Then we have our new (temporary) format!
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
98.7 Rumors
- Thread starter davideduardo
- Start date
As I noted yesterday, EMF's acquisition budget was massively sliced this year. As EMF already has Air 1 on 96.7 WARW Port Chester that covers the most populated portions of the market, they're not going to pay tens of millions of dollars for 98.7. If anything they'll add a suburban New Jersey signal to cover the parts they don't reach now.
From what I've been told, a simulcast of WLIB is VERY doubtful with the only possible exception being if Emmis knows they are close to a sale by Saturday and just needs filler for a few weeks until the buyer has programming ready to go via LMA. Otherwise they are launching a format that could go for however long it takes to make a deal that will at least bring in some revenue.
Filler format could be anything from a Westwood One satellite feed, to Soft AC, to Punjabi. When 97.5 KOLW Tri-Cities WA (now defunct) went into the divestiture trust, the format went back to classic hits from previous rhythmic - but it was a straight satellite feed. I didn't hear a local commercial once. All national 800 numbers and filler. Tax relief and Omaha Steaks.
True Oldies Channel perhaps?
PULSE 98.7 or HOT 98.7 all set and ready to go. Although I feel Pulse is more likely since it's programmed by a former Emmis employee.
Better chance of Albanian Nursery Rhymes... And I think the existence of a little station called Hot 97 makes one of yours a non-starter as there's a thing called trademark infringement.
Coincidentally, NOAA also ran on 1220 AM in Sarasota, FL (WQSA then, WSRQ now) for many months (maybe even a year or so). I believe this was back in the late ‘90s. They needed to keep the lights on with cheap programming. Well, free programming actually.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Looks like a safe enough playlist, but Fort Collins isn't New York.
I remember one filler format on a station in Las Vegas that went to #1. Obviously Vegas has a lot of older people and retirees. The station on 104.3 was in some sort of trouble in the 1990s and a temporary manager was brought in by the courts.
He wanted a turnkey format that wouldn't need local DJs. So he put what is today America's Best Music on 24/7. I think it was called AM Only in those days although it was never identified on the air that way, since this was an FM station. It was a mix of soft oldies with a few adult standards per hour. Carpenters, Sinatra, Streisand, Manilow, 5th Dimension, Nat King Cole, Neil Diamond, Dionne Warwick, etc. In those days, the network had voicetracked DJs covering all daytime shifts. The moniker was K-Jewel, KJUL 104.3.
What do you know? It went to #1. Vegas had some standards stations on AM but nobody put a format like this on FM in stereo. When the new owners bought it, they did a local version of the format with their own DJs. Because it skews older, after a few years it got moved to a lesser signal at 104.7. It's still there, now as a Soft AC.
That would be great, albeit unlikely.
Fort Collins is home to a much better known radio station, but I don’t think 98.7 is headed for “All time, all the time”.🤣
How about Country?
And, the underlying story is the significant number of key staff people who have not wanted to move to Nashville plus the enormous cost of the new facility and the move.
Consensus is no. New York is too ethnic and country has never done well there. Only WHN, 40-50 years ago, pulled anything close to respectable numbers, and to do so, they had to exclude songs that sounded the least bit rural or twangy. Lots of Kenny Rogers and Crystal Gayle, practically no George Jones or Loretta Lynn.
Which country? France, Italy?
I don't even see that format as a filler given its lack of success since WHN faded into the world of sports.
US that is. Isn't Country music on the upswing as far as popularity? As just a temporary filler format, maybe it'll do for now.
You'd think a move from California to Tennessee would be desirable for people with conservative, traditional values and lifestyles, wouldn't you? Were EMF's top brass surprised when staffers balked?
As just a temporary filler, rebroadcasting WLIB would also do for now.
- Status