105.7 The Groove gets Bigger, Better & Louder Labor Day Weekend

[jabba17]

None of those stations were near what Power 99 was. Power had a little something for everybody.

And that is usually a big problem. At one time, listeners would sit through songs that they didn't like in order to hear songs that they did like. It doesn't work that way any more. The mythical "#1" doesn't really exist in terms of radio stations. Any station that attempts to be all things to all people (which is what "a little something for everybody" means) could have used that format to achieve success in the 1960's or maybe the 1970's. In the 21st Century, that same idea is a recipe for disaster.

I wouldn't say that Power 99 had something for everybody.

They didn't have AC--B98.5, Peach, and 94Q had that all to themselves. 94Q was burning "Captain Of Her Heart" by Double, "Boomtown" by David & David, and "Dreams" by Heart while Power 99 wouldn't touch them with a 10 foot pole. And Peach, which had only flipped from BM around late 1985, was still trying to be the softest AC on the dial.

They left the hard-urban stuff to V-103 and the odd-and-end small urban rimshots (104.1, 104.7, others) that popped up in the late 1980s. Power 99 stayed away from most rap for a good long while, while freely picking up crossover hits.

They did pick up the AOR that wasn't "classic" or hard enough for 96 Rock (e.g., Huey Lewis), but they didn't try to compete directly with WKLS. And much of that went away when 96 Rock started adding current AOR back to their playlist after they got over their "Pure Rock & Roll" kick.

And they left country--or anything that remotely smelled like country--to Kicks and Y106. You wouldn't have heard Colbie Caillat or Faith Hill or Shania Twain on Power 99. Maybe not even Taylor Swift until she became too big to ignore.

Would it be possible for one station to deeply serve both the CHR/M and CHR/R markets today? Power 99 did 20-25 years ago. Could someone do that again?

 

[Kabrich]

Quick question. If Power 99 was so great, how come they blew it up? Not being sarcastic, really wondering.

Seems like the CHR proponents all way Star, Q and formerly the Beat to be "just like" Power 99.

Simple answer.

Despite the spin you read here with people's memory of what really happened, in the last book Power 99 was around, 23 stations made the book. Neither WSTR nor Power 99 were in the Top 50% of the list 12+. The only stations they beat were essentially AMers, WAOK-AM, WQXI-AM and WCNN-AM for example.

In fact, even among Persons 18-34, B98 beat them 3 out of the last 4 books. Over the last 3 or 4 years, they were usually ranked #3 Persons 18-34 (not a great ranking for a CHR) with B98 or WKLS usually beating them. V103 was always #1.

Even their teens from several years earlier had fallen off over 60%.

Wasn't much left to save - format change was a no brainer. There was enough audience for 1 station - not 2 - and thus started the rise of WSTR in the 90s.

 

[jabba17]

Quick question. If Power 99 was so great, how come they blew it up? Not being sarcastic, really wondering.

Seems like the CHR proponents all way Star, Q and formerly the Beat to be "just like" Power 99.

Simple answer.

Despite the spin you read here with people's memory of what really happened, in the last book Power 99 was around, 23 stations made the book. Neither WSTR nor Power 99 were in the Top 50% of the list 12+. The only stations they beat were essentially AMers, WAOK-AM, WQXI-AM and WCNN-AM for example.

In fact, even among Persons 18-34, B98 beat them 3 out of the last 4 books. Over the last 3 or 4 years, they were usually ranked #3 Persons 18-34 (not a great ranking for a CHR) with B98 or WKLS usually beating them. V103 was always #1.

Even their teens from several years earlier had fallen off over 60%.

Wasn't much left to save - format change was a no brainer. There was enough audience for 1 station - not 2 - and thus started the rise of WSTR in the 90s.

I would agree with that--somewhere between 1990 and 1992 Power 99 lost its mojo, and Star was ready to pick up the pieces. By the end of Power's run, the were just another CHR--not the special CHR of the last half of the 1980s that everyone remembers. Almost like CHR Z-93 at the end.

The question then becomes, what happened? Did Star knock them off? Or, as you suggest, there weren't enough pure-CHR listeners to go around, or hot AC was a more viable format at the time? Or, as caller10 suggested, were the early 1990s (indeed, the whole decade) a bad time for CHR in general?

