Bob gone in Sacramento; Cincy gets a name

[LouPickney]

Today has been a busy one for First Broadcasting's stations in Sacramento and Cincinnati.

Bob 92.1 (KBDB-FM) in Sacramento was knocked off this morning, replaced by the "Flash" 80s format that had been on the 103.9 KXCL signal which was sold to Buenos Media (and then spun off to Salem) last month. The move is baffling to me considering Flash's ratings free-fall from Spring '04 to Spring '05, but so it goes. The question now is: will Infinity bring JACK-FM to Sacramento? Will Entercom try to beat them to the punch with Variety Hits? Or will the market go without the format for now?

In Cincinnati, at 5 PM EDT, the new name for WOXY/WAXZ/WAOL (which started briefly as "Bob FM" before abruptly dropping that moniker, due to WBOB being in the market) was announced. The new name? 97.7/99.5 Max FM. Yep, they went from 5/30/05 to 8/1/05 without a name, they offered $10,000 for a winning name, and that's what they came up with. In that timespan, Variety Hits stations in Chattanooga and Topeka independently chose the "Max FM" name. Question has already arisen on the Cincy radio-info board on if Clear Channel might give them some static over the name, due to the similarity between Max and Mix (CC owns Mix 94.1 in the Cincy market). There's no "Mix" station in Topeka or Chattanooga; there was once a Mix and a Max in Atlanta, but Clear Channel owned both, so it was immaterial in that case.<P ID="signature">______________
Lou Pickney
Tampa, FL
RadioHotTalk.com & VarietyHits.com</P>

 

[clichemoth]

> Today has been a busy one for First Broadcasting's stations
> in Sacramento and Cincinnati.
>
> Bob 92.1 (KBDB-FM) in Sacramento was knocked off this
> morning, replaced by the "Flash" 80s format that had been on
> the 103.9 KXCL signal which was sold to Buenos Media (and
> then spun off to Salem) last month. The move is baffling to
> me considering Flash's ratings free-fall from Spring '04 to
> Spring '05, but so it goes. The question now is: will
> Infinity bring JACK-FM to Sacramento? Will Entercom try to
> beat them to the punch with Variety Hits? Or will the
> market go without the format for now?

Wasn't there some sort of listener poll about which station should stick around that Flash won? If people preferred 80s over VH, other stations might not be so quick to flip.

 

[LouPickney]

> Wasn't there some sort of listener poll about which station
> should stick around that Flash won? If people preferred 80s
> over VH, other stations might not be so quick to flip.

A couple of things on that:

1. It would be a bit naïve to believe that a legitimate vote was actually held. Had there been overwhelming support for Bob, perhaps things might have changed. But keep in mind that the flash921.com domain was registered well before the "final tally" was made.

2. KXCL had a full-market signal to campaign with, versus the rimshot for KBDB-FM.

If you look at the 12+ decline for Flash from Spring '04 to Spring '05, you can see that the burn on its music was rather striking in the market. Perhaps First Broadcasting thought that Flash would perform better as a rimshot than Bob, I don't know. But either way, what's done is done. I just don't buy that vote as being legit. Perhaps I'm wrong, but the skeptic in me thinks that the decision was made ahead of time, and the vote was simply a way to publicize the move of the format from 103.9 to 92.1.<P ID="signature">______________
Lou Pickney
Tampa, FL
RadioHotTalk.com & VarietyHits.com</P>