Well; they're certainly having fun with this....The Tempoary "Fake Launch"??? Or not ...Either Way, The Final Countdown was played a few minutes before 5pm Central, and then lots of Artists Drops, and a welcome to.....Rock 95.5! Enter Sandman by Metallica, followed by "Drive....The Highway To Hell....Rock 95.5 Chicago's Rock Station" Seperate Ways by Journey now playing.
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Big 95.5
- Thread starter jasonharper2013
- Start date
According to Robert Feder: https://www.robertfeder.com/2020/09/03/iheartmedia-blows-webgs-country-format-new-rock-95-five/
Here are all of the songs from the first hour, from Radio Insight.
Metallica – Enter Sandman
Journey – Separate Ways
Nirvana – Come As You Are
AC/DC – You Shook Me All Night Long
Green Day – Brain Stew
Linkin Park – Numb
Alice In Chains – Man In The Box
Three Days Grace – I Hate Everything About You
Run DMC ft. Aerosmith – Walk This Way
Pearl Jam – Jeremy
Queen – Bohemian Rhapsody
Metallica – Enter Sandman
Journey – Separate Ways
Nirvana – Come As You Are
AC/DC – You Shook Me All Night Long
Green Day – Brain Stew
Linkin Park – Numb
Alice In Chains – Man In The Box
Three Days Grace – I Hate Everything About You
Run DMC ft. Aerosmith – Walk This Way
Pearl Jam – Jeremy
Queen – Bohemian Rhapsody
This actually makes sense.
100% gold based playlist so far. Basically a neo classic rock format.
This format, if rolled out nationwide in cities, like Chicago, in which iHeart doesn't already have a traditional classic rock station, might pull some of the younger end of 35-54 away from those stations even if they're also playing '90s music, but I don't see it lasting more than a couple of years, if that.
Sounds like they plugged in the plain vanilla rock template to get the ball rolling. No surprises, no creativity in the imaging and not a single recent song or female artist played so far. Hopefully it will improve with the addition of a program director, morning show, production and air staff.
It's not as though the format wasn't being done. Hubbard has The Drive that's getting pretty good numbers with standard classic rock.
And standard classic rock formats still contain large amounts of '80s and '70s music. If, as speculated, iHeart plugs its '90s format here once the introductory period is over, Queen and Journey will exit, stage left, as Snagglepuss would say. The list sampled above contains several '90s tracks that are too deep for the lip service traditional classic rock stations give to the decade.
Re:
I thought clearing Bobby Bones in Chicago was of such paramount importance? LOL
Personally, I think they should've stuck with Country, dumped Bones in favor of a local show, and skewed the playlist more gold-heavy on a full time basis.
A Rock format isn't a bad idea (plus 95.5 is right next door to 95.1 WIIL - which is fairly popular in the northern third of the market), but the playlist as currently structured is garbage. Chicago isn't Toledo. Few listeners want to hear Journey and Billy Idol on the same station as Metallica and Linkin Park. Hopefully this station evolves in a fashion similar to 107.3 in Jacksonville; that station featured the some type of schizo 80s /90s / 00s playlist when it launched but now is a much more focused station.
Heck, use the 95.1 WIIL music formula as a baseline then make some minor tweaks.
I thought clearing Bobby Bones in Chicago was of such paramount importance? LOL
Personally, I think they should've stuck with Country, dumped Bones in favor of a local show, and skewed the playlist more gold-heavy on a full time basis.
A Rock format isn't a bad idea (plus 95.5 is right next door to 95.1 WIIL - which is fairly popular in the northern third of the market), but the playlist as currently structured is garbage. Chicago isn't Toledo. Few listeners want to hear Journey and Billy Idol on the same station as Metallica and Linkin Park. Hopefully this station evolves in a fashion similar to 107.3 in Jacksonville; that station featured the some type of schizo 80s /90s / 00s playlist when it launched but now is a much more focused station.
Heck, use the 95.1 WIIL music formula as a baseline then make some minor tweaks.
The operative word there being "was." Just because something was important at one time doesn't mean it still is.
Company priorities change. Perhaps that's what this is. We'll see. There are several low-rated iHeart country stations in major markets, including Boston.
When looking over the past 12 months, the average AQH share of Big 95.5 is materially worse than that of the Boston station.
When listening to 95.5, all I can do is think how much better 103.9 The Bear in South Bend, 102.9 The Hog in Milwaukee, and 95 WIIL sound.
So far, the playlist screams "hand picked by corporate radio suits" who probably spend little personal time listening to the music in question.
When listening to 95.5, all I can do is think how much better 103.9 The Bear in South Bend, 102.9 The Hog in Milwaukee, and 95 WIIL sound.
So far, the playlist screams "hand picked by corporate radio suits" who probably spend little personal time listening to the music in question.
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Bobby Bones will most likely going to be moving to a new station in Chicago. Don't know what station, though.
Nobody wears suits and nobody "hand picks" anything. It's all done by numbers.
If you want hand picked music, go to college radio.
BigA said it succinctly already.
But "corporate suits" don't pick music.
At stand-alone stations, the PD picks music, using the trades and airplay data of other stations they respect and which in some way mirror the individual market they are in.
In groups with more than one station in a format, the format manager will have music meetings with the individual station PDs.
They all look at on-demand streaming data.
Despite the Coronavirus, groups sill do some research. They may share markets, or rotate them. But they get indications on which new songs are stiffing and which are gaining.
New songs are added based on a variety of factors such as established artists, recent hits and sound fit. Whether a group PD has to approve or not, the "suits" are not paying any attention to the music. The executives look at the research and sales potential for format shifts, but the day to day stuff is in the hands of the programmers.
So the playlists scream "liked by people who actually listen to the radio and to my station".
Maybe. Journey is one of those bands that rock fans love and hate. Similar to Styx. Both bands can rock pretty hard, and then get painfully mushy. This isn't one of those mushy songs.
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