Are Paying for the "Sins" of the late '80s and 2000?

[RadioFreeAtlanta]

Not that anyone has sinned but what have we in Atlanta done to deserve this heaping pile of mediocrity that is Atlanta radio. Have we made the radio Gods angry? This goes doubly so for our CHRs (if you can call them that.)

From the period of about 1986 to 1989 Atlanta was one of the best markets when it came to radio: Z-93, Power 99, 94Q - it was a great CONTEMPORARY Hits Radio battle.

Then again around 1999 to 2001 we had Star 94 that was clicking on all cylinders, the birth of 95.5 The Beat, a new signal on 100.5 that would literally play "All the Hits," and Wild 96.7, a station that was way bigger and better than its signal.

Why are our stations so afraid of a "hot" sound and imaging? 94, 99, 98, even 101... they all run from the hits. Only 95 and 107.9 really play the hits from their genre/niche.

The recent "Dear STAR 94" letter was spot on. Their music has become so banal and blah in their move to Hot AC, that it is not worth even scanning to.

What gives me hope is that everything is cyclical. I thought Atlanta would never have good radio after Power become X and Star maintained its Hot AC course. But then came the year 2000 and Wild, Beat and Q signed on.

Just my musings...

 

[TheMusicMan]

Now, let's not start giving 95-5 The Beat undue credit. They play rhythmic hits that Q100 holds off on for an eternity and promptly drops after their national peaks and that Star 94 avoids altogether. But they're super-slow relative to the Rhythmic format itself and they run recurrents into the ground (flip on 95.5 and rest assured that you'll hear a year-old Flo Rida, T.I. or Keri Hilson hit within 15 minutes), with a total of around 15 or so currents. Don't think listeners don't notice this, either. They win because, even though they're later than their formatic brethren, they still beat Q and Star to songs like "Tik Tok" and "Sexy Chick" and are the only game in town for any sort of rhythmic recurrents, besides the Urban stations.

This is Market #7. I expect better from EVERYONE. I don't need a full hand to count the number of stations currently living up to their potential.

 

[electroboy73]

Excellent....EXCELLENT POST! We need either CBS to (PLEASE) flip davefm to CHR like they did with WXRK 92.3 in NYC or Clear Channel needs to drop one of their "no holds barred", pure but rhythmic-driven CHR's here in Atlanta!
Seriously, one radio station that plays a true CHR mix like this:

CURRENTS:
David Guetta-Sexy Chick
Snow Patrol-Just Say Yes
Ke$ha ft/ 3OH!3-Blah Blah Blah
JayZ-Empire State Of Mind
Taylor Swift-Fifteen
Black Eyed Peas-Imma Be
Cobra Starship-Hot Mess
Drake/Eminem/JayZ-Forever
Owl City-Vanilla Twilight
Lady Gaga/Beyonce-Telephone
Ludacris-How Low
Carrie Underwood-Cowboy Cassanova
(etc...just like that)

AND HERE ARE SOME RECURRENTS:
Kid Cudi-Day n Nite (Crookers Remix)
Taylor Swift-You Belong With Me
Pitbull-I Know You Want Me
Daughtry-No Suprise
3OH!3-Starstruck (never once played in Altanta)

(even older recurrents, like):
Puff Daddy/Biggie-Mo' Money Mo' Problems
Linkin Park-In The End
DJ Sammy-Heaven
Eminem-Lose Yourself
Nelly Furtado-Say It Right

(point made, I know)
But, just look how many genres these represent and how many stations in Atlanta this would compete against!
if CHR this eclectic is found on stations like,

WHHD-98.3 Augusta
WBHT-97.1 Wilkes-Barre/Scranton
WDOD-96.5 Chatanooga
WABB-97.5 Mobile

....then SURELY it can work here.

 

[DToTheJ]

Excellent....EXCELLENT POST! We need either CBS to (PLEASE) flip davefm to CHR like they did with WXRK 92.3 in NYC...

I'm sure they would - once they figure out what to do with the rest of their radio rights to Atlanta Falcons football...

 

[JasonD]

The Beat plays rythmic tracks earlier cause it's a CHURBAN, they should be early on those tracks.

 

[secondchoice]

This is Market #7. I expect better from EVERYONE. I don't need a full hand to count the number of stations currently living up to their potential.

You only need 1 finger V103 and they getting stupid! Messing with The Quiet Storm & Joyce Littel

 

[Kabrich]

Not that anyone has sinned but what have we in Atlanta done to deserve this heaping pile of mediocrity that is Atlanta radio. Have we made the radio Gods angry? This goes doubly so for our CHRs (if you can call them that.)

From the period of about 1986 to 1989 Atlanta was one of the best markets when it came to radio: Z-93, Power 99, 94Q - it was a great CONTEMPORARY Hits Radio battle.

