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Lit 97.1 Knoxville gone?

RMarino

RMarino

I noticed on Monday that the 97.1 transmitter was off and 1120 was broadcasting a dead carrier. It was like this until this morning when I heard “Fun FM” simulcast on both frequencies. It’s still identifying as “105.9 Fun FM” with no mention of 97.1. However the produced legal ID identifies both WGAP and WTLT. Is Fun FM making a permanent move?

Observations:

The 97.1 signal is mostly very good along my commute from Maryville to West Knox, where as 105.9 is mostly unlistenable.

I’m really surprised that Lit 97.1 wasn’t doing better. I expected them to take away a few shares from Hot 104.5. But when they finally started showing up in the publicly released ratings, I didn’t expect to see them way down at 0.3. What happened? I haven’t been an Urban listener in 15 years, so it’s hard for me to speculate. Maybe the music wasn’t on target?

Fun FM sounds good from the little I’ve heard. The 105.9 signal has been so bad that I haven’t spent much time on it. But for an ‘80s based station, the ‘60s songs sound out of place. Maybe an occasional “Brown Eyed Girl” or “Respect” might be ok, but today I heard “Hungry” by Paul Revere & The Raiders. It’s a decent song, but it’s digging a little too deep for a station that promotes itself as an ‘80s station.

With 97.1 off the air, it was interesting hearing no less than four signals battling for dominance on the frequency. At any moment I was hearing 97.1 The River from Atlanta, K-Love from Nashville, 97.1 Double Q from Somerset, or 97.1 Kool FM from Loudon.
 
I just noticed the simulcast on 97.1 this weekend too. I hope it’s permanent & Loud has ended the LMA with Lit & took 97.1 back over. It’s obviously a much more useable signal as far as Knoxville goes & gives them decent citywide coverage. The 105.9 signal is virtually useless as far as Knox goes. I think Fun might pick up some more decent numbers on that signal (maybe a 1 to 2 share possibly). I actually like all of Loud’s stations & think they are a fun alternative to have in town. All their formats are produced really well & sound good. I think if they weren’t hampered by weak rimshot signals, they would really stir things up in the market. I really like 104.9 KVL & Atomic 106 & listen to both quite a lot if I’m listening to local radio.
Too bad KVL’s signal isn’t a little better because i actually hear a lot of people who talk about it & listen to it. I’m kind of surprised the ratings aren’t a bit better even with the rimshot signal.
As far as 97.1. If they do move Fun permanently, are they going to recut sweepers & jingles again. That’s like 3 times in the past few months, lol. Gotta be a bit pricey on the jingle packages. Also just to note (not that it necessarily means anything), but 97.1’s RDS info has the “soft” format tag, whereas 105.9 has “oldies”. Might not mean anything, but they might be using Fun as a placeholder & doing something else. And on Fun’s format, yeah, I think classic hits could do well, but I agree, the 60s flashbacks seem out of place (& some of the 70s). They really should move 92.5 MidCentury Radio up a bit in time & focus it on late 60s thru mid 70s. Those 50s songs & odd country gold tracks are probably not going to appeal to hardly any one even in 65+ demos anymore. That would allow Fun to basically focus on late 70s to 90s.
 
RMarino said:
I’m really surprised that Lit 97.1 wasn’t doing better. I expected them to take away a few shares from Hot 104.5. But when they finally started showing up in the publicly released ratings, I didn’t expect to see them way down at 0.3. What happened? I haven’t been an Urban listener in 15 years, so it’s hard for me to speculate. Maybe the music wasn’t on target?
Click to expand...
Who knew the station existed? Was there ever marketing done? The Lit social media accounts have been dead since January 2024.

Radio isn't a Field of Dreams proposition. You can't just build it and expect people to come.
 