As an aside, I think that country is back on an upswing, after being moribund for most of the last decade after being hot in the 1990s--point being that even good, established formats have good and bad eras.

IMO 2000s country got "contaminated" by too much AC sounding stuff, after the "rockin' country" of the 1990s. Is it time for a CHR rebirth, purged of the AC stuff that has contaminated it as well?

 

[CHRles]

It was a combination of factors that lead to the demise of stations like Power 99 in the early 90s.
In the early 90s the Billboard hot 100 Pop chart was big on a lot of youth-friendly Hip Hop and Hard Rock titles. By 1992 most of the hype surrounding crossover Hard Rock was cooling down as Modern Rock started to take its place. Hip Hop, on the other hand, continued to gain more and more traction on the Pop charts. MTV, which leaned on 12-17 years old, paid close attention to both crossover Alternative and Hip Hop titles, Hollywood took notice of the genres, as did some the major magazines (Rolling Stone, Spin).
CHR radio, on the other hand, didn't quite know what to do with itself. It was easier for CHRs to play Rap in the mid to late 80s when there would only be one or two of them (if any) charting on Billboard's Hot 100, and those Rap titles tended to be much more innocent and Pop friendly. Suddenly you had this onslaught of Gangsta Rap crossing over, which sounded great to me personally, but to that 25 year old woman in middle America who grew up on a steady diet of REO Speedwagon and Michael Jackson hits on their local CHRs it sounded a bit too hardcore.
Concurrently, the radio industry was in BIG trouble in the early 90s as half of all radio stations in the country were in the red. That meant that outside the Top 20 markets in order for a station to survive it oftentimes needed to lean older (the 25-54 demo), which is why so many CHRs suddenly switched to Hot A/C or Country overnight.
Add to that declining ratings for some of the country's leading CHR/Pop stations, which was due to either the wrong music mix, competition from other CHR/Pop stations in the market, competition from a Rhythmic/Dance CHR competitor, and competition from the new Adult CHRs.

 

[jabba17]

It was a combination of factors that lead to the demise of stations like Power 99 in the early 90s.
In the early 90s the Billboard hot 100 Pop chart was big on a lot of youth-friendly Hip Hop and Hard Rock titles. By 1992 most of the hype surrounding crossover Hard Rock was cooling down as Modern Rock started to take its place. Hip Hop, on the other hand, continued to gain more and more traction on the Pop charts. MTV, which leaned on 12-17 years old, paid close attention to both crossover Alternative and Hip Hop titles, Hollywood took notice of the genres, as did some the major magazines (Rolling Stone, Spin).
CHR radio, on the other hand, didn't quite know what to do with itself. It was easier for CHRs to play Rap in the mid to late 80s when there would only be one or two of them (if any) charting on Billboard's Hot 100, and those Rap titles tended to be much more innocent and Pop friendly. Suddenly you had this onslaught of Gangsta Rap crossing over, which sounded great to me personally, but to that 25 year old woman in middle America who grew up on a steady diet of REO Speedwagon and Michael Jackson hits on their local CHRs it sounded a bit too hardcore.
Concurrently, the radio industry was in BIG trouble in the early 90s as half of all radio stations in the country were in the red. That meant that outside the Top 20 markets in order for a station to survive it oftentimes needed to lean older (the 25-54 demo), which is why so many CHRs suddenly switched to Hot A/C or Country overnight.
Add to that declining ratings for some of the country's leading CHR/Pop stations, which was due to either the wrong music mix, competition from other CHR/Pop stations in the market, competition from a Rhythmic/Dance CHR competitor, and competition from the new Adult CHRs.

Sounds to me what you're saying is that the splitting off of Hot AC listeners made CHR in general less viable. Has CHR gone through a similar fragmentation that has made a mess out of what used to be AOR (AAA, classic hits, classic/heritage rock, active rock, alt rock), with the old CHR listenership now split among classic hits, hot AC, CHR/M, and CHR/R, and maybe Urban AC? That makes sense as you can only slice the pie so thinly.

 

[Talk_Dude]

Sounds to me what you're saying is that the splitting off of Hot AC listeners made CHR in general less viable. Has CHR gone through a similar fragmentation that has made a mess out of what used to be AOR (AAA, classic hits, classic/heritage rock, active rock, alt rock), with the old CHR listenership now split among classic hits, hot AC, CHR/M, and CHR/R, and maybe Urban AC? That makes sense as you can only slice the pie so thinly.

