Billy Bush Teams Up With Cumulus

[mobile-exradiodj]

It's nice to see various posters flex muscles over Cumulus music programming, that topic would make make a good separate thread. However, the real focus of this thread is Billy Bush.

How much is Cumulus going to push this show beyond its own network of stations? Will they try to pick stations outside of the family especially the medium to small markets? Is this countdown just a reaction to the Seacrest take over effort? Of course, how good this show and Billy Bush compared to Hollywood Hamilton, Ryan Seacrest, Rick Dees & Damien of MTV-TRL? Can this show sell to radio groups?

 

[mistermicrophone]

His picture is scary because he is an old man controlling the music of multiple CHR stations.

IGNORANT. Agree or disagree with the policy, that is the discussion. Insulting someone because of their age shows your true IQ.

 

[meanspirit]

You are right. I am sorry. His age has nothing to do with this. It is his dictatorial style of management that really annoys me.

Actually, no, that's not true.

(developing my thoughts)

A company is free to do whatever it wants. It's the fact that they actually name Program Directors, then cut off their nuts. If Cumulus would stop hiring program directors (name them programming coordinators or something) - OR - simply name Jan Jeffries MD of all stations (make it official) then all would be fine in my book. Just stop hiding the fact that he makes all the calls and have full disclosure.

 

[Roger That]

How much is Cumulus going to push this show beyond its own network of stations? Will they try to pick stations outside of the family especially the medium to small markets?

Why would Cumulus try to push the show beyond its own stations? They don't own the rights to the show, they don't make money off the addition of affiliates, nor to they own or control Westwood One.

 

[mistermicrophone]

You are right. I am sorry. His age has nothing to do with this. It is his dictatorial style of management that really annoys me.

Actually, no, that's not true.

(developing my thoughts)

A company is free to do whatever it wants. It's the fact that they actually name Program Directors, then cut off their nuts. If Cumulus would stop hiring program directors (name them programming coordinators or something) - OR - simply name Jan Jeffries MD of all stations (make it official) then all would be fine in my book. Just stop hiding the fact that he makes all the calls and have full disclosure.

First of all, a PD does SOOOOOOO much more than make music decisions for their radio station...or at least a good PD - by the way, the PD's know should the situation before they accept the job (or else they need to re-examine their interview skills), so I have little pity for them.

Second, why does there have to be disclosure? What they are doing is not wrong, illegal or deceitful in any way shape or form - and making company-wide decisions from the corporate office is not braking any law. Do you think the individual WalMart's create their own prices?. Just to see his name listed in trade publications as MD accomplishes what in the eyes (or ears) of the listener? Nothing.

I am not saying I agree with the practice, but it's not my company to run!

 

[wikhradio]

You guys who say that the VP of Programming has total control over the music must be in a very shitty market cluster. I am sorry.. the Cumulus cluster I am at, we get much of the control over what we are doing, music flow and all. This includes the Hot AC, which happens to have an All 80s Weekend, which corp wanted to get rid of, but it got ratings, so it was kept around. Fitted to the market. They aren't dictating anything. They tell us what to add weekly for new stuff, and send us research reports occasionally so the PD can add a choice of their golds, but I don't think that all of Cumulus' CHRs or Alt/Active Rock stations sound exactly the same market to market. All special shows are catered to the market, and PD has full control over them. PDs have A LOT more control than you think at Cumulus...

 

[The Truthsayer]

WAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH! MY CONSULTANT OR VP WON'T LET ME DO THIS AND THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
DUH! Its because you the PD wants to do something stupid!

Grow up people. Jan Jeffries or any other VP and/or consultant is there to make sure the PD doesn't screw up so he still has a job. There is NOTHING ILLEGAL about it.

Read my first post again and it will make sense to you:

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.

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.

To add on to the list:
A tipster told me that Tower 98.3 was beating 92.5 Kiss FM in Toledo in the 18-34 demo
KROC (106.9) beat 98.7 Kiss FM in Mason City, IA so they flipped it to Kiss Country 98.7
KROC is beating Z93 WIZM in Rochester
Hot 101 is also beating Q92 WDJQ in Youngstown

 

[InsertNameHere]

EXCUSE ME?!?! You are OUT OF YOUR MIND!!

