CBS/Infinity management is brain dead with the moves they have made recently here in New York. But this was something that did not just happen. Its been coming for some time now.
Actually the bug began at Westinghouse back in 1995. AT that time CBS only had WCBS 88, WCBS FM 101.1. Infinity had 66 WFAN and 92.3 K Rock. Westinghouse had WNEW 102.7 and 1010 WINS.
The nonsense began at WNEW. WNEW had been a Rock station blending Classic Rock and New ROck since way back when. Their only City competitor was WXRK K Rock playing Classic Rock. As a result WNEW FM (till December 1992..after that they weer WNEW being 1130 WNEW became WBBR). Did well in fact better than K Rock with the exception of Howard Stern.
WNEW though was slow with new rock. In December 1993 WNCN 104.3 became hard rocker WAXQ Q 104 playing alot of New Rock with a hard edge. This did take from WNEW but still they managed to pull 2 shares until the Summer of 1995.
By the Summer of 1995 Q 104 was playing alot of harder alternative music as Z 100 was a Pop ALternative leaning CHR. At that point WNEW made an honest format change to Alternative to give New York City a pure alternative choice in July 1995. Sadly though the format change was poorly executed and confusing. They had elements of triple A and Classic Rock mixed with Alternative. Their ratings immediately went below a 2 share.
In January 1996 CBS and Westinghouse completed the merger. This would put 1010 WINS and 88 WCBS in the same company. Then WNEW had a chance to redeem themselves that January in 1996. WXRK K Rock flipped to an alternative format with a hard lean abandoning Classic Rock. WNEW had the golden opportunity to go Classic Rock and get all the disenfranchised K Rock people. They would have at least gotten their numbers to a 2 share if not higher. But no they decided to flirt with a Modern Rock/Triple A/Classic Rock hybrid format confusing listeners. Then Q 104 was sold to Viacom (prior to merging with CBS in 2001) and Viacom flipped Q 104 to Classic Rock July 96. In 97 Chancellor would buy Q 104.
So WNEW kept this wierd format until the end of 1996 and then they too went Classic Rock. They failed miserably. In 1998 they tried to add new rock and still did lowsy. Rock fans had given up on WNEW long ago. By 1997 Infinity had merged with CBS. Late in 1998 WNEW laid off some of teh airstaff and brought on Opie & Anthony. Opie & Anthony were the only ones getting any ratings. They failed the rest of the day.
Then Fall 99 WNEW opted to go young talk. But they made a mistake. CBS/Infility opted to keep Hoawrd Stern on WXRK K Rock which was Active Rock by then rather than putting him on WNEW. With Stern and Opie & Anthony together on WNEW, they would have pulled a 3 share possibly. But instead WNEW continued to get 1 shares. Opie & Anthony continued to pull ratings.
This went on till 2002 when Opie & Anthony were blown out for misconduct. WNEW still hovered with a format noone was listening to into 2003.
The smart thing they should have done was either go Country, AC after Lite FM (and could have pulled a 2 to 3 share taking from WLTW's ratings pulling them down to a 3 or 4 share), or New York's Best Rock. But tehy stunt CHR for a couple months, then go to some Entertaniment format, then finally they go AC but then go Christmas for the Holidays. Teh AC and Christmas formats were the only smart things they did. Then after Christmas they evolve to a Dance format which they are holing on to today with low ratings.
So WNEW is a troubled station. A Jack format there would have been right...at least an imrpovement over what they are now. But no they have to put Jack on a station with good ratings taht is still billing well. The nonsense at WNEW has now spread to CBS FM. The one bad fruit is spoiling the other ones. K Rock is another issue. Theya re already toying with the idea of blowing them up after Howard Stern leaves. My opinion prior to The Jack stuff at CBS FM would have been to keep K Rock an Active Rock format and seeing how it will fare with Stern gone. But i predict a few fumbles at K Rock will occur.
Now CBS has 2 low rated FM stations and one that is mediocre at this point but that will change as well. One prediction I make is that this time next year CBS will have 3 poorly performing FM stations.
Actually I never though I would say this but CBS seems to have done more damage in the past few years then Clear Channel would even think of doing.
Clear Channel may use too much automation but I can say they make smart decisions with their stations most of the time. Once in a while they make a bad call (like WNNJ AM 1360 back in 2002 with "Deer Country"...though their Easy Listening FOrmat was no longer selling...but Chris Debello did a dynamic show on that format...sadly they could not sell their MOR Easy format...Country failed). But so does any company. But Clear Channel corrected the situation by putting on a very well programmed Oldies format on WNNJ. I have to say that 1360 WNNJ sounds excellent As do all their stations. Clear Channel at least has alot of smarts. They know what works.
Now CBS/Infinity should be hanging their heads in shame. They took 2 perfectly good radio stations and made a mess out of them (though Westinghouse started WNEW's failures...) With WNEW its been 9 out of 10 years of just stupid decisions. With CBS FM it was alot of little things in the last several years...but at least CBS FM was sounding good (though personality was not what it used to be and the music rotation boored me in the past 2 and a half years)...still their decisions though not quite my tastes were well though out. Until June 3, 2005.
I believe when Al Brady discussed his feelings about what happened at WABC he was right for the most part. He even stated no broadcaster wants to fail...they all try to do what is right. Well I beleiev that too with the exception on CBS/Infinity New York.
I will say if A Mom & Pop owner owned CBS FM and WNEW and they were their only 2 stations you can bet they would make money and do well. The livelihood of the owners would rest upon it. But even if these two stations lose money Infinity/CBS have deep pockets. Still if Clear Channel had these 2 stations they would be in better shape than they are now. Clear Channel would not AND DOES NOT tolerate incompetence.
