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Billy Bush Teams Up With Cumulus

L

lowpower

Guest
"The Billy Bush Show" according to All Access is going to be heard on 25 Cumulus Radio Stations soon along with a weekend countdown show. The full story is on

I thought Seacrest and Premiere was a bad idea. This might be worse.
 
According to the story, only 8 stations will be carrying the weekday show...the 25 number is the group that will be carrying the weekend countdown show only.
 
Was Billy Bush planning on in the beginning to have a weekend countdown show, or did he slap something together at the last minute after Cumulus Radio dropped AT 40 off all its stations? Also, are all these 25 Cumulus Stations airing the weekend show CHR/Top 40 stations, or are some Hot AC stations as well?
 
Billy Bush = poor man's Seacrest ;D

He was pretty good on mornings at the old Z104/Washington DC (aka DZ) back in the late 90's/early '00's.
 
All this canned syndicated radio...especially Seacrest in the middle of the day!....isn't going to help our hurting industry...

It used to be one thing when you took a syndicated show...music or talk...because it was live...and better than anything you could ever put on your air during the weekdays locally....but now it is just to save cash and offer horrific, cookie-cutter programming.
 
jsu5381m said:
At least Cumulus owned WZYP dumped AT 40 and added a local countdown show complete with a local artist of the week.
Click to expand...

Perhaps 'ZYP dumped AT40 in preparation for Billy Bush?
 
Q100 is listed in the Press Release as a new affiliate of "The Billy Bush Show." Does that mean Adam Bomb is leaving?

In regards to what 'ilistentotheradio' said I think you're right. All Cumulus stations dropped AT40 at the same time from what we've heard on these boards so it would appear this has been in the works for a while.
 
Anyone that picks up Seacrests midday show also gets AT40. So Cumulus lost AT40 in one market, Jan got pissed, and ripped it off all stations.

When will Cumulus management and sharholders realize that their Top 40's will never win with someone like Jeffries in charge.

He's the man who never played Rockstar by Nickelback, never played Before He Cheats because "if they won't make me a pop edit I won't play it," and plays every Rob Thomas song because of his man-crush.
 
Cumulus is winning!

1900radio said:
Anyone that picks up Seacrests midday show also gets AT40. So Cumulus lost AT40 in one market, Jan got pissed, and ripped it off all stations.

When will Cumulus management and sharholders realize that their Top 40's will never win with someone like Jeffries in charge.

He's the man who never played Rockstar by Nickelback, never played Before He Cheats because "if they won't make me a pop edit I won't play it," and plays every Rob Thomas song because of his man-crush.
Click to expand...

The Cumulus CHR stations are in pretty small markets except for KRBE and Q100. Guidance is really important in this kind of situation, as you are often dealing with new PDs or PDs without a great deal of experience. Jan Jeffries comes from smaller markets and had some huge successes in places like Roanoke. Larger markets have more local decision making (although in every case the mantra is "follow the research and the chart"), but still have guidance: at Cumulus it's Jan Jeffries, at other companies it's a consultant (which Jan Jeffries is the Cumulus consultant)

Let's see where Cumulus is winning in CHR:

Q100 is beating Star 94 in Atlanta
KRBE (104.1) is beating Hot 95.7 in Houston
Hot 101 is beating 95.9 Kiss FM in 12+ and 25-54, along with Q92 (WDJQ) in Youngstown
Q92.3 is beating Z102.9 in Waterloo
Hot 104.7 is beating KKCK (99.7) in Sioux Falls
In the Quad Cities, All Hit 98.9 flipped to K-Love and B100 is the winner.
In Bismarck, Y93 went AC and Hot 97.5 is the winner.
In Mobile, if they thought CHR could make more money than country, Hot 104 would've forced WABB (97.5) out of format.
 
