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Another CC blunder

K

kingdaddy

Guest
Why on earth would you chunk a 30 year heritage brand? It's the stupidest marketing blunder I can remember. Why not move the Buzz over and call it "the NEW 96 Rock"? Project 9-6-1? Yeah, THAT'll get'em over the hump.

The basics of Marketing talk about having a BRAND. How many 30 year heritage rock stations are there left? This one was fixable without having to throw that away.

This is Planet-Radio-stupid and looks like it was hastily conceived and poorly thought out.
 
kingdaddy said:
Why on earth would you chunk a 30 year heritage brand? It's the stupidest marketing blunder I can remember. Why not move the Buzz over and call it "the NEW 96 Rock"? Project 9-6-1? Yeah, THAT'll get'em over the hump.
Click to expand...

I would disagree. I would understand if it was in the top ten and they blew it up. But as it was clearly dying, it's time had come. As to your thoughts about marketing, (in my opinion) Project 961 has a better chance at hitting the ground running. 96 Rock had a Classic Rock stigma about it, so blowing it away was good for trying to get new listeners.
 
It is easy to throw the baby out with the bath water...in this case, it's easy to just change the name, rather than put forth an effort to re-build the station with the 30 year heritage as the base. If you were changing formats, then change the name, but they're still rockin, so whats the point? They took the easy way out looking for a quick fix. Having a 30 year heritage like that out-trumps all other reasons for wanting to change the name. It's not logical. It's desperation. And poor management.
 
Lee,

You must be new to the market.
96 Rock is THE heritage ROCK station in Atlanta. 96 has been many different flavors of Rock n' Roll over the years. It certainly is not hard branded as classic rock.
What puzzles me is what CC has done in New York with WLTW. Two veteran staffers.....gone. This IS a station which is #1 in target demo's!! And number one in NYC!!! 100+ million dollars revenue are on the line.....and they are tinkering with it!!
Does the company have an ulterior reason for these changes? In theory, no one wants to lose money, but in the world of high finance, you never know for sure!
Not really sure I trust 'them Mays boys.......
 
kls was on-target when they went classic rock in '04...but then...suddenly all talk mornings and 6 hour braves games meant no classic rock!!!

cox saw an opportunity with the river, spent a ton of money on it and sunk 96 Rock's battleship.

CC has made some pretty smart moves around the country. Time after time, in Atlanta...they just cannot get it right.

If 96 Rock was going to go Active, they should have done it years back WITH the heritage name and the regular guys. In 2000, that would have been a genius move. NO BRAINER.

The very thought of re-branding 96.1 as a rock station, with anything but the name "96 Rock" is arrogant, misguided, and ultimately DOOMED.

This is SUCH a gift for 99x...i mean C'MON...take the station giving X fits (buzz)...kill it...and lose a top-rated morning show...if X can't capitalize on this....heads should roll.
 
I don't really follow Atlanta radio closely (I'm in Anniston, AL), but it seems that the ATL has been one of the most under-served top 20 markets for years. I think that by merging two different rock stations together, Clear Channel just hit the "delete" button on a good chunk of their rock audience. Once again, part of the Atlanta market is under-served....and like some of the previous posts say, 99X had better jump on this.

One other thing that popped into my mind. The 105.3 transmitter is located near Newnan, GA. It's a strong signal that not only serves Atlanta, but the eastern portion of Alabama as well. With the Buzz gone, some east Alabama markets have no rock station. Probably not a concern of Clear Channel in Atlanta, but you've gotta believe that they're gonna lose some ground before they gain anything with Project 9-6-1.
 
whit979 said:
One other thing that popped into my mind. The 105.3 transmitter is located near Newnan, GA. It's a strong signal that not only serves Atlanta, but the eastern portion of Alabama as well. With the Buzz gone, some east Alabama markets have no rock station. Probably not a concern of Clear Channel in Atlanta, but you've gotta believe that they're gonna lose some ground before they gain anything with Project 9-6-1.
Click to expand...

None of those cities are measured by Arbitron so no one's going to care.
 
kingdaddy said:
Why on earth would you chunk a 30 year heritage brand? It's the stupidest marketing blunder I can remember. Why not move the Buzz over and call it "the NEW 96 Rock"? Project 9-6-1? Yeah, THAT'll get'em over the hump.

The basics of Marketing talk about having a BRAND. How many 30 year heritage rock stations are there left? This one was fixable without having to throw that away.

This is Planet-Radio-stupid and looks like it was hastily conceived and poorly thought out.

Maybe because the 'brand' had been ruined and had no more value? 96 Rock had become a freaking joke - a great brand of relevent rock, smart jocks, great contests, a strong presence in the live music market had become SouthSide Steve, YEah cmon, the same 2 floyd songs, and freebird.

