breaking BRW 103.3 to amp format, 60s-70s-80s to hd2

[carolinaradio]

I don't know if 103.3 coming back as classic hits is likely. Yes, they brougt CBS-FM back, but that was more of a unique situation and was an unserved audience. I don't know if WODS dropping classic hits will have the backlash like CBS-FM did. Those listeners can go to 105.7. Classic hits listeners in NYC had nowhere to go.

In Chicago, CBS tried to resurrect 104.3 WJMK a while back as "K-Hits" (this station was killed the day CBS-FM was, legendary oldies); so far, the station has done very little to take down WLS-FM, who picked up the format after WJMK dropped it.

If WROR is smart, they will adjust the playlist to include more pop from the 70s and 80s and cut back on some of the harder rock. Pep up the presentation. They can easily pick up the old WODS audience and capitalize on this. Assuming the old WODS audience successfully migrates to WROR, I don't know if a return of WODS would be very celebrated if it were to ever happen down the road. I'm still shocked the station is flipping and it will be interesting to watch.

 

[reelyreal]

This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard, and it's got Greg Strassell's idiotic STANK all over it.

Still won't let anyone touch his baby, the mediocre Hot AC WBMX. So now, you're going to hear almost the same music on WBMX and WODS. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? You blow up your successful classic hits with solid 25-54 numbers to eat away at your WBMX numbers? There's not even a guarantee that the listeners will leave Kiss 108.

idiotic.

Even if you had to keep WBMX for Strassell's ego, you're telling me WZLX was a more valuable property to save?

This. is. idiotic. WODS was one of the best classic hits stations in the northeast, their upbeat presentation should be a lesson to all stations in the format.

Yes, CBS should go CHR. It should have happened on WBMX.

Today, I'm disappointed in the company I work for and love, CBS Radio. Bad call.

 

[DJbobo]

This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard, and it's got Greg Strassell's idiotic STANK all over it.

Still won't let anyone touch his baby, the mediocre Hot AC WBMX. So now, you're going to hear almost the same music on WBMX and WODS. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? You blow up your successful classic hits with solid 25-54 numbers to eat away at your WBMX numbers? There's not even a guarantee that the listeners will leave Kiss 108.

idiotic.

Even if you had to keep WBMX for Strassell's ego, you're telling me WZLX was a more valuable property to save?

This. is. idiotic. WODS was one of the best classic hits stations in the northeast, their upbeat presentation should be a lesson to all stations in the format.

Yes, CBS should go CHR. It should have happened on WBMX.

Today, I'm disappointed in the company I work for and love, CBS Radio. Bad call.

It's worth a shot at least. If it doesn't work after a couple years, they can always simulcast WBZ news on 103.3

 

[reelyreal]

This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard, and it's got Greg Strassell's idiotic STANK all over it.

Still won't let anyone touch his baby, the mediocre Hot AC WBMX. So now, you're going to hear almost the same music on WBMX and WODS. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? You blow up your successful classic hits with solid 25-54 numbers to eat away at your WBMX numbers? There's not even a guarantee that the listeners will leave Kiss 108.

idiotic.

Even if you had to keep WBMX for Strassell's ego, you're telling me WZLX was a more valuable property to save?

This. is. idiotic. WODS was one of the best classic hits stations in the northeast, their upbeat presentation should be a lesson to all stations in the format.

Yes, CBS should go CHR. It should have happened on WBMX.

Today, I'm disappointed in the company I work for and love, CBS Radio. Bad call.

It's worth a shot at least. If it doesn't work after a couple years, they can always simulcast WBZ news on 103.3

Can you, or anyone else, tell me why it's a good idea to keep a CHR-leaning Hot AC and start up a new CHR in the same cluster?

 

[atlantaboy]

This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard, and it's got Greg Strassell's idiotic STANK all over it.

Still won't let anyone touch his baby, the mediocre Hot AC WBMX. So now, you're going to hear almost the same music on WBMX and WODS. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? You blow up your successful classic hits with solid 25-54 numbers to eat away at your WBMX numbers? There's not even a guarantee that the listeners will leave Kiss 108.

idiotic.

Even if you had to keep WBMX for Strassell's ego, you're telling me WZLX was a more valuable property to save?

This. is. idiotic. WODS was one of the best classic hits stations in the northeast, their upbeat presentation should be a lesson to all stations in the format.

