I know they're different places, and I would think freestyle wouldn't work too well in Vegas. But Pulse plays a lot of pop remixes and tends to spin the top dance songs a lot. Last week when I sampled The Vibe before TicTak made changes, I noticed a lot of unfamiliar songs and very few pop remixes. I listened to 94.5 The Vibe when I was in Vegas in March, and I listened online occasionally after that, but I did get tired of not hearing new music, which I now know it was because no one was updating the playlist. Remember that the Pulse format got a million cume and 1.0 share with a limited signal. 94.5 can be heard on any radio in Vegas now that the booster is on, but its signal is not too strong. While the "core" dance fans would enjoy 94.5 as it is, there aren't as many "core" fans as "casual" fans. Pulse appealed to the "casual" fans who liked hearing non-stop dance music, with most of it familiar to them.
There also is a station like KTU in Vegas, 93.1 The Party. There are also 2 CHR stations and a hip hop station. All are 100,000 watt signals from Vegas, whereas 94.5 is 100,000 watts from the Moapa Valley 70 miles away and a 260 watt booster on a mountain with line of sight to all of Las Vegas. The competition 94.5 is facing is similar to what Pulse 87 faced in NYC, but The Vibe has the advantage of a frequency that can be heard on all radios and a signal that covers the whole market. The Vibe signal is stronger downtown (about 60 dBu in the Fremont Street area) than on the Strip (about 55 dBu at the southern end), but any car radio will pick it up with little or no static. I was able to hear it on the crappy clock radio in my hotel room and I could walk along the Strip listening to 94.5 on my portable HD radio with little static and no interference from the 94.7 translator or the main signal from the Moapa Valley. The signal makes it all the way to the California border.
During the day, Vibe should play about 60% pop remixes and 40% dance. In the night, play more dance hits. But don't be too repetitive, spin the powers 90-100x a week at most. The music should be mostly current, based on the dance charts, but the occasional "oh wow" gold is nice! At certain times during the day, have a 1 hour mixshow by a local DJ, but have the DJ follow a playlist and also introduce new dance songs. Try to broadcast a mixshow live from a club every night.
Vibe definitely needs to advertise. The club broadcasts would be a good way to get the word out that the station exists to the target audience -- people who like to go out. One thing I distinctly remember was the "Hot Babes" truck that drove up and down the Strip all day. It was a truck with an ad for an escort service. Now imagine everyone seeing a truck with an ad for 94.5 driving up and down the street all day, it's bound to stick in people's minds (those trucks show other ads besides Hot Babes). All of their listeners found out by randomly tuning to 94.5 or from their friends who randomly tuned to 94.5. While word of mouth may work, it should be supplemented with other forms of advertising.
On the flip side, Vibe needs more advertisers. Those 1-2 minute stopsets once an hour won't pay the bills. Every club should be advertising to 94.5's 30,000 listeners. The expenses for 94.5 may be low enough that it can survive just on local ads, similar to how Party 105 is thriving and making enough money that JVC can purchase other stations. I hope to hear 2 or 3 3-minute stopsets every hour during the day. Vegas is constantly full of tourists with a lot of money to spend (especially if they're winning in the casinos), so the advertisers and the station shouldn't ignore them.
Hire on-air personalities. Right now 94.5 The Vibe sounds like an iPod with commercials. The thing that made Pulse 87 unique was the DJs that made the station sound local and really engaged the audience. Every daypart was live and local, not voicetracked (except for mornings after Star & Buc Wild left). TicTak, as you said back in April, it's important to form a "connection" with the listeners, and you do a great job with that at 92.3 Now. The listeners would love to meet the DJs at the club remotes. When a dance artist or famous DJ like Paul Oakenfold comes to Vegas, 94.5 The Vibe should interview them on the air.
94.5 The Vibe is the one of only 3 commercial stations that plays dance music in regular rotation, the other 2 being Party 105 and Wild 102.7 (if you count HD stations, Mix 106.5 HD2 showed up in the Baltimore ratings recently and it doesn't have an analog FM translator). Dance will work in Vegas, and it certainly will have a loyal following. I heard 2 businesses playing 94.5 and I heard it blasted from a car radio when I was in Vegas in March. The clubs are packed every night, and guess what music is played at most of the clubs
Considering that it survived playing dance music nearly 2 years without the Vegas booster and 94.5 was mostly static in Vegas until this year, I'm confident it will prove that a dance format can be successful on a commercial station.