BRH said:
I just noticed the simulcast on 97.1 this weekend too. I hope it’s permanent & Loud has ended the LMA with Lit & took 97.1 back over. It’s obviously a much more useable signal as far as Knoxville goes & gives them decent citywide coverage. The 105.9 signal is virtually useless as far as Knox goes. I think Fun might pick up some more decent numbers on that signal (maybe a 1 to 2 share possibly). I actually like all of Loud’s stations & think they are a fun alternative to have in town. All their formats are produced really well & sound good. I think if they weren’t hampered by weak rimshot signals, they would really stir things up in the market. I really like 104.9 KVL & Atomic 106 & listen to both quite a lot if I’m listening to local radio.
Too bad KVL’s signal isn’t a little better because i actually hear a lot of people who talk about it & listen to it. I’m kind of surprised the ratings aren’t a bit better even with the rimshot signal.
As far as 97.1. If they do move Fun permanently, are they going to recut sweepers & jingles again. That’s like 3 times in the past few months, lol. Gotta be a bit pricey on the jingle packages. Also just to note (not that it necessarily means anything), but 97.1’s RDS info has the “soft” format tag, whereas 105.9 has “oldies”. Might not mean anything, but they might be using Fun as a placeholder & doing something else. And on Fun’s format, yeah, I think classic hits could do well, but I agree, the 60s flashbacks seem out of place (& some of the 70s). They really should move 92.5 MidCentury Radio up a bit in time & focus it on late 60s thru mid 70s. Those 50s songs & odd country gold tracks are probably not going to appeal to hardly any one even in 65+ demos anymore. That would allow Fun to basically focus on late 70s to 90s.
Click to expand...
I'll admit what I don't understand about the Loud operation would fill a book. I'm in a part of Knoxville where I can get 105.9 pretty well and agree on some of the oddball music choices (some I personally like, but way out of place. Mid-Century Radio seemed to be targeting 65-death 10 years ago. I could basically give them about 10 minutes of TSL (I know a lot of oldies geeks like it, but I've never been the "I have everything that has ever been recorded since the beginning of time on my phone" guy. Yes they need to change. Before the translator came on, it was ususually Somerset or Atlanta, but mostly only on a ridgetop.
 
RMarino said:
I believe we may see the return of Jump 97.1. The domain jump971.com was registered yesterday.
View attachment 10351
Click to expand...
Seems like Jump would be too close to what KVL is doing (unless they are changing too). Prob about 60-70% of KVL’s 90s/2000s throwbacks are classic hip hop. But with Loud, who knows. Only clue I see is the RDS display on the radio readout has changed the format tag to “soft”. Could mean nothing as those are often wrong, but they could be planning on launching some sort of A/C or soft A/C format (WTLT calls would work for “Lite” name). Plus it’s right next to B97.5 on the dial. They might think they could grab some listeners from them. But who knows, could be anything. Personally I wouldn’t mind seeing Loud launch a CHR station to go after Star. And also, I was kind of happy to have Fun FM’s classic hits format on a somewhat listenable signal unlike 105.9 which has horrible Knox coverage. Wouldn’t have minded if they just put Fun there permanently.
 
BRH said:
Seems like Jump would be too close to what KVL is doing (unless they are changing too). Prob about 60-70% of KVL’s 90s/2000s throwbacks are classic hip hop. But with Loud, who knows. Only clue I see is the RDS display on the radio readout has changed the format tag to “soft”. Could mean nothing as those are often wrong, but they could be planning on launching some sort of A/C or soft A/C format (WTLT calls would work for “Lite” name). Plus it’s right next to B97.5 on the dial. They might think they could grab some listeners from them. But who knows, could be anything. Personally I wouldn’t mind seeing Loud launch a CHR station to go after Star. And also, I was kind of happy to have Fun FM’s classic hits format on a somewhat listenable signal unlike 105.9 which has horrible Knox coverage. Wouldn’t have minded if they just put Fun there permanently.
Click to expand...

Yes it would be close to KVL, but maybe they’ll eventually change that too, as it’s not doing so well either. As for a “Lite” on 97.1, that won’t happen because remember we already have a “Light” on 106.7. That would cause diary confusion.

Side note question: What happened to Frank Murphy on 105.9? I used to hear him all the time on there, even on the weekends. I haven’t heard him all week and he’s not even on the schedule on their website.
 
RMarino said:
Yes it would be close to KVL, but maybe they’ll eventually change that too, as it’s not doing so well either. As for a “Lite” on 97.1, that won’t happen because remember we already have a “Light” on 106.7. That would cause diary confusion.

Side note question: What happened to Frank Murphy on 105.9? I used to hear him all the time on there, even on the weekends. I haven’t heard him all week and he’s not even on the schedule on their website.
Click to expand...
Frank's awesome, hope he's just on vacation or something. He still lists being on 105.9 on his website, and he has a podcast he does independent of his radio work:
frankmurphy.com

Frank Murphy

Improviser on-air, on stage and online Hi, I’m Frank Murphy, a television and radio host in Knoxville, Tennessee. You may have seen me as the host of Tennessee Scholars’ Bowl or Up Close with Frank Murphy on East Tennessee PBS and you may have heard me on the radio on FUN 105.9. I
frankmurphy.com
 
I think Frank has been gone for 2 or 3 months. (since around the time they rebranded from Fun 105.9 to 105.9 Fun FM & changed the slogan to “totally awesome 80s & classic hits”). Seems Loud has introduced a whole crew of people who voice track shifts for their stations from other markets. Most of them sound good tho.
 