Talk about twisting things around!
Jan is uber-conservative with his music selections, and the examples above mean nothing!
KRBE is a heritage CHR that has been doing CHR in one form or another in the Houston market for decades. Hot 95.7 isn't even 6 months old and yet is already cuming over a million listeners.
Q-100 Atlanta has a great morning show, recently moved to the more powerful 99.7 FM signal, and lets not forget that Star 94 is even MORE conservative sounding then the Q.
B-100 in the Quad Cities sounded great during its wars with WHTS, but now with Jaffries association the station doesnt sound nearly as good as it used to.
Hot 101 is beating 95.9 Kiss FM b/c of its heritage, better signal, ad better on air talent. Hell, WAKZ barely has any live and local talent, and the playlist isnt really customized for Youngstown.
Hot 104.7 Sioux Falls is a local CHR whereas KKCK's signal beams from pretty far away, and targets a different (albeit smaller) market. The fact that KKCK 99.7 still garners ratings in the Sioux Falls book tells me ther's a problem with Hot 104.7...
As for Mobile, 95.7 WABB, despite all the recent turmoil there, is still a kickass CHR with a huge heritage factor going for it.
Other companies may have consultants, but their CHRs still sound more custom mixed and more importantly more hip sounding musically. The Cumulus CHRs are all very adult leaning conservative stations that at times can barely be even called CHR/Pop stations. They even had a hard time adding and supporting Katy Perry's "I Kissed A Girl", which even many Hot ACs have found success with (alongside Rhythmic stations).

Guidance isnt more important in smaller markets. Some of the best sounding CHRs, musically, these days are the smaller market stations not asscoaited with the corporations. They have PDs and MDs who think outside the box, who still rely at times on guts, who make the effort to listen to whats hot in their markets, and take a chance on records that truly have some potential but are ignored by the head honchos at corporate.

It seems to me that some of you folks working for Cumulus have been brainwashed into believing that's just not true.


I really don't think this new Billy Bush countdown will be anything to write home about. It'll just be the most played songs that Jan Jaffries thinks his Cumulus CHRs should play, and will therefore lean heavily on recurrents and adult sounding hits.
Whatever happened to the real Top 40? Why not count down the 40 biggest hits on Billboard's Hot 100 or Pop 100, and tap into whats really hot with the youth of America as well as the typical CHR audience. THAT'S what American Top 40 used to be about. Nowif you want to find out whats hot you can log on directly to Billboard's website, or surf the net for the Itunes chart, or listen to the real American countdowns from foreign stations in Europe, Asia, and Latin America.
If you're not going to count down the REAL hits making it nationally then you might as well do a hometown countdown, or stick with Rick Dess and Ryan Seacrest. Something tells me though that this new Billy Bush countdown will just end up being a real letdown.

Just my opinion.
 
If what truthsayer says is true then maybe Cumulus is doing what listeners want? I do tend to agree with CHRles though and what he just said.

Cumulus is very conserative in the CHR format as he mentioned. They do quite a bit of dayparting and are very recurrent/gold heavy from what I've been able to tell by listening to them online. I'm assuming most of the competition is Clear Channel who are probably mainstream CHR's with not as much dayparting and more currents than recurrents.

Does anyone know what Jan's programming philosphy is? It would appear from outside of those walls they lean adult and want the 25-54 numbers and not the traditional 12-25 or 18-34 numbers. A big lack of rhythmic product as well unless you consider Leona Lewis or Jordin Sparks rhythmic. The big hits like Low, Lollipop etc you only hear after 7pm and during the day you hear Rob Thomas "Little Wonders." Edit: as I hit post I heard them intro OAR "Shattered" which doesn't even appear on the chart right now for top 40. Maybe they are programming as Adult Top 40 and really not trying to compete with stations like Hot 95-7 who obviously leans younger? I'm not defending them but trying to understand maybe what they are trying to do.
 
CHRles - you don't know Youngstown my friend.

CHRles said:
Hot 101 is beating 95.9 Kiss FM b/c of its heritage, better signal, ad better on air talent. Hell, WAKZ barely has any live and local talent, and the playlist isnt really customized for Youngstown.
Click to expand...

Aside from your "better signal" remark CHRles, you are clueless.

1. HOT is not CHR anymore. I repeat - HOT is not CHR anymore. They are HOT AC. Go to Mediabase and pull up the "Not playing" list. You'll be shocked at how many charted Pop songs they are not on. They benefit from IN-OFFICE LISTENING during the day. If anything, CC Hot AC WMXY is more their primary competition - especially during the day.

2. Not buying into that? Fine. HOT is 50,000 watts - KISS is 6,000 watts. With the way Arbitron works, HOT definitely has the diary placement advantage. Regardless, they're hardly the double digit moster they once were. KISS and MIX have chipped away at them over the years.

