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Awesome 93.1

WNOX made the switch today at midnight to Awesome 93.1, Totally '80s & More. The music has moved back to a pop direction as opposed to the rock lean they had for the last 16 months. It sounds like the target is now B97.5 rather than WIMZ. The syndicated Ace & TJ show is now on mornings.
 
I’ve been checking them out a bit after seeing the news earlier this morning. Definitely a 100% improvement on the previous rock classic hits. That format was incredibly boring & the imaging & presentation was as bad as when it was satellite fed before. The new sound puts the format where it should be focused as a classic hits station in this day & age. With the mediocre numbers on 100.3 with the country format, I’m kinda surprised Summit didn’t move classic hits/80s to the bigger 100kw signal. It’d also be a nice nod to the signal that played these songs in the market back during their 80s heyday. The Wolf’s country format must outbill their ratings #’s by quite a bit tho, I guess. Also I guess it serves to keep ‘IVK’s numbers in check. Just hate to see a good 100kw signal wasted as a pawn (but such is today’s multi station cluster industry I guess). Anyways, kudos on a much better sounding format & station for Summit. I still think a cool move would be to put 80s/classic hits on 100.3 & launch a rock based/alt format on 93.1.
 
I’ve been checking them out a bit after seeing the news earlier this morning. Definitely a 100% improvement on the previous rock classic hits. That format was incredibly boring & the imaging & presentation was as bad as when it was satellite fed before. The new sound puts the format where it should be focused as a classic hits station in this day & age. With the mediocre numbers on 100.3 with the country format, I’m kinda surprised Summit didn’t move classic hits/80s to the bigger 100kw signal. It’d also be a nice nod to the signal that played these songs in the market back during their 80s heyday. The Wolf’s country format must outbill their ratings #’s by quite a bit tho, I guess. Also I guess it serves to keep ‘IVK’s numbers in check. Just hate to see a good 100kw signal wasted as a pawn (but such is today’s multi station cluster industry I guess). Anyways, kudos on a much better sounding format & station for Summit. I still think a cool move would be to put 80s/classic hits on 100.3 & launch a rock based/alt format on 93.1.
The holy grail seems to have been and continues to be having that 100kW signal to go against WIVK. (I can remember 10 years ago on this very board when the Citadel lease went away and Pirkle took it back. It was being claimed that Pirkle was going to go on the air with the slickest, most polished, most heavily promoted Country format and bring WIVK to its knees in one book. Instead it was a mediocre second-tier talk format with lots of glitches.).
 
Rock-based Classic Hits can sound great if done properly, but at WNOX it was not. They didn't go deep enough on the core artists while still playing some songs that were not rock. Also as BRH said, the imaging was not right. As for why the new format isn't on 100.3, I'm sure we all realize that Country has better demos than Classic Hits. Also as gr8oldies mentioned, they had been salivating for years to put Country on that signal to make a dent in WIVK. I don't think they are ready to give up on that dream yet.

I guess we now know why WNOX didn't object to 104.9 Lake FM using their "Knoxville's Greatest Hits" slogan. This change was likely already in the planning stages.
 
Rock-based Classic Hits can sound great if done properly, but at WNOX it was not. They didn't go deep enough on the core artists while still playing some songs that were not rock. Also as BRH said, the imaging was not right. As for why the new format isn't on 100.3, I'm sure we all realize that Country has better demos than Classic Hits. Also as gr8oldies mentioned, they had been salivating for years to put Country on that signal to make a dent in WIVK. I don't think they are ready to give up on that dream yet.

I guess we now know why WNOX didn't object to 104.9 Lake FM using their "Knoxville's Greatest Hits" slogan. This change was likely already in the planning stages.
Speaking of 104.9, what happened to their signal? It may be my imagination, but it seems spottier than it used to be. We were driving around listening to Frank Murphy the day they had the ice storm in the Lafollette area and figured it might have been SWR problems, but it seems to have continued.
 
I like 93.1 so far. It definitely is different than WIMZ, Lake FM, and Jack FM. I would love to see it get a better signal. We are definitely at an interesting time in the market. I remember when we had a drought of classic hits based formats a while back.
 
Really anyone that remembers the heritage that the WNOX calls carried is now above any of the main target demographics though. The 80s & even 90s are now the main focus of classic hits outlets. Honestly the WOKI calls would be way more memorable & relevant today in the target audience than the ‘NOX calls.
 
Really anyone that remembers the heritage that the WNOX calls carried is now above any of the main target demographics though. The 80s & even 90s are now the main focus of classic hits outlets. Honestly the WOKI calls would be way more memorable & relevant today in the target audience than the ‘NOX calls.
For anyone thinking about the calls at all, WNOX probably still means News/Talk.
 
True, the WNOX call sign doesn't have any useable heritage, but when you have call letters that basically spell or sound like your city name, that's pretty valuable. It's just like in Jacksonville, FL where the call letters WJAX had heritage dating back to 1925. But for the last few decades they were just buried on a small AM. When that station finally gave them up, a TV station grabbed them as they still saw a lot of value in call letters that so closely represent their city name. I would be surprised if 93.1 gave up the WNOX call letters. But if they do, someone will be happy to snatch them up.

As for the new format, I've noticed they are playing a lot of songs far outside the '80s. I've heard Backstreet Boys and N'Sync several times, so it appears they are going after the Millennial crowd. Also they seem to be keeping things relatively light as nothing harder than a Bon Jovi or Whitesnake power ballad is heard. So I don't think we'll be hearing harder typical Classic Hits staples such as "Rock The Casbah" or "Rock You Like A Hurricane" here. Basically the format is the gold category of an AC format.
 
Newer generations don’t seem to value radio as much. The discussions here are professional and knowledgeable, but a major thought shift is going to have to happen for broadcast stations to remain at a decent level.

104.9’s owner seems to have a lean operation, not counting the sunsphere studios. Maybe it can stay afloat on cell service tower leases.
 
Newer generations don’t seem to value radio as much. The discussions here are professional and knowledgeable, but a major thought shift is going to have to happen for broadcast stations to remain at a decent level.

104.9’s owner seems to have a lean operation, not counting the sunsphere studios. Maybe it can stay afloat on cell service tower leases.
The 104.9 owner has entirely poor-signaled rimshots and translators. Not sure how many buys that gets them in on.
 
You would think 104.9 would try to walk the tower closer to Knoxville. 104.9 was originally licensed freq in Clinton before the big shift back in the 70's I think. Now that the Dayton station at 104.9 moved to 105.1 and closer to Chattanooga it should open up some room for it to move closer.
 
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