Then again around 1999 to 2001 we had Star 94 that was clicking on all cylinders, the birth of 95.5 The Beat, a new signal on 100.5 that would literally play "All the Hits," and Wild 96.7, a station that was way bigger and better than its signal.

Why are our stations so afraid of a "hot" sound and imaging? 94, 99, 98, even 101... they all run from the hits. Only 95 and 107.9 really play the hits from their genre/niche.

The recent "Dear STAR 94" letter was spot on. Their music has become so banal and blah in their move to Hot AC, that it is not worth even scanning to.

What gives me hope is that everything is cyclical. I thought Atlanta would never have good radio after Power become X and Star maintained its Hot AC course. But then came the year 2000 and Wild, Beat and Q signed on.

Just my musings...

Your post just proves that memories begin to fade after you age.

Z93 was a Clifton Consulted full on Urban station (even though they tried to call it Churban)with over 50% African American Audience at that time. It was certainly "blacker" than The Beat is today.

Star 94 (Or 94Q) still couldn't decide what it wanted to be - It had even gone to Hot AC for a while before Tony Novia took it more towards CHR at the start of the 90s.

And Power 99 never met a song it didn't like - leaving it to ratings which didn't pay the bills and shifting them to change to 99x shortly thereafter. The only thing that kept Power 99 in decent ratings (mostly teens) were the great string of night-time personalities that came through the building

 

[Wildstyle K]

As far as 95.5 playing recurrents from a year / 2 years.. etc ago, isn't that normal for many rhythmics? Our KZON tends to do that, and has been doing that for some time now. In between the Jason DeRulo, Cascada, Ludacris, Lil Wayne, Trey Songs, Pitbull, Jay-Z, and Orianthi, there's quite a bit of recurrent Nelly, and some "random" hits from 2008 and before from Unk, Lady Gaga, Lil Jon, Dem Franchize Boyz, TI, etc. For some reason, I check yes dot com and it says Purple Ribbon Allstars and Freak Nasty has been played a lot, but... I'll just say I haven't heard it (but then again, I haven't really listened for about the last three weeks).

Seems like WBTS is a bit in between what our KKFR and KZON are.
KKFR is a bit "harder" than KZON (meaning when it comes to the urban lean sound). KKFR does not touch Britney or Orianthi like KZON does. Just GaGa. KZZP is our top 40, with a few pop rock and alternative hits keeping it from being completely rhythmic like KZON.

I need to learn more about this Orianthi girl and figure out how she became "rhythmic". I guess... Taylor Swift is also "rhythmic" in some markets, too.

 

[JimmyJames]

I truly don't understand why people want to take every station that's halfway "adult" in presentation and flip it to CHR.

davefm does a decent job, and when 99X left the airwaves, it was a viable option for the older set of their listeners whose taste didn't evolve into the Korn and Staind side of the late 99X's playlist.

While 99X may not have been to your taste, it was one of the better stations in its format and really did some awesome things in its time. Sorry you haven't had anything to listen to between Power's departure and the year 2000, but 99X was far from a bland station.

If people are that invested in CHR or Rhythmic, it's easy enough to find. As I said, I don't understand people's obsession with taking one of the most short playlisted and heavily rotated formats and putting it on in place of stations like dave that offer something different to the adult consumers.

And, FYI, the average davefm listener is probably a more lucrative customer.

 

[onetake]

Great post. Sad part is few remember how significant, memorable, and powerful Atlanta radio was in the Southeast. WQXI and later 94Q along with Z93 had so many followers you heard them both copied all over the south. But even on this post Z is referenced as Mid 80s with Jerry Clifton doing an urban thing that began their down fall to the point of a format change.
In the late 70s and til the mid 80s Z and V owned the dance market at night while Z had head to head 94Q thing going all day.
To the original poster, you have a pretty good memory but still might have missed out on even bigger days in Atlanta radio, which makes your question even more profound.

It's a different generation of radio people running it now, and the wouldn't understand if you tried to explain it to them. They truly can't comprehend a world that strong with on air talent and promotion the envy of the country. It just doesn't compute. They never lived in a world like that and as hard as they try, they would argue you're exaggerating. Yet there are Arbitrons laying around that would prove what I am saying. I wish I had a better answer but feel as you do that it shouldn't have changed like it did.

 

[jabba17]

Great post. Sad part is few remember how significant, memorable, and powerful Atlanta radio was in the Southeast. WQXI and later 94Q along with Z93 had so many followers you heard them both copied all over the south. But even on this post Z is referenced as Mid 80s with Jerry Clifton doing an urban thing that began their down fall to the point of a format change.
In the late 70s and til the mid 80s Z and V owned the dance market at night while Z had head to head 94Q thing going all day.
To the original poster, you have a pretty good memory but still might have missed out on even bigger days in Atlanta radio, which makes your question even more profound.