Tower beat WVKS ONCE 5 or 6 books ago when Brent Carey was PD! WVKS IS KICKING THEIR CAN!!!
Stream Tower 983 for TEN MINUTES...they DO NOT TARGET Toledo anymore! They target Monroe County, MI now because they can't come close to tocuhing WVKS! CHECK YOUR FACTS!!

KSMA Mason City ALSO changed owners from Clear Channel to...someone. Perhaps the new owners liked the idea of a country format better? Could make more dollars off that in BFE, Iowa...kind of like the South Dakota market you're stuck in!

KROC is beating WIZM...BECAUSE THEY ARE A ROCHESTER STATION AND WIZM IS NOT!

HOT 101 is beating Q92 in Youngstown BECAUSE WDJQ IS NOT A YOUNGSTOWN STATION!!! They are 50 miles away in Canton and put NO EFFORT into targeting Youngstown. Plus the signal is NON-EXISTANT in parts of the market.

 

[porkythepig]

Truthsayer, you are a laughing stock. You're only defending Cumulus because you work there...you're not doing a good job of it either.

I'll sum up both of Insertnamehere's posts in case you're illiterate enough to not go back a few pages on this thread:

Star 94 was BEATING Q100 for 7 years until they lost their morning show and Q upgraded the signal. It sounded ALOT better under Susq. and the ratings didn't really change under Cumulus until the signal upgrade.

Insert, I'm assuming you're from around there (correct me if I'm wrong), WAKZ is beating WHOT in 18-34. WHOT's competition is more WMXY over 25-54's, and WAKZ's competition is more of WRBP.

Q92.3 in Waterloo is beating KZIA because KZIA IS AN HOUR AWAY IN CEDAR RAPIDS! They could care less about Waterloo.

Hot 104.7 is beating KKCK because KKCK IS TWO HOURS AWAY IN MARHSALL AND PUTS NO EFFORT IN SIOUX FALLS. Brookings which KCK is also present in is an hour away! They were the dominant long distance CHR that had 6 and 7 shares over a decade ago, but that was because THERE WAS NO LOCAL CHR IN SF!

Clear Channel HAD TO SELL 98.9 and they were cleaning B100's clock before that.

WTWR has a 1.9 in Toledo! Not pretty

KSMA was sold to Coloff, and flipped to country kicking heritage KIAI's ass with HALF THE SIGNAL! Mason City's diary response is pretty old so it made sense.

Same with Bismarck, old skewing market that can't support 2 CHR's. Made sense for KYYY to quit going after KKCT and go AC where the hole was a mile wide.

KROC IS IN ROCHESTER! WIZM is 70 miles away in La Crosse! By that flawed logic you can say KROC is beating KDWB which is 2 hours away in MSP.

WHOT is beating WDJQ because WDJQ is a Canton station. Are you gonna say that WHOT is beating WBZW and WKST next???

Just because a station show up in a distant market's ratings doesn't mean they TARGET THAT MARKETS!!

 

[InsertNameHere]

I do live in Ohio yes.

As for Kiss in Toledo, they also do fairly well in 25-54, or at least the younger end of that. 'VKS has some heritage in that market. Kiss has been around since 1990, long before the Clear Channel days, and it was a CHR before that, WMHE in the 80's.

And they aren't cookie cutter! Look at their playlist on Mediabase, that station is pretty well balanced and tailored to fit the market. I've always been a fan.
Live and Local with Andrew Z mornings, same with Mookie in afternoon Drive and Boomer at night. Randi West is their lone voicetracked jock, and she lived in Toledo for a few years, so she knows the market well and she gets good numbers.

 

[porkythepig]

I do live in Ohio yes.