Yes, CBS should go CHR. It should have happened on WBMX.

Today, I'm disappointed in the company I work for and love, CBS Radio. Bad call.

It's worth a shot at least. If it doesn't work after a couple years, they can always simulcast WBZ news on 103.3

Can you, or anyone else, tell me why it's a good idea to keep a CHR-leaning Hot AC and start up a new CHR in the same cluster?

From everything I've read, Amp is going to lean Rhythmic - completely different target than WBMX

 

[reelyreal]

The statement says the station will play artists like Rihanna, Usher, Maroon 5, Pitbull, Flo Rida, Katy Perry, and Nicki Minaj .

WBMX is currently playing songs by Rihanna, Usher, Maroon 5, Pitbull, Flo Rida, and Katy Perry.

 

[mjb1124]

Very sad news about WODS - one of the best sounding Classic Hits stations in the country, for my money. With this and WFNX, the two main reasons I look forward to listening to the radio when I go to Boston are now gone. Hope they give the station a good send-off. Would love it if WROR adopted a more WODS-type presentation with JAM jingles and upbeat DJ patter (perhaps with JJ Wright, Paula Street, and Karen Blake coming over), but I wouldn't bet on it.

 

[Rick]

I have always liked CBS Radio... they are a good company with minimal voicetracking and doesn't cut corners usually. I always look at things without bias and can see BOTH pros and cons to this. Yes, I will miss WODS and yes, radio is a business and needs rating to make money, so going CHR brings in younger demos, etc. etc. etc... Anyway, just remember how CBS Radio brought back CBS-FM in NYC after a few years of the Jack-FM format. They also brought back classic hits in another market (Chicago) plus brought back K-Rock in NYC before blowing it up again. With that history, it's not to say that if Amp Radio doesn't work after a few years, they could flip BACK to classic hits again. I have faith in CBS Radio, but obviously they are going to try to run their business with the goal to turn the most profit. Sometimes it's easy for us to forget how it is a business and sometimes as much as we hate it, new things must be tried.

 

[leegart]

I don't know if 103.3 coming back as classic hits is likely. Yes, they brougt CBS-FM back, but that was more of a unique situation and was an unserved audience. I don't know if WODS dropping classic hits will have the backlash like CBS-FM did. Those listeners can go to 105.7. Classic hits listeners in NYC had nowhere to go.

In Chicago, CBS tried to resurrect 104.3 WJMK a while back as "K-Hits" (this station was killed the day CBS-FM was, legendary oldies); so far, the station has done very little to take down WLS-FM, who picked up the format after WJMK dropped it.

If WROR is smart, they will adjust the playlist to include more pop from the 70s and 80s and cut back on some of the harder rock. Pep up the presentation. They can easily pick up the old WODS audience and capitalize on this. Assuming the old WODS audience successfully migrates to WROR, I don't know if a return of WODS would be very celebrated if it were to ever happen down the road. I'm still shocked the station is flipping and it will be interesting to watch.

WODS has more history than this iteration of WROR. CBS-FM similarly had history (especially after picking up all the old DJ's from WABC). When the Top 40 format fails, I hope CBS sees the error of their ways and tries to salvage the good ratings that "oldies" or "classic hits" 103.3 had by restoring some semblance of that format. Boston does not have the need for CBS to alleviate some apparently perceived Top 40 music deprivation.

 

[Lightning]

Very interesting....

I don't think that this will work out too well. WXKS and WJMN have been very dominant for years. Most kids these days don't even scan the radio anymore. They have their presets that they've known for years and the iPod.

The most changes will probably be seen on WJMN. They have been Top40/R for a while now and they will either have to move back to being more urban or remain the same and take a chance on losing some audience. The pirates on 87.7 are long gone, but that doesn't mean that that audience will listen to JAM'N which plays Bieber in high rotation now. Problem with going to Urban is that you start losing advertising dollars. Let's face it, Urban format is not as lucrative as Top-40 and I highly doubt that the urban/hip-hop format would draw a higher audience on 94.5.

The only hope here is that this may possibly reduce the power rotation on WXKS/WJMN.

 

[carolinaradio]

WODS has more history than this iteration of WROR. CBS-FM similarly had history (especially after picking up all the old DJ's from WABC). When the Top 40 format fails, I hope CBS sees the error of their ways and tries to salvage the good ratings that "oldies" or "classic hits" 103.3 had by restoring some semblance of that format. Boston does not have the need for CBS to alleviate some apparently perceived Top 40 music deprivation.