Actually the bug began at Westinghouse back in 1995. AT that time CBS only had WCBS 88, WCBS FM 101.1. Infinity had 66 WFAN and 92.3 K Rock. Westinghouse had WNEW 102.7 and 1010 WINS.
The nonsense began at WNEW. WNEW had been a Rock station blending Classic Rock and New ROck since way back when. Their only City competitor was WXRK K Rock playing Classic Rock. As a result WNEW FM (till December 1992..after that they weer WNEW being 1130 WNEW became WBBR). Did well in fact better than K Rock with the exception of Howard Stern.
WNEW though was slow with new rock. In December 1993 WNCN 104.3 became hard rocker WAXQ Q 104 playing alot of New Rock with a hard edge. This did take from WNEW but still they managed to pull 2 shares until the Summer of 1995.
By the Summer of 1995 Q 104 was playing alot of harder alternative music as Z 100 was a Pop ALternative leaning CHR. At that point WNEW made an honest format change to Alternative to give New York City a pure alternative choice in July 1995. Sadly though the format change was poorly executed and confusing. They had elements of triple A and Classic Rock mixed with Alternative. Their ratings immediately went below a 2 share.
In January 1996 CBS and Westinghouse completed the merger. This would put 1010 WINS and 88 WCBS in the same company. Then WNEW had a chance to redeem themselves that January in 1996. WXRK K Rock flipped to an alternative format with a hard lean abandoning Classic Rock. WNEW had the golden opportunity to go Classic Rock and get all the disenfranchised K Rock people. They would have at least gotten their numbers to a 2 share if not higher. But no they decided to flirt with a Modern Rock/Triple A/Classic Rock hybrid format confusing listeners. Then Q 104 was sold to Viacom (prior to merging with CBS in 2001) and Viacom flipped Q 104 to Classic Rock July 96. In 97 Chancellor would buy Q 104.
So WNEW kept this wierd format until the end of 1996 and then they too went Classic Rock. They failed miserably. In 1998 they tried to add new rock and still did lowsy. Rock fans had given up on WNEW long ago. By 1997 Infinity had merged with CBS. Late in 1998 WNEW laid off some of teh airstaff and brought on Opie & Anthony. Opie & Anthony were the only ones getting any ratings. They failed the rest of the day.
Then Fall 99 WNEW opted to go young talk. But they made a mistake. CBS/Infility opted to keep Hoawrd Stern on WXRK K Rock which was Active Rock by then rather than putting him on WNEW. With Stern and Opie & Anthony together on WNEW, they would have pulled a 3 share possibly. But instead WNEW continued to get 1 shares. Opie & Anthony continued to pull ratings.
This went on till 2002 when Opie & Anthony were blown out for misconduct. WNEW still hovered with a format noone was listening to into 2003.
The smart thing they should have done was either go Country, AC after Lite FM (and could have pulled a 2 to 3 share taking from WLTW's ratings pulling them down to a 3 or 4 share), or New York's Best Rock. But tehy stunt CHR for a couple months, then go to some Entertaniment format, then finally they go AC but then go Christmas for the Holidays. Teh AC and Christmas formats were the only smart things they did. Then after Christmas they evolve to a Dance format which they are holing on to today with low ratings.
So WNEW is a troubled station. A Jack format there would have been right...at least an imrpovement over what they are now. But no they have to put Jack on a station with good ratings taht is still billing well. The nonsense at WNEW has now spread to CBS FM. The one bad fruit is spoiling the other ones. K Rock is another issue. Theya re already toying with the idea of blowing them up after Howard Stern leaves. My opinion prior to The Jack stuff at CBS FM would have been to keep K Rock an Active Rock format and seeing how it will fare with Stern gone. But i predict a few fumbles at K Rock will occur.
Now CBS has 2 low rated FM stations and one that is mediocre at this point but that will change as well. One prediction I make is that this time next year CBS will have 3 poorly performing FM stations.
Actually I never though I would say this but CBS seems to have done more damage in the past few years then Clear Channel would even think of doing.
Clear Channel may use too much automation but I can say they make smart decisions with their stations most of the time. Once in a while they make a bad call (like WNNJ AM 1360 back in 2002 with "Deer Country"...though their Easy Listening FOrmat was no longer selling...but Chris Debello did a dynamic show on that format...sadly they could not sell their MOR Easy format...Country failed). But so does any company. But Clear Channel corrected the situation by putting on a very well programmed Oldies format on WNNJ. I have to say that 1360 WNNJ sounds excellent As do all their stations. Clear Channel at least has alot of smarts. They know what works.
Now CBS/Infinity should be hanging their heads in shame. They took 2 perfectly good radio stations and made a mess out of them (though Westinghouse started WNEW's failures...) With WNEW its been 9 out of 10 years of just stupid decisions. With CBS FM it was alot of little things in the last several years...but at least CBS FM was sounding good (though personality was not what it used to be and the music rotation boored me in the past 2 and a half years)...still their decisions though not quite my tastes were well though out. Until June 3, 2005.
I believe when Al Brady discussed his feelings about what happened at WABC he was right for the most part. He even stated no broadcaster wants to fail...they all try to do what is right. Well I beleiev that too with the exception on CBS/Infinity New York.
I will say if A Mom & Pop owner owned CBS FM and WNEW and they were their only 2 stations you can bet they would make money and do well. The livelihood of the owners would rest upon it. But even if these two stations lose money Infinity/CBS have deep pockets. Still if Clear Channel had these 2 stations they would be in better shape than they are now. Clear Channel would not AND DOES NOT tolerate incompetence.