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Christmas 2021 in Atlanta

I don't think it is worth discussing the possibility of B98.5 going "All-Christmas". They will on Christmas Eve and that will be it. Period.

There are a lot of cowards in the Atlanta market when it comes to this part of the year. "Billing, ads...."blah blah blah is my response to it.

Markets comparative to Atlanta have stations that go all-Christmas. Atlanta *can be* a no exception. There are just cowards.

Star 94.1 went Christmas back in 2019 and they did quite well. iHeart flipping all Christmas on a low FM signal in 96.7 is a joke. Why didn't they put it on the stronger of the three (96.7/105.3/105.7)?

With the strong possibility of 96.7 going AC or Soft AC on December 26th or later, is a nothing burger. It can barely be heard throughout the greater ATL. It is time for Audacy to make a move and flip 94.1 or 103.3. Audacy made a huge mistake in not filling out the AC hole when corporate *tweaked* 94.1. I am sure there would have higher ratings if a Talk Station would replace it. In other words, there are too many of the same formats in the market and it's getting ridiculous.

Y'all can gripe and complain that I don't get the market because of money and ads and Atlanta is such a unique market. Who cares? This market takes music format choices too seriously and can't take the "it's a risk and we will take it" type of personality. And this is why we have these never-ending discussions.
 
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Alex4490 said:
Y'all can gripe and complain that I don't get the market because of money and ads and Atlanta is such a unique market. Who cares? This market takes music format choices too seriously and can't take the "it's a risk and we will take it" type of personality. And this is why we have these never-ending discussions.
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I don't think that's exclusive to Atlanta. The big companies do not take a risk in any market. Only small privately-held companies with smaller signals do something different, and that's because they have to.
 
Alex4490 said:
Markets comparative to Atlanta have stations that go all-Christmas. Atlanta *can be* a no exception. There are just cowards.
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There is only one station, among the full-market signals in the market today other than WFSH who might be considered to go all-Christmas. That's WSB-FM.
Focus on them. Tell me why WSB-FM would benefit from being all-Christmas.

Alex4490 said:
With the strong possibility of 96.7 going AC or Soft AC on December 26th or later, is a nothing burger. It can barely be heard throughout the greater ATL. It is time for Audacy to make a move and flip 94.1 or 103.3. Audacy made a huge mistake in not filling out the AC hole when corporate *tweaked* 94.1. I am sure there would have higher ratings if a Talk Station would replace it. In other words, there are too many of the same formats in the market and it's getting ridiculous.
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Maybe I'm getting senile, but I recall WSTR had been serving the "AC hole" for years and years with only putrid ratings to show for it.
 
PTBoardOp94 said:
There is only one station, among the full-market signals in the market today other than WFSH who might be considered to go all-Christmas. That's WSB-FM.
Focus on them. Tell me why WSB-FM would benefit from being all-Christmas.


Maybe I'm getting senile, but I recall WSTR had been serving the "AC hole" for years and years with only putrid ratings to show for it.
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WSB-FM (B98.5) used to go all Christmas, and it both helped and hurt them. It helped because ratings were sky high, and it hurt because many listeners who left during Christmas music did not return in January. So they made a decision to go partially Christmas, and it's been working for them, basically because there's almost no place else to go for Christmas music.

The strategy would not work if there were another all-Christmas station, but WSB-FM and their listeners apparently don't perceive 104.7 The Fish as direct Christmas competition. Based on last year's playlist, I saw very little difference between the Fish and WSB-FM; the Fish's playlist seemed to have become more secular than in previous years.

Star 94 was not an AC station. For many years including their heyday, Star was Adult Top 40. Then around maybe 8 or so years ago, they segued to Hot AC, and the difference between Adult Top 40 and Hot AC is barely noticeable. I'm not sure their Rhythmic AC format is going to get them the ratings and revenue commensurate with that big signal, but that's another story for another thread.
 
RoddyFreeman said:
Star 94 was not an AC station. For many years including their heyday, Star was Adult Top 40. Then around maybe 8 or so years ago, they segued to Hot AC, and the difference between Adult Top 40 and Hot AC is barely noticeable. I'm not sure their Rhythmic AC format is going to get them the ratings and revenue commensurate with that big signal, but that's another story for another thread.
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Agreed. I've never known a time when 94.1 (either Star or WQXI-FM 94Q) was anything softer than Hot AC or Adult Top 40 in the last 45-50 years. If you go WAY back to the WKXI days, they did have a time when they were BM/EZ, like most of the Atlanta FM dial at the time. But they've never been Soft AC or Mainstream AC.

94Q/Star has had times when they were hotter than they are now (simulcasting Top 40 Quixie 790, their late-70s "Rock 40" format combining rock hits with AOR, and their time as the only CHR-ish station in the market after Power 99 flipped to 99X).
 