The secret to understanding all of this is to step aside from radio for a moment, pretending that radio and radio formats do not exist. Once you've cleared your mind the alphabet soup of acronyms for arbitrary pigeonholes for music, look at what music was actually recorded, performed, and enjoyed by audiences. Forget what category some suit decreed a given act should be assigned to, and actually listen to the music. Listen to the songs of the different years of the 1990's and evaluate and categorize them purely by how they sound.

Do that exercise, and you'll understand why some formats thrived and other did not. The catch-all category of Contemporary Hits as a discrete category of music was a figment of some radio programmer's imagination. The early 90's was when the CD first dominated the market for recorded music. Cassettes and easy-to-make mix tapes on cassette became almost universally available. Every boom box on the market played CD's and recorded cassettes, so dubbing tapes for the car became easier. For the first time since the development of music format radio as a reaction to television killing scripted radio comedies and dramas, it was easy for listeners to become their own DJ's. This was the beginning of the end for "all things to all people" radio. Even people who liked multiple genres of music still wanted whatever genre of music they were in the mood for at any given moment instead of a hodge-podge goulash of genres all mixed together willy-nilly.

It took a while, but that is what started so many stations specializing in playing only one genre of music. On top of that, you had the impact of the loosening of ownership restrictions finally taking root. Broadcast companies were loath to have one of their stations cannibalize listeners from their other stations, so they embraced the one-genre-per-station formula as well.

You want to hear modern CHR? Just use a standard car radio with six presets, and bounce from station to station. As you switch stations (and musical genres), you'll hear the old Contemporary Hits Radio format you remember from the olden days.

 

[Kabrich]

I would agree with that--somewhere between 1990 and 1992 Power 99 lost its mojo, and Star was ready to pick up the pieces. By the end of Power's run, the were just another CHR--not the special CHR of the last half of the 1980s that everyone remembers. Almost like CHR Z-93 at the end.

Power 99 did not debut until 1988 and as you note, had lost its way by 1990.

So, a CHR that was never #1 in its life Persons 18-34 and only #2 TWICE during its life of a 2 year run before "it lost its mojo" - yep, what a great station - :

At least the earlier description was correct - something for everyone - though nothing for any demo in mass (except teens - where a 45.2 share of teens doesn't have the money rolling in).

 

[bclark71.]

Power 99 lived March 5, 1986 to October 26, 1992. It was an AOR-leaning CHR at first, i.e. tons of Van Halen, Journey, Genesis and the like. At the bottom of each hour was a "Power 99 1986...Atlanta, 197x " spike. It veered off in a more mainstream direction about a year after its debut.

It was one of the Top Three stations in town for much of 1987-1991 in 12+, which I know is a beauty contest and nothing more but it was a very popular entity nonetheless. When CHR in general declined and fragmented 1991-92, there was panic and a short-sighted decision to flip the format entirely instead of adapting to the music that was popular at the time (as Z100 did).

I think much of the love for Power 99 comes from having to endure Star 94's version of CHR throughout the 1990s.

 

[gregg75]

AS I REMEMBER.........
Power 99 was surely in the top 5 overall when they made the switch. That's why it was such a big deal when they did it. They never were under AM stations (totally incorrect). Nor were they scared of Star 94 (the only station vaguely similar to them).

At the time Alternative was coming on strong, some Dance leaning stations were down (but not all) many were still #1 in their markets. Hip-Hop was seeing a rise also (and that is the route most Dance leaning stations eventually took). Very few, including Power 99 turned their back on Hip-Hop and went Alternative. Alternative was under served in Atlanta and they were the first to really jump on it.

That worked for a while and everything was rosey.........but the frost eventually put an end to that.

 

[MCMagicCracker]

If I may refocus this thread to the original topic...

Facebook announcement today, 105.7 the Groove goes commercial free on Mondays.

 

[musicman3355]

If I may refocus this thread to the original topic...

Facebook announcement today, 105.7 the Groove goes commercial free on Mondays.

...so that's it? That's all we got hyped for?

 

[musicfan101]

If I may refocus this thread to the original topic...

Facebook announcement today, 105.7 the Groove goes commercial free on Mondays.

So I was right?

