103.5 THE BEAT..."DEATH WATCH"

[ShawtyBlack_ATL]

How long before Clear Channel sinks this ship? When THE BEAT signed on, I thought they were the perfect Urban Hip-Hop station, especially competing with 99 JAMZ and POWER 96. I know Clear Channel flipped and went Urban AC some years ago adding syndicated Steve Harvey and Keith Sweat (CC/Premiere owned syndication). This was the biggest and dumbest mistake ever. Now, they've went back to playing hip-hop and got rid of jocks. Im assuming the plan is to be half Urban half Urban AC, but its not a good mix. Mornings, Afternoons and Nights are now syndicated with middays being the only daypart live and local. What a damn shame, but what else to expect especially when it comes to a Clear Channel owned Urban outlet.

 

[jcolletta275]

Your last sentence hits the nail on the head. CC has a terrible history of flipping to Rhythmic, Urban or Urban AC in a market with standard-bearing stations, and the CC-owned stations inevitably flop. Miserably. Granted, 103.5 seems to be the dog frequency of South Florida since the days of WSHE, but Cheap Channel has a way about them of doing this in this specific group of formats.

You've gotta wonder when they're just gonna sell the damn thing. If it's making them any money, it's minimal, and they're obviously not doing much with it in terms of programming. If they're so confident in their product, they'd have no reason to be worried about the company buying it trying to make it, say, a CHR that actually FITS the market's tastes... just to throw an example out there of what could be done.