Oh, no denying that WODS has history. I'm a huge fan of all of CBS's classic hits stations, and WODS is one of the first ones I think of.

I was just meaning that if there was ever a revival of classic hits on 103.3, it could be like CBS's revival of WJMK/Chicago, which was a heritage outlet with the format. It did decently before they flipped it to Adult Hits, but since they came back with classic hits last year, even with PPM, the station has struggled to find the success it once had. While the station was programming Adult Hits, classic hits listeners went elsewhere and they are not getting many of them back.

 

[WMC2006]

(perhaps with JJ Wright, Paula Street, and Karen Blake coming over

Haven't listened to WROR much recently but there's plenty of room on the daily schedule for more people. They still do that awful listener-hosted At Work Nation from 10-4 everyday. There's two 3-hour shifts right there. They've got no one listed after 8pm on the program schedule so that's another shift or two or three. So plenty of room for Karen, Paula, and JJ. Mighty Mike Osbourne will need a new home as well. And Mike O'Reilly. Deidre Degata. Plus, Joe Cortese and Back To The 80s. What happens to Jay Gordon and the Elvis and Beatles shows. Barry Scott might finally have to go internet-only.

How about:

5:30am-9am Loren and Wally (just because it's time for them to go through another format change even if it's only a tweak)
9am to noon Paula Street
noon to 3pm Karen Blake (John, her most recent on-air partner, doesn't make the cut. Karen gets her own solo show again)
3pm to 6pm Julie Devereaux (without Tom Doyle)
6pm-9pm JJ Wright
9pm-midnight Mighty Mike Osbourne
midnight to 5:30am Dierdre Dagata

Weekends:

Mauzy Stafford
Paul Perry
JC Haze
Mike O'Reilly

 

[wcozBoston]

Why didn't CBS flip WBMX and keep WODS? Isn't WBMX largely a Top 40 signal and won't both formats clash with one another? What will WBMX ultimately become?

 

[WMC2006]

By the way, Fox 25 just had a story about WODS switching formats. Except they called the outgoing format "Oldies 103.3". And it hasn't been called that for a few years. :

 

[diamondj]

I had heard a bumper on Easy 99.1 in the past week that mentioned something about a competitor going away but that Easy wasn't - but I couldn't figure out what it was referring to until now.
Feeling for all the WODS talent more than anything else when I heard the news...

 

[brlmedia]

got my cell phone all set with the wods stream to listen at work tomorrow. will the flip occur on the stream? i know it is a hit or miss with some flips lately on their net streams?

 

[carolinaradio]

Why didn't CBS flip WBMX and keep WODS? Isn't WBMX largely a Top 40 signal and won't both formats clash with one another? What will WBMX ultimately become?

Maybe they plan to eventually use the WBMX signal to simulcast WBZ-AM?

 

[Magnaradio]

When they tried this with WHTT, they didn't blow up an established heritage radio station to do it, they were up against a much more loosely run Kiss 108, and Jam'n 94.5 didn't exist. and they STILL failed. This will go down as a massive blunder.

WZOU(Zoo) was already on the air for a few months when WHTT came on.

103.3 was "Softrock 103" WEEI-FM, a very successful adult AOR style format in the late 70s until about 1982 when CBS started switching their "mellow rock" stations to CHR. KNX in LA made the switch too. The call letters remained WEEI-FM even as the were a top-40 station. CBS sold the original WEEI-AM which was on 590AM. In those days that necessitated a call letter change for one of the stations. WEEI-FM became WHTT in 1983. 94.5 WCOZ became WZOU and went CHR that year too. While technically correct that WZOU predates the WHTT call letters, the CHR format had already been on 103.3 for a couple of years before WZOU existed.

 

[wprt949]

I think CBS will move 104.1 into an Adult CHR

 

[promixcuous]

Why didn't CBS flip WBMX and keep WODS? Isn't WBMX largely a Top 40 signal and won't both formats clash with one another? What will WBMX ultimately become?

Given the huge hole in the market for an 80s-pop-based gold format, and given Mix's heritage with 80s gold, I'd suggest there'd be an opportunity for them to lean gold.

Hell, I can't figure out why no station sounds like the PA system at Legacy Place. If they're playing 80s-new-wave-pop at the new upscale mall, isn't that the money demo?