solely in the past.
EDIT; Second recent recurrent is “Stick Season” by Noah Kahan. Still nothing truly new yet but it’s another hint they won’t stay solely in the past.
89X Radio - Windsor's Alternative
www.89xradio.com
Site is updated, but no list of DJs.
Virtually all advertiser outreach will remain Canada focused. Zero mention of Detroit by company representatives.
That said, this Metro Detroiter greatly prefers what he's hearing on 88.7 over the milquetoast corporate garbage 98.7 generally plays. Not to mention, 98.7's processing sounds terrible. 88.7's audio sounds good so far!
www.wxyz.com
That said, this Metro Detroiter greatly prefers what he's hearing on 88.7 over the milquetoast corporate garbage 98.7 generally plays. Not to mention, 98.7's processing sounds terrible. 88.7's audio sounds good so far!
Windsor's Alternative 89X officially returns to the airwaves
89X is officially back. Bell Media and iHeartRadio Canada announced the return to rock music on Thursday morning.
www.wxyz.com
Oh it’s already happened thrice. Arkells, Tragically Hip and Blue Stones so far, But historically, before 2017, the Canadian government would let them get away with a much smaller ratio of CanCon than their peers. Right now it’s seeming like the old, smaller CanCon ratio is what’s in play.
I do hope they start trying to sell to Detroit soon, though. They’re already playing a great Detroit-oriented mix and it’s telling that Eminem and White Stripes played before the Canadian artists.
They're just playing the biggest songs from the station's peak era. And you always launch with your strongest songs.
Bell isn't going to invest a dime trying to get money out of a well that's already pretty dry. Not to mention the imaging made it very clear this is a Windsor focused station.
Bell isn't going to invest a dime trying to get money out of a well that's already pretty dry. Not to mention the imaging made it very clear this is a Windsor focused station.
CanCon minimum ratio remains 20 percent for Windsor stations.
Bear in mind the station has the ability to load more of those songs into overnights, etc. when there are fewer listeners.
Presuming that Bell reopens a sales office in Detroit, which is imperceptible and would still be the case if trade relations between the two countries weren't in the toilet.
98.7 has nothing to worry about.
You'd be surprised at how Cancon can be interpreted or what bands/songs have Canadian roots.
One of my guilty streaming pleasures is Rebel Rock 101.7 CIDG in Ottawa, well-programmed with a tight, accessible playlist, and locally-owned to boot! I never really think "okay, this is Cancon" when such a song plays because the flow is good, which is a tall task for any active rocker on either side of the border. I'd be intrigued at CIDG's research and consulting methods given they have two monoliths (Bell and Rogers) to compete against.
There will be no sales office here. That said, there is a chance 89X will siphon significant share from 98.7, which could harm 98.7's viability. There is also a chance 98.7 will be relatively unscathed.
Given the fact Audacy has killed its alternative stations in Orlando, Miami and Kansas City all within the past 18 months or so, I'll place the odds at 50/50 that Alt 98.7 disappears within a year from now.
89X sounds terrific compared to 98.7 so far. 98.7 does have a much easier to receive signal, though, in the northern half of the Detroit market (Ann Arbor as well).
I wouldn’t rule anything out for them reopening a sales office in Detroit down the line. They could, especially if trade relations improve and/or WZDH goes away. Time will tell, of course.
Funny, I grew up on said “garbage” and I tend to like a lot of it, maybe because I lived in a market that was always ignoring a lot of garbage.
Blaming the music for an alternative station isn’t the problem. If the music wasn’t to your liking, I feel it had to be corporate pushed.
What people forget is that while 91X is classic alternative, the past few years they still have played so many new songs on a yearly basis that other stations don’t because 91X doesn’t forget that the important thing to their roots just isn’t their golden era, but continue to push music they think is good.
Fontaines DC, Turnstile, Spiritual Cramp, Japanese Breakfast, Wet Leg, Momma, Indigo De Souza, I could go on, all respectable artists that got 91X rotation at some point the past few years.
They added a new Spoon song yesterday that’s incredible too. Not seeing the rest of the format do that.
I’m just saying what 91X gets that these other revivals don’t is that while you capitalize on nostalgia, you don’t forget that alternative is supposed to push and play good new alternative music as well.
Yes, alternative has been more than guitar rock nowadays, but so what, what you do is balance it. A lot of these new stations just don’t mix it right, or will play top 40 acts like Myles Smith.
89X I wish the best of luck. Would be cool if they played new stuff (Mumford and Noah Kahan are fine but they’re both folk, you need a variety). Try to push some new stuff from The Blue Stones or Valley for your Canadian folk, or hell play some Alvvays. For Detroit, Jack White released an amazing new album last year they could play some stuff from that. Idk just be fun with it, don’t be another classic alt that just plays the few hits that doesn’t even go deep into the stations history.
99X’s new music ignorance since their start makes Atlanta a boring market. Planet Jil and adding new stuff from older artists isn’t enough.
Live 105 I think does it a bit better but they’re also an audacy station so a lot of their picks feel more like every other audacy station, but when they do play a new song from Nation of Language, it’s great.
CanCom rules are 20% for Windsor and 30% for other parts of Canada? I thought Windsor stations got more of an advantage than that, competing as they do with so many American stations which can play what they want. And as said above, CanCon counts not just if the performers are Canadian. If the song was written by a Canadian, that counts. Or if the song was recorded in Canada.
So does "All for Love" count as CanCom? Bryan Adams is one third of the singers, along with Sting and Rod Stewart, both British. He is also one third of the writers, along with two Americans. I remember when it was current, "Rumba Girl" by Nicolette Larson was played on a lot on Canadian stations. It wasn't much of a U.S. hit. But while she was American, it was written by Jesse Winchester, a Canadian.
So does "All for Love" count as CanCom? Bryan Adams is one third of the singers, along with Sting and Rod Stewart, both British. He is also one third of the writers, along with two Americans. I remember when it was current, "Rumba Girl" by Nicolette Larson was played on a lot on Canadian stations. It wasn't much of a U.S. hit. But while she was American, it was written by Jesse Winchester, a Canadian.
With Audacy's track record on Alternative formats, they'll probably drop Alt 98.7 for a WWJ simulcast within the next year or two.
The launch seemed to indicate this time it was all-Windsor.