 

[carolinaradio]

That started this Monday, so I doubt it has to do with the Labor Day thing. I don't think this is Labor Day weekend.

See one of the posts on their FB page...interesting.

 

[RoddyFreeman]

Does anyone think that...nothing...will happen? Maybe it's just some promotional thing...?

I looked at the Facebook page, and it's really hard to say what bigger, better and louder means. It was actually a response to a poster who said he hoped The Groove doesn't become just like The Beat. The response thanked the person for listening and said they can guarantee The Groove will be bigger, better and louder. It was not an announcement, just a comment. It could mean a frequency shift, but they're not saying anything on the air. For all I know, it could mean the music will be "louder" in nature. Or it could really mean some significant change. But if so, why aren't they saying anything on the air or on their website?

I love intrigue so this week will be exciting ;D.

 

[romer979fm]

drifting back to the Z-93/Power99/Star94 part of this thread...seems to me each station
was successful with McCoy doing mornings...and had problems after he left. just a part of the equation...

 

[carolinaradio]

The commercial free Monday thing has already happened, so I doubt that equates in to any of this.

Given they are actually planning something, bigger, better, and louder....to me that points to them moving to a larger signal and being full blown rhythmic/CHR. Speculation: that would mean 96.1 or 94.9, probably not 105.3 as their coverage is best to the SW and in terms of covering the whole market, doesn't 105.7 do a better job of that than 105.3? Of course, there is a possiblilty of just a 105.7/96.7 simulcast, as mentioned earlier.

If Groove (drop that name) moved to 96.1 or 94.9 (96.1 seems more likely), those could either just swap formats with 105.7 or just eliminate them entirely and put a WGST simulcast on 105.7. Like I keep saying...WGST seriously needs an FM now more than ever.

 

[RadioFreak69]

If I may refocus this thread to the original topic...

Facebook announcement today, 105.7 the Groove goes commercial free on Mondays.

So I was right?

105.7 The Groove has been doing commercil-free Mondays for MONTHS!

 

[jabba17]

It took a while, but that is what started so many stations specializing in playing only one genre of music. On top of that, you had the impact of the loosening of ownership restrictions finally taking root. Broadcast companies were loath to have one of their stations cannibalize listeners from their other stations, so they embraced the one-genre-per-station formula as well.

Before consolidation, you had five AC stations in ATL at one time--94Q, Peach, Fox 97, WSB 99FM/B98.5, and Warm 100/99.7, and possibly a sixth with Lite 106.

 

[jabba17]

The commercial free Monday thing has already happened, so I doubt that equates in to any of this.

Given they are actually planning something, bigger, better, and louder....to me that points to them moving to a larger signal and being full blown rhythmic/CHR. Speculation: that would mean 96.1 or 94.9, probably not 105.3 as their coverage is best to the SW and in terms of covering the whole market, doesn't 105.7 do a better job of that than 105.3? Of course, there is a possiblilty of just a 105.7/96.7 simulcast, as mentioned earlier.

If Groove (drop that name) moved to 96.1 or 94.9 (96.1 seems more likely), those could either just swap formats with 105.7 or just eliminate them entirely and put a WGST simulcast on 105.7. Like I keep saying...WGST seriously needs an FM now more than ever.

Groove makes no sense for the format the station has become. Groove started as "the dance hits of yesterday and today" and has now gone full CHR/R. Lose the disco balls.

Re: 105.7 vs. 105.3, 105.3 covers more geography but you could easily argue that 105.7 covers more demo or money.

 

[RadioFreak69]

Does anyone think that...nothing...will happen? Maybe it's just some promotional thing...?

I looked at the Facebook page, and it's really hard to say what bigger, better and louder means. It was actually a response to a poster who said he hoped The Groove doesn't become just like The Beat. The response thanked the person for listening and said they can guarantee The Groove will be bigger, better and louder. It was not an announcement, just a comment. It could mean a frequency shift, but they're not saying anything on the air. For all I know, it could mean the music will be "louder" in nature. Or it could really mean some significant change. But if so, why aren't they saying anything on the air or on their website?

I love intrigue so this week will be exciting ;D.

Roddy, the "Bigger, Better, Louder Labor Day Weekend... details soon!" was originally an announcement in an email newsletter The Groove sent out on Friday. It obviously then spread to Facebook.