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Christmas 2021 in Atlanta

Alex4490 said:
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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Since the country format seems to be in a lull, why not move the Bull to 105.3 and put the Breeze (or an AC format) on 94.9, the original dial location for the successful Lite-FM.

To this day, I have never figured out why iHeart (formerly Clear Channel) thought it was a good idea to punt "Lite" in favor of a country format station. If I remember correctly, Lite 94.9 was getting decent numbers, maybe not stellar, but decent. To be fair, the Bull has held its own nicely over the past 15 years but were their ratings better than an AC could have been? Regardless, the abrupt format flip from AC==>Country one week prior to Christmas remains legendary.

Everything in life moves in cycles. Radio is no different. Maybe ATL will see AC rise again....
 
I don't see iHeart conceding the country war to Cumulus, especially since they have the upper hand overall on a local and national basis. They've invested enough in The Bull and taking Kicks/New County 101-Five down to its knees to justify a lower ratings period while the format comes back. 105.3 would be a massive downgrade signal wise and would hand listeners to 101-Five just by making that move alone.

Looking back....considering the mess rock became on 96.1, what if it had been blown up for country instead of 94.9, and rock had merged on 105.3 instead of 96.1? Would Lite still be with us today? Clear Channel Atlanta was quite the clown show back in 2004-2006.

I feel like part of the problem iHM has in Atlanta is that they don't really have a strong performing station ratings wise. None of them ever crack the top 5, and the cluster seems to lack a strategy. Atlanta has been a difficult market for them compared to other top markets. That's why I was asking in the other thread if 105.7 could be in trouble considering the tanking ratings there.
 
I think Clear Channel saw an opening for country with the demise of Eagle 106.7.
 
Clear Channel also had 2 country stations for a short while, they ran classic country on 96.7 in the late 00s as WWLG “96.7 The Legend.”
 
jabba17 said:
I think Clear Channel saw an opening for country with the demise of Eagle 106.7.
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Eagle 106.7 was still a country station when 94.9 The Bull signed on. For years, ABC used 106.7 as a flanker whose purpose was to protect 101.5 and discourage another station from going country.

Eagle changed formats when Citadel CEO Farid Suleman came to town and couldn't understand why they had 2 country stations in the same market.
 
RoddyFreeman said:
Eagle 106.7 was still a country station when 94.9 The Bull signed on. For years, ABC used 106.7 as a flanker whose purpose was to protect 101.5 and discourage another station from going country.

Eagle changed formats when Citadel CEO Farid Suleman came to town and couldn't understand why they had 2 country stations in the same market.
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WKHX still got a reasonable market share back then. It was a mid-range station ratings wise. I think iHeart just wanted a country station in a large/top 10 southern market and was willing to bite the bullet and not play Cumulus’s game with WYAY. Cumulus later on had more markets after the Citadel acquisition (Dallas with KPLX and KSCS, Nashville with WSM-FM and WKDF) but things at one point just fell apart and The Bull pulled ahead.

Country isn’t doing great right now, especially country stations that are heavy on new material. However, Cumulus and to an extent Audacy seem to be struggling greatly with the format in larger markets. iHeart hasn’t fared quite as poorly as country is one of their strongest formats programming wise.
 
101tm said:
I don't see iHeart conceding the country war to Cumulus, especially since they have the upper hand overall on a local and national basis. They've invested enough in The Bull and taking Kicks/New County 101-Five down to its knees to justify a lower ratings period while the format comes back. 105.3 would be a massive downgrade signal wise and would hand listeners to 101-Five just by making that move alone.

Looking back....considering the mess rock became on 96.1, what if it had been blown up for country instead of 94.9, and rock had merged on 105.3 instead of 96.1? Would Lite still be with us today? Clear Channel Atlanta was quite the clown show back in 2004-2006.

I feel like part of the problem iHM has in Atlanta is that they don't really have a strong performing station ratings wise. None of them ever crack the top 5, and the cluster seems to lack a strategy. Atlanta has been a difficult market for them compared to other top markets. That's why I was asking in the other thread if 105.7 could be in trouble considering the tanking ratings there.
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Y’all mustn’t forget that iHeart Media does own other radio frequencies in the metropolitan Atlanta market and no one has yet to mention these either. 😊 There could be changes forthcoming that y’all aren’t even considering, more or less even anticipating happening soon enough in the next 14 days or less and counting. 😉 🤣 🤪
 
Kidd Casio said:
Y’all mustn’t forget that iHeart Media does own other radio frequencies in the metropolitan Atlanta market and no one has yet to mention these either. 😊 There could be changes forthcoming that y’all aren’t even considering, more or less even anticipating happening soon enough in the next 14 days or less and counting. 😉 🤣 🤪
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101tm mentioned all of iHM's marketwide FMs (94.9, 96.1, 105.3, 105.7). Are changes coming to 640 WBIN (fka WGST)?
 
jabba17 said:
101tm mentioned all of iHM's marketwide FMs (94.9, 96.1, 105.3, 105.7). Are changes coming to 640 WBIN (fka WGST)?
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I think BIN will be on 640 as long as it’s around considering it is essentially the flagship. If BIN grows and adds more programming I could see them acquiring a translator that targets the more urban parts of the city.

Power and The Bull aren’t going anywhere, I don’t think they’re going to pull the plug on 105.3 right now, if anything changes after Christmas that’s definite it’s 96.7 which is currently stunting. After that I would say 105.7 is most likely.
 
101tm said:
I think BIN will be on 640 as long as it’s around considering it is essentially the flagship. If BIN grows and adds more programming I could see them acquiring a translator that targets the more urban parts of the city.

Power and The Bull aren’t going anywhere, I don’t think they’re going to pull the plug on 105.3 right now, if anything changes after Christmas that’s definite it’s 96.7 which is currently stunting. After that I would say 105.7 is most likely.
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Is that so? This is just your personal opinion. We understand. Well, y’all will just have to wait and see…🤐😉Quite a few changes forthcoming to the Atlanta radio market very soon.
 
Z105.7’s ratings are dismal. iHeart hasn’t been able to make the Spanish language format work in Atlanta since the late 2000s. If they want to compete with Davis, they should put El Patron on 105.7. A class A on the south side of town likely running non local programming doesn’t have a chance with the 2 107.1’s/102.3 veing run locally and being established with the community.

96.7 isn’t even an idea signal for regional Mexican unless it’s thrown in as a simulcast. All I can think is they want something they can package for sales purposes, or maybe changes are coming to 105.7. The two Spanish stations did well for iHeart from around 2005-2008 but it seemed to fall apart after that by the time Groove came around.
 
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radioislife2020 said:
Station will launch as el patron with a new effort to make regional Mexican work .
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101tm said:
96.7 will likely be switching to a different Spanish format. iHeart never succeeds but they don’t give up, do they?

https://www.lapreciosa967.com registered by iHeart
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Lol Y