I agree. Z-93 was the bomb until the early-mid 1980s, with 94Q right behind them. The second half of the 1980s, CHR-wise, were ruled by Power 99. 94Q had become a stale hot AC also-ran by the end of the 80s, which now had to compete with B98.5, Peach, and WLTA/Warm 100/99.7 (the latter prior to the Power 99 flip), and to a lesser extent Fox 97 (until Fox dumped the last of the 70s/80s AC and went straight oldies). B98.5, Peach, and WLTA were all Beautiful Music at the start of the decade--Peach was BM until 1985--and Fox wouldn't move in until 1983 or 1984 or so, so 94Q had the AC market all to itself before then.

So, this question: When did Z-93 (as CHR, not classic rock) jump the shark? When did 94Q jump the shark?

 

[secondchoice]

Great post. Sad part is few remember how significant, memorable, and powerful Atlanta radio was in the Southeast. WQXI and later 94Q along with Z93 had so many followers you heard them both copied all over the south.
To the original poster, you have a pretty good memory but still might have missed out on even bigger days in Atlanta radio, which makes your question even more profound.

True. Some of people running the Atlanta stations were not born when THE BEST RADIO PROMOTION TIE IN OF ALL TIME ANYWHERE, WQXI’s Ramble Raft Race was in its prime. IIRC One year even The President (Jimmy Carter) with his Secret Service escorts in suits went down the Hooch. I do wish someone could produce the ratings for WQXI / 94Q’s Gary McKee or Z93’s Ross & Wilson. Even WSB had a decent non news am show I forget the names but one I think was called Bob. In those days before the 80-90 move ins and the creation of over leveraged clusters, an Atlanta license almost guaranteed finical success yet some of the radio guys (Gerry Blum, Elmo Ellis and IIRC Z93’s John Young) took a little pride in what they put on the air. Some people will disagree with their programming philosophy, but they did spent some bucks on promotion and Air talent. Atlanta Radio was better for it Would anybody running an Atlanta Station even consider hiring the modern equivalent of a “Skinny Bobby Harper”? I am not bashing News Talk, it has it's place, but Radio has to have an entertainment value to succeed as an industry

 

[Kabrich]

Great post. Sad part is few remember how significant, memorable, and powerful Atlanta radio was in the Southeast. WQXI and later 94Q along with Z93 had so many followers you heard them both copied all over the south.
To the original poster, you have a pretty good memory but still might have missed out on even bigger days in Atlanta radio, which makes your question even more profound.

True. Some of people running the Atlanta stations were not born when THE BEST RADIO PROMOTION TIE IN OF ALL TIME ANYWHERE, WQXI’s Ramble Raft Race was in its prime. IIRC One year even The President (Jimmy Carter) with his Secret Service escorts in suits went down the Hooch. I do wish someone could produce the ratings for WQXI / 94Q’s Gary McKee or Z93’s Ross & Wilson. Even WSB had a decent non news am show I forget the names but one I think was called Bob. In those days before the 80-90 move ins and the creation of over leveraged clusters, an Atlanta license almost guaranteed finical success yet some of the radio guys (Gerry Blum, Elmo Ellis and IIRC Z93’s John Young) took a little pride in what they put on the air. Some people will disagree with their programming philosophy, but they did spent some bucks on promotion and Air talent. Atlanta Radio was better for it Would anybody running an Atlanta Station even consider hiring the modern equivalent of a “Skinny Bobby Harper”? I am not bashing News Talk, it has it's place, but Radio has to have an entertainment value to succeed as an industry

As I was involved with the American Rafting Association and it's "President" Larry Patrick early on - including putting on future raft races with him in Tampa, DC and Charlotte in the 13 years since I met him in 1972, I think I know a thing or 2 about the Rambling Raft Race. Of course then, when we went to premiere of the movie co-sponsored by WQXI out at Perimeter Mall in the Summer of 1972, I remember thinking we were on the other side of the universe from downtown - of course that seems close in now

Anyway, Carter was part of the demise of the raft race in Atlanta by signing a bill making the Chattahoochee River National Recreation which brought tighter controls on the River.And by the way, WQXI actually spent very little in terms of actual promotional dollars on the Ramblin' Raft Race - they were just smart and got themselves in front of the parade. For the most part, most of what they brought was airtime for sponsor announcements to pay for expenses. Of course the last year they did it on their own without the ARA - and a woman died - that was obviously the end of the race.

Regardless, if you think that Elmo Ellis had more talent that the talent that is on WSB-AM today, you are looking at the past through rose colored glasses. I am not saying the talent uses it everyday, but on their good days, there is more talent on that station than anywhere else in America.

 

[secondchoice]

I didn’t mean to say anything bad about Elmo, what I meant was with the superior signal and FM not a factor, WSB AM could have put “crap” on the air and been successful. Elmo made sure that everybody on the air did a good job. I heard tales of Elmo “disabling” tracks on LP’s he did not like, but at least he listened and cared what went out on the air. I know several people on this board disagree and wished 750 was the WLS of the South but like WLS and WSB ended up New Talk.