As for Kiss in Toledo, they also do fairly well in 25-54, or at least the younger end of that. 'VKS has some heritage in that market. Kiss has been around since 1990, long before the Clear Channel days, and it was a CHR before that, WMHE in the 80's.

And they aren't cookie cutter! Look at their playlist on Mediabase, that station is pretty well balanced and tailored to fit the market. I've always been a fan.
Live and Local with Andrew Z mornings, same with Mookie in afternoon Drive and Boomer at night. Randi West is their lone voicetracked jock, and she lived in Toledo for a few years, so she knows the market well and she gets good numbers.

I never said VKS was cookie cutter...I'm sure it's better than TWR though. I live and work at a radio station in Sioux Falls if you haven't noticed that yet. I've worked at various radio stations in North Dakota, South Dakota, Omaha and Minnesota. Gotta agree Randi West is fantastic. No CHR in SD is dominating the market, but in North Dakota that is the case with XL93 Grand Forks which is streaming now. Always been a fan of it even when I worked at Magic 96 (now playing classic rock)... worked at XL as well after Magic went AC.

 

[InsertNameHere]

Sorry porky, that wasnt meant for you, just for any of the "Clear Channel has nothing but cookie cutter CHR" crowd that I know is out there.

 

[CHRles]

Some of the CC stations are definitely not cookie cutter, especially along the east coast, and in the bigger markets. Listen to Z100 New York or Y-100 Miami - fantastic imaging, great jocks, great sets of Top 40 music. Same is true for stations like Kiss 108 Boston and 93.3 FLZ Tampa. Not all of their Rhythmic leaning CHR/Pop stations sound the same either - Channel 95-5 Detroit doesnt try to sound exactly like 102.7 KIIS FM L.A. or Channel 933 San Diego. Some Clear Channel CHR/Pop stations are also early on some of the "adult" records such as 97.9 NCI, 107.5 The River, and Savannah's 97.3 Kiss FM.
Toledo's Kiss FM has always had a very solid lineup, and a very balanced playlist. Tower 98.3, as others pointed out, sounded good when they were in the hands of Citadel just prior to the Cumulus acquisition.
Kiss FM Pittsburgh is holding its own very nicely despite an intense battle it currently faces from the revived and much loved B-94. 96.5 Kiss FM Cleveland is a great CHR, best one in Cleveland since the days of Power 108. Hot 107.9 Syracuse and 104.5 SNX are great sounding Rhythmic leaning CHR/Pop stations in medium sized markets.
We all know Hot 99.5 DC and 106.1 Kiss FM Dallas have a great staff on hand (though its a shame Hot was forced to add Ryan Seacrest's daily show to its lineup).

As cookie cutter as I see 95.9 Kiss FM Youngstown, I'll still take it anyday over Hot 101, but I'm glad Youngstown has both stations. While they're both billed as CHR/Pop, Kiss also serves as the market's defacto Rhythmic CHR while Hot at times is the market's defacto Hot AC, especially in middays. In Syracuse, heritage 93 Q, a non Cumulus owned station, acts at times as the market's defacto Hot AC while Hot 107.9 is very Rhythmic heavy, and at times isnt all that different sounding from Wired 96.5 Philly or 98.5 KLUC Vegas. You can also view the situation in Grand Rapids in a similar light between 104.5 SNX, and Citadel's adult friendly 105.3 Hot FM.
How can 95.9 Kiss FM Youngstown improve in my opinion? Take some notes from 104.5 SNX Grand Rapids, Hot 107.9 Syracuse, and from Houston's hot new Hot 95.7 (which actually isnt as overly Rhythmic but still very high energy). For that to happen though I realize WAKZ would need a bigger budget.

PS Q-100's music mix kicked ass under Susquehanna.

 

[jsu5381m]

Do we know which stations will be airing the countdown yet?

 

[lowpower]

Do we know which stations will be airing the countdown yet?

according to the press release 25 of them but my guess is that all cumulus CHR's will air the countdown.

from what i'm hearing this billy bush show is a pretty big deal with them as well so don't be surprised to hear it on most of the chr's too (especially those in a smaller market with little staff)