3. "Playlist isn't customized for Youngstown" I am FROM here, I LIVE here -  and trust me, for CHR - KISS *is* definitely customized for the market. This is a rhythmic-leaning pop music town and KISS recognizes that. Go to a club or bar here and you hear KISS music. Their golds include a ton of songs that were big on HOT and in the clubs here back in the 90's. When HOT was pulling massive numbers in the late 90's/early '00s pre-Cumulus, they were a true CHR that played the urban/rap crossovers. Again, today HOT is a HOT AC masquerading as a CHR - they are targetting the 25-54's here.

4. Do you even KNOW who the jocks on HOT are, CHRles? Get back to me with that. Who does middays? Who does afternoons? You won't find them on the website. So what makes them "better"? Better at reading liner cards maybe? I hear Dave & Jimmy talking to the demo, something the elderly AC McCollough and 50-something Kelly Stevens can hardly do anymore. I hear actual compelling content when Krissy Taylor is on KISS in middays. I hear Kasper and Diaz working the phones, doing actual "shows" rather than shifts. Listen for yourself - there's hardly any personality on HOT anymore. It's liner card mania at 4040 Simon Road.

5. KISS may voicetrack, but it's pretty smart voicetracking. Both of their voicetrackers - Kasper in afternoons and Diaz at night are originally from Youngstown and worked in radio here. It's not like Kane or JoJo are being piped in who have never stepped foot in my town. They're utilizing jocks who have names in the market. People know these guys here. That's making lemonade when you've been handed lemons. Can other cities using boxed talent say the same? Certainly not the majority.

Be careful stating your opinions like facts when you talk about cities you have no clue about, CHRles. Sean Ross you are not.
 
Oh goody, here comes truthsayer to save the day again.

Lets see. Star 94 WAS beating Q100 for 7 YEARS! Star lost their longtime morning show 6 months ago, same time that Q100 gained a big power boost.
Plus, as CHRles mentioned, Star 94 is even MORE conservative. Although honestly, I'm starting to prefer WSTR.

Q100 sounded 10x better under Susq. as did KRBE. Q100 especially was MUCH more of a true CHR. And their ratings didn't really go up with Cumulus' changes. Not until the power increase.

WAKZ Youngstown has a 6kw signal NE of the center of the market. The southern parts of Mahoning County endure bleed over from 96.1 in Pburg, as well as co-channel interference from WNPQ in the very nearby Canton market. WHOT has a huge signal right in the heart of Youngstown.
The numbers you don't see are that Kiss typically beats Hot in the demos that count, 18-34F. Hot has a very large 25-54 audience. WMXY is much more their competition than WAKZ.
PLUS, WAKZ is now dealing with CHR/Rhy WRBP 101.9, which also removed some of Kiss' numbers. It was Urban AC up until last spring I believe.

WHOT of pre-Cumulus vs. WHOT of now, there IS NO COMPARISON! AT ALL! Ask anyone who ever worked there or listened to WHOT back in the day.

In 1999 and 2000, 101.9 The Beat (which moved to 95.9 and eventually re-launched as Kiss) had about the same share they do now, WHOT had double digits in 12+! In the mid-90's, they'd finish with 15 shares.

Hot doesnt have better jocks either. Used to, no question. Jagger at KTU started there, as did Kasper from WAKS.



Q92.3 is beating Z102.9 in Waterloo. Uh, yeah, Q923 is IN WATERLOO! KZIA is an hour away in Cedar Rapids, where they are live and local (locally owned) and they DOMINATE the numbers! KZIA sounds good, and they don't care about Waterloo. They don't need Waterloo to survive.

Same thing with Sioux Falls, market 2,765. I doubt KKCK cares.

B100 is the winner in the Quad Cities? Because the other guy changed format?
Clear Channel SOLD 98.9! THEY are the winner. NOT B100, CC got the cash for 98.9
(in B100's defense, their playlist does look alot better than other Cumulus stations...not sure why that is)


Jan is OLD and OUT OF TOUCH! He thinks hip-hop belongs on Urban stations, he won't change his ways.
And when Hot 957 eats away all of KRBE's 18-34 numbers, then maybe someone at the very top will take notice.
Til then...it'll be the way it is unless he croaks.

Why is HOT 92 in Harrisburg so much more Rhythmic than the other stations? They used to be a CHR/Rhy, but they sure arent any more.
 
Amen Spinbad, Amen!

Could Kiss use improvement? Sure, no one's perfect.
But there's ALOT more that is wrong with WHOT.
 
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