A tale of two Easy 93.1’s

[nd2023]

I love soft AC and I frequently traveled between NJ and Florida over the past several years, and I thought it was interesting that there were two stations called Easy 93.1 with the same format.
Right after Christmas 2009, Easy 93.1 launched in south Jersey with a soft AC format centered on the 70s with a lot of 60s and 80s with no currents. It had a weak signal that is frequently affected by tropo.
A year later after Christmas 2010, Easy 93.1 launched in Miami. They are on a 100,000 watt full market signal. They copied the soft oldies format of 105.5 The Dove.
Both Easy 93.1’s sounded similar.
The Easy 93.1 in NJ had its playlist rather untouched till about 2015. That’s when they updated it to drop many of the older 60s titles and add softer songs from the 2000s.
Around 2013-2016, Easy 93.1 Miami started updating its playlist in the summer with newer music but went back to the older sound in the winter, appealing to the snowbirds during the winter season.
After 2015/2016, both Easy 93.1’s updated the playlist to focus on soft AC from the 80s-today. Miami definitely sounded like it played more newer music than NJ.
Both stations started out jockless, but in 2012, Easy 93.1 Miami started with a live morning show. 2013, they got Delilah at night. After 2014, they had jocks every shift. Easy 93.1 NJ never had jocks.
Recently, Easy 93.1 Miami has been at or near the top of the ratings, whereas Easy 93.1 NJ has been near the bottom of the ratings. Last week Easy 93.1 NJ flipped formats to a simulcast of classic oldies WMID. They share a few songs from the 60s and 70s, but for the most part, they sound older than when they launched Easy 93.1 in 2009!
Interestingly, I noticed on the Facebook page for the Easy 93.1 in NJ, they have a lot of fans from south Florida who liked the wrong page. I’m sure that they even streamed the Easy 93.1 in Jersey because the website addresses are similar. I even noticed a few people complained on the page for Easy 93.1 Miami when the NJ station flipped to all Christmas in October, proving that many listeners of the Miami station accidentally streamed the NJ station online.

 

[davideduardo]

I love soft AC and I frequently traveled between NJ and Florida over the past several years, and I thought it was interesting that there were two stations called Easy 93.1 with the same format.
Right after Christmas 2009, Easy 93.1 launched in south Jersey with a soft AC format centered on the 70s with a lot of 60s and 80s with no currents. It had a weak signal that is frequently affected by tropo.
A year later after Christmas 2010, Easy 93.1 launched in Miami. They are on a 100,000 watt full market signal. They copied the soft oldies format of 105.5 The Dove.
Both Easy 93.1’s sounded similar.
The Easy 93.1 in NJ had its playlist rather untouched till about 2015. That’s when they updated it to drop many of the older 60s titles and add softer songs from the 2000s.
Around 2013-2016, Easy 93.1 Miami started updating its playlist in the summer with newer music but went back to the older sound in the winter, appealing to the snowbirds during the winter season.

Cox made a major mistake in putting its WDUV format on the air in Miami. They did not take into account that the market is over 50% Hispanic and is no longer for the most part a retirement destination. It is radically different from the Tampa Bay area.

By around late 2015, they adjusted their research after they found that they needed to bring in many more Hispanics to make the station work. They included a high percentage of Hispanics in their music testing, and adapted the target demographics to the market reality. They now have more Hispanic listeners than non-Hispanics, and lead or are right at the top in all the sales demographics.

Just as a note, no station in a PPM market programs to the snowbirds or any transients. They would not be in the ratings panel.

After 2015/2016, both Easy 93.1’s updated the playlist to focus on soft AC from the 80s-today. Miami definitely sounded like it played more newer music than NJ.

Yes, they blew up the WDUV clone, and researched Miami listeners and found that they could not play The Fleetwoods any more. At the same time, WDUV was still #1, but it was 15th in revenue and 15th in 25-54 listening. They brought in a new market operations manager, Rick Thomas, and they went through the same process as WFEZ. They now are near the top in 25-54 and billing has nearly doubled.

Recently, Easy 93.1 Miami has been at or near the top of the ratings, whereas Easy 93.1 NJ has been near the bottom of the ratings. Last week Easy 93.1 NJ flipped formats to a simulcast of classic oldies WMID. They share a few songs from the 60s and 70s, but for the most part, they sound older than when they launched Easy 93.1 in 2009!

That NJ station is in a tiny market, unable to pay for research or to have a full DJ staff. The unfocused playlist did them in. I doubt the Cox folks in Miami even considered what it was doing. Likely the only reference they had to it was when they noticed some streaming listener confusion, but most of that seems to have been out of market and they likely did not care as in 25-54 the FM gets a 6.2 share (#1) and the stream gets a 0.2.