Until Power came on the scene, especially in the early 2010s, Power and Q seemed to be in a back and forth fight with a Hot AC’ish/Adult CHR format on each. It seemed around the late 00s through the mid 2010s Star was more worried about Q than B98.5, then after Power came on the scene they tried to fight it out with B98.5.
 
I’ve always gauged Star 94’s last flip to Hot AC as being in October 2010 when they stopped carrying the CHR version of AT40 and moved to the Hot AC version. Then they changed their moniker to “You’re Life, You’re Music.” And “Today’s Hits - Without the Rap.”
 
RadioDoogie said:
I’ve always gauged Star 94’s last flip to Hot AC as being in October 2010 when they stopped carrying the CHR version of AT40 and moved to the Hot AC version. Then they changed their moniker to “You’re Life, You’re Music.” And “Today’s Hits - Without the Rap.”
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That was around the time they really started to take on Q100. Around that time, Q100 stopped playing a lot of top 40 hits that were hip hop or rap even if it was in the top 10. I remember the debate over a Nicki Minaj song that was #1 on CHR for weeks that Q avoided due to the genre.
 
101tm said:
That was around the time they really started to take on Q100. Around that time, Q100 stopped playing a lot of top 40 hits that were hip hop or rap even if it was in the top 10. I remember the debate over a Nicki Minaj song that was #1 on CHR for weeks that Q avoided due to the genre.
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"Super Bass" only peaked at #3 on the format. WWWQ and all the other Cumulus owned Top 40 stations would eventually add the song by the time it was #4 on CHR, but I'm not sure how much they actually played the song.
 
jt99 said:
"Super Bass" only peaked at #3 on the format. WWWQ and all the other Cumulus owned Top 40 stations would eventually add the song by the time it was #4 on CHR, but I'm not sure how much they actually played the song.
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Ah yeah, that was the one. Still, the reason for a top 5 CHR hit to be completely ignored made absolutely no sense at the time and still doesn’t.

Go figure, today’s Q99.7 (which is programmed much better than 2011) has played it as a gold track frequently.
 
RadioDoogie said:
I’ve always gauged Star 94’s last flip to Hot AC as being in October 2010 when they stopped carrying the CHR version of AT40 and moved to the Hot AC version. Then they changed their moniker to “You’re Life, You’re Music.” And “Today’s Hits - Without the Rap.”
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You're correct, Mr. Doogie. When Star went to Hot AC, I suppose the biggest difference from their Adult Top 40 format was an increase in recurrents.
 
Unless I was going crazy, last night (Sunday), around 6:45pm I was out to get our carry out order for dinner and Star was ALL Christmas. So I was like welp that's it... Expecting we'll get a format flip at the start of the new year. So then today, around 11am I was driving to my chiro appointment. And they were back to playing Macklemore, Michael Jackson and En Vogue. So maybe they're doing "All Christmas Weekends"? In fact now that I'm writing this something tells me they've done this before, with Christmas on the weekends only. 🤔 Any thoughts?
 
BTW, this is what happens when you voice-track so many stations and apparently lose what you're doing. I was listening to the stream of Christmas 96.7. The jock promoted the "Jingle Ball" and the way to win tickets was to "Go to Power 96 dot com slash jingle ball." :rolleyes:

It's either that or someone at IHeart was lazy enough to not even put a page on the 96.7 website to try to win.
 
deejaywestbrook said:
Unless I was going crazy, last night (Sunday), around 6:45pm I was out to get our carry out order for dinner and Star was ALL Christmas. So I was like welp that's it... Expecting we'll get a format flip at the start of the new year. So then today, around 11am I was driving to my chiro appointment. And they were back to playing Macklemore, Michael Jackson and En Vogue. So maybe they're doing "All Christmas Weekends"? In fact now that I'm writing this something tells me they've done this before, with Christmas on the weekends only. 🤔 Any thoughts?
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You'll be happy to know you weren't going crazy. Star 94 is all Christmas on weekends.
 
AMRocks said:
BTW, this is what happens when you voice-track so many stations and apparently lose what you're doing. I was listening to the stream of Christmas 96.7. The jock promoted the "Jingle Ball" and the way to win tickets was to "Go to Power 96 dot com slash jingle ball." :rolleyes:

It's either that or someone at IHeart was lazy enough to not even put a page on the 96.7 website to try to win.
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They are also promoting the concert on 105.3 The Beat mentioning Power’s website. Must be a corporate thing to cross promote
 
With 96.7 now stunting and being split from the 105.7 simulcast, it makes me wonder if 105.7’s time could be running out? Their ratings are amongst the lowest iHeart has had for a Spanish language format (or either 105s) since they started it on 105.3 and 105.7 in the mid-2000s. I know it’s a different format, but 107.1/102.3 seems to have pulled ahead of them in the Spanish language arena.
 
Put the Breeze or an AC station on 105.7 and voilà, Atlanta radio is GREAT again.
Can we start a hashtag trend #MARGA (Make Atlanta Radio Great Again)
Well, I am and starting it now.
 
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