Putting the great brand out of its misery was the best thing that could have happened to it!
Click to expand...
 
Yes....96 Rock had become a hot-bed of low IQ potty talk BUT....the brand goes back 32 YEARS! Lot's of memories for lot's of folks associated with that station.
But you can also argue that most people in the area have been here less than 10 years. They have no history with 96 Rock and could care less.
I gotta believe CC researched this to death before they did it.
 
livingfruitvirus said:
None of those cities are measured by Arbitron so no one's going to care.
Click to expand...

Small markets in eastern Alabama are measured as an extension of the Birmingham, AL market (#57) and if I do remember correctly, I did see the Buzz included in the stations receiving diary entries for Birmingham the last time around. It wasn't enough to have any effect on Birmingham whatsoever....but it shows that the Buzz had an audience here, too. Like you said, CC in Atlanta's not gonna care. But maybe they should have at least thought it through a little more before ditching two great rock stations?
 
kingdaddy said:
It is easy to throw the baby out with the bath water...in this case, it's easy to just change the name, rather than put forth an effort to re-build the station with the 30 year heritage as the base. If you were changing formats, then change the name, but they're still rockin, so whats the point? They took the easy way out looking for a quick fix. Having a 30 year heritage like that out-trumps all other reasons for wanting to change the name. It's not logical. It's desperation. And poor management.
Click to expand...

amen, daddy! the "classic" to "new" rock ratio has always varied over the years. if you're going to slide slightly down the spectrum towards hard, you don't need to rename. you just need to spend some money advertising that you're rocking newer and harder now, so the people in the market can catch on. project 961? that's lamer than planet radio, if possible. and the imaging would've been better if they let junior high school students write and produce it. totally bush league.
 
Sales Weasel,

So you are implying there was ANYTHING even approaching intellectual content to ANY of 96 Rock's programming in the last 5 or so years????(Playing "Stairway to Heaven" backwards to investigate backmasking doesn't count.)
Would you actually imply there was any programming even on the ADULT level the last 5 years?
You are right....I didn't listen much....along with most other Atlantans!!
 
wombat said:
amen, daddy! the "classic" to "new" rock ratio has always varied over the years. if you're going to slide slightly down the spectrum towards hard, you don't need to rename. you just need to spend some money advertising that you're rocking newer and harder now, so the people in the market can catch on. project 961? that's lamer than planet radio, if possible. .
Click to expand...

I don't think it would have worked. I still think it was the right idea to blow it up. As the pre-flip imaging said, it had become old and boring. How many people around here were complaining about it before the flip? It would seem to me that there was a new thread every week about how lame it was. Anyway, think about it this way, the frequency is still a ROCK n ROLL frequency. So be happy for that.

wombat said:
project 961? that's lamer than planet radio, if possible. and the imaging would've been better if they let junior high school students write and produce it. totally bush league.
Click to expand...

As for the name, PROJECT 9-6-1 is (in my opinion) is out of the box thinking. It is different, and will catch people's attention. I know from experiance, that if you change a format but not the name, you could have a huge identity problem. I don't mind the imaging. It suits the target they are chasing.
 
Gm sold oldsmobile until the last day even though it was (expletive - i don't need a mod of the FCC to do what the Regular Guys should have done - censor themself).

I think that CC saw that the name was just that - a name
and in order to make message boards like this continue to generate revenue, they changed the name and once R-I make enough money they are gonig to buy it and screw it up too.....after they move it to Atlanta so that everyone will have some location to continue to point blame.
 
whit979 said:
livingfruitvirus said:
None of those cities are measured by Arbitron so no one's going to care.
Click to expand...

Small markets in eastern Alabama are measured as an extension of the Birmingham, AL market (#57) and if I do remember correctly, I did see the Buzz included in the stations receiving diary entries for Birmingham the last time around. It wasn't enough to have any effect on Birmingham whatsoever....but it shows that the Buzz had an audience here, too. Like you said, CC in Atlanta's not gonna care. But maybe they should have at least thought it through a little more before ditching two great rock stations?
Click to expand...

Let me pull up ol Birmingham...

BZY isn't listed in the books. However, bleeders from Atlanta have made the books in outside markets in the past. WALR has been in the Columbus, GA books for a year now, and WNNX and WFSH have appeared in the Macon books.

Stuff like the recent flips and cuts from Clear Channel make me wonder why people will still defend commercial radio to the end and say internet and satellite radio is just a fad that won't last. Years down the road, we'll look at the ratings charts and the music format listings will look like this:

AC
Urban
AC
Classic Hits
Urban
Spanish Urban
CHR/Rhythmic
Rhythmic AC
Spanish AC
Hot AC
CHR/Pop
Urban AC
Spanish CHR
Adult Hits
Spanish Adult Hits
Regional Mexican
Classic Hits
Triple A

New York City is almost there.
 
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