Looks like the return of “Jump 97-1” it is. Positioning as “Knoxville’s Throwbacks”. So what does this mean for 104-9 KVL? Seems KVL’s music may be a little more rhythmic pop this morn with less hip hop, so there may have been some musical tweaking. While Jump is focusing on mostly classic hip hop. Both stations are using St. John for the voiceover station drops at the moment. Idk, my guess is they’ll probably spin the format wheel again at 104.9. I hate that too because I like KVL’s more pop 90s/2k approach better & living in Loudon Co, their signal is decent whereas 97.1 only reaches to around Watt Rd westward.

Anyway, should be interesting. I was hoping for something new on 97.1, or moving Fun FM there. But we’ll see what else Loud has in store.
 
No surprise here as I discovered the website was active last Wednesday. I just wonder why they bothered with the stunting. Many of the “Lit” listeners probably would have stayed with “Jump”. But after a couple of weeks stunting and a period where the transmitter was off completely, the “Lit” audience is probably long gone.

As for 104.9, they might be better off moving in a Hot AC direction.
 
After spending some time today flipping between Jump and KVL, I’d say even though they may share some titles, they are probably still different enough to co-exist. I’ve seen David explain this better than I can, but listeners will compare two similar stations not by the songs they share, but by the songs they don’t share. Think about Classic Rock and Classic Hits. Would listeners say those stations sound the same because they both play Bon Jovi and Tom Petty? No, they’re more likely to conclude they are different because one plays Madonna and the other plays Metallica. I think the same applies to Jump and KVL.

That being said, they may have to do something about having the same voice guy on both stations. From listening to both stations today, I think I actually enjoy Jump more than KVL. There are many songs I don’t recognize on Jump, but I didn’t mind that and I liked what I heard. Meanwhile, I recognized most of KVL’s playlist and it is full of personal burnouts. Maybe I’m in the minority though. In music testing, I’ve always hear that burnouts are better than unfamiliar, but personally I don’t feel that way.
 
RMarino said:
Yes it would be close to KVL, but maybe they’ll eventually change that too, as it’s not doing so well either. As for a “Lite” on 97.1, that won’t happen because remember we already have a “Light” on 106.7. That would cause diary confusion.

Side note question: What happened to Frank Murphy on 105.9? I used to hear him all the time on there, even on the weekends. I haven’t heard him all week and he’s not even on the schedule on their website.
Click to expand...

BRH said:
I think Frank has been gone for 2 or 3 months. (since around the time they rebranded from Fun 105.9 to 105.9 Fun FM & changed the slogan to “totally awesome 80s & classic hits”). Seems Loud has introduced a whole crew of people who voice track shifts for their stations from other markets. Most of them sound good tho.
Click to expand...
Frank is on B97.5 on weekends and also hosts their public affairs show East Tennessee Now:

b975.com

Shows | Frank Murphy

Saturday, 3p - 7p Sunday, 12pm - 3pm Frank Murphy is a broadcaster, writer, and improviser. Frank can be heard...
b975.com b975.com
b975.com

Podcasts | East Tennessee Now

East Tennessee Now is a community-oriented public affairs program designed to address local problems and issue...
b975.com b975.com
 
Just noticed this morning that Loud has indeed tweaked 104-9 KVL’s format to move them away from the new Jump 97-1. KVL is now “The Best Mix of the 80s, 90s, & 2k”. The hip hop throwback element is gone & it now leans mainstream with a mix of pop, rhythmic & rock hits. Also 80s titles have been added to the mix. So basically a shift to a classic hits format that leans newer than most by extending into the 2000s. It’s basically a classic hits/gold based Hot AC hybrid. New female voiceover imaging too, but still using the old jingle package at the moment.
 
I’ve taken a look at the new KVL playlist and it doesn’t make sense to me. Looks like a bunch of songs that do not gel.

And with that news, I’ve noticed that 105.9 Fun FM is gone. Over the air they are running a loop similar to the one 97.1/1120 had a couple weeks ago. They are directing ‘80s and ‘90s listeners to 104.9 and ‘50s and ‘60s fans to WKCE.
 


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