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Bull 94.9 Playing Christmas Music

Yes, the Bull will go all Christmas til Christmas. And yes, of course, this is a play for more ratings and more sampling. Sure, we already have two other xmas stations (and I'm not counting 96.7 since so few people can access it on their radios) but 94.9 has the legacy of playing xmas, so why not try? I can't see it hurting them in any way.
 
i guess 120 plus baseball games and $2M in ads wasn't enough!
 
So what we have now is three stations playing Christmas music to three different audiences. The Bull is skewing Country, The Fish is skewing Contemporary Christian, and B98.5 is just your average Soft AC Christmas (middle of the road). Very interesting.
 
Most pop, AC and Country Christmas music sounds the same. What's the difference of Lorrie Morgan's White Christmas or Peggy Lee? Just another tired trick to get listeners when everything you've done for a year hasn't worked.
 
Inside your radio said:
no1uno said:
i guess 120 plus baseball games and $2M in ads wasn't enough!
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Still shaking my head at CC over The Bull. I still don't understand why they blew up Lite Fm?
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Will one of you great radio gurus enlighten me on something? Last year CC blew up LTM in the middle of playing Christmas music to start playing country and in the process ticked off their core. Now after airing a rater benign series of TV commercials that talk about the country music they play they start playing Christmas music, I don’t get it.
 
Last year when The Bull played a Christmas song, they said, "From our trailer to yours, Merry Christmas." I haven't listened, but I'm guessing they're not saying that this year :D.
 
Does anyone see this as a last ditch effort to save the Bull or is it a prelude to a format change?
 
redradioranger said:
Does anyone see this as a last ditch effort to save the Bull or is it a prelude to a format change?
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It's not a prelude to a format change because they're playing country Christmas music. Mr. No1uno above (in his third sentence) has it correct.
 
RoddyFreeman said:
redradioranger said:
Does anyone see this as a last ditch effort to save the Bull or is it a prelude to a format change?
Click to expand...

It's not a prelude to a format change because they're playing country Christmas music. Mr. No1uno above (in his third sentence) has it correct.
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That make sense I guess but it still doesn't explain the fact they are running TV ads asking people to try the new 94.9 the Bull because they play all the good country music but their not, it's all Christmas music.
 
you are right, doesn't make sense to promote what you aren't, but they have done that since they flipped. Three different messages. Remember "biggest hits etc" then "real comfortable country" now i don't even know what they say they are other than call attention to the hit station that also plays gold by the way. And completely ignoring the Eagle also not only exists, but occupies a gold to current position as well. Classic lack of focus from management that is spending money only because its there to spend. Rodney's blog last year was full of angry listeners when they abandoned Christmas and yet they have amnesia over that and play it again. Management at all levels...but that is a cc issue that will never change without a major overhaul.
 
I've said it before. Flipping Lite to The Bull was a move that never made sense to me. Based on what people there told me at the time, Atlanta was the Achilles heel for CC because John Hogan came up through Atlanta. They felt Lite had reached its billings ceiling at about $15 million. CC looked at the much bigger Kicks/Eagle billing and in CC's desperation, they decided to go after it.

Not that there was a hole in the market for another country station. Plus, if you're going to attack the market's leading country station, putting on an inferior product is kind of a strange way of going about it. And that product starts with the voicetracked morning show airing from 5-8AM.

And yes, they've changed positioning. I liked "The biggest hits, the biggest stars" as well as the fast pace of the station when it kicked off. And then suddenly, The Bull seemed laid back with "real comfortable country." And they're going against personalities who are well-known in the market. Actually, Paul Coffey is not bad; he's creative and a good conversationalist. I just don't care for his voice and inflection.

And the other thing is the classic rock that The Bull calls "all kinds of country." Country listeners may like it, but what kind of a fit score does that stuff get on a country station?

I like the other music on the station. My perception is that The Bull's gold overall is more recent--eighties and nineties--than Eagle. But that's only a perception; I could be wrong.
 
RoddyFreeman said:
I've said it before. Flipping Lite to The Bull was a move that never made sense to me. Based on what people there told me at the time, Atlanta was the Achilles heel for CC because John Hogan came up through Atlanta. They felt Lite had reached its billings ceiling at about $15 million. CC looked at the much bigger Kicks/Eagle billing and in CC's desperation, they decided to go after it.

Not that there was a hole in the market for another country station. Plus, if you're going to attack the market's leading country station, putting on an inferior product is kind of a strange way of going about it. And that product starts with the voicetracked morning show airing from 5-8AM.

And yes, they've changed positioning. I liked "The biggest hits, the biggest stars" as well as the fast pace of the station when it kicked off. And then suddenly, The Bull seemed laid back with "real comfortable country." And they're going against personalities who are well-known in the market. Actually, Paul Coffey is not bad; he's creative and a good conversationalist. I just don't care for his voice and inflection.

And the other thing is the classic rock that The Bull calls "all kinds of country." Country listeners may like it, but what kind of a fit score does that stuff get on a country station?

I like the other music on the station. My perception is that The Bull's gold overall is more recent--eighties and nineties--than Eagle. But that's only a perception; I could be wrong.
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Thanks Roddy I appreciate and respect your perspective. Here's the disconnect for me are they billing more then the 15 million they were doing as LTM? Also don't you think LTM would have performed better if they put the marketing dollars behind it like they did the Bull?
 
They MIGHT get to bill $7-8M outside of baseball...which by the way they loose arguably $5-$6m on. Further, they were so ill thought with "biggest hits" early on... inasmuch as they didn't have the market knowledge to realize that KICKS already had promoted that same position for probably 4 months before they flipped. Only CC would operate in their own vacuum. Again, management at all levels.
 
RoddyFreeman said:
I've said it before. Flipping Lite to The Bull was a move that never made sense to me.
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They didn't just flip but did it in the most offensive, negative way possible. Killing off Lite in the middle of the annual Christmas music time without waiting a couple of weeks was just plain rude. I know it's supposed to be just a business move but I wonder if enough listeners were turned off by the flip timing to not give the new format a try? Why bother to let your dial sit on that station that killed Christmas when there are plenty of other country stations?
 
And to think they killed " Christmas Music" oh no !!!!! Who cares... Atlanta has too many country stations already, thats the main issue. The Bull is a JOKE.. Christmas music in November was nausea enough, but another country station? Its time to wake up at Clear Channel and realize that now they have killed off the only decent station they had left. WGST needs to be sold to a religious outlet.
 
Yeah, I can count 4 country stations.

Also, remember the 96rock switch around that same time. I was pissed.
I was also pissed because it was in the middle of December, a bad time to switch anything.

I can just imagine the scene that year.
"Honey, want to hear some Christmas music?"
"Sure, turn on 94.9"
["...to do the boot scootin' boogie"] (Which, btw, was my first song hearing on The Bull)
"What the hell?! Is there something wrong with my radio?"

Also, they eventually killed Lite overall in Atlanta...big mistake.

Atlanta has become more of a soft rock, hip-hop, hard rock market anyway.
It only makes sense to have a soft rock station in your arsenal for Atlanta more than a country station.

I just miss that ad with that song (by Paul McCartney I think) and the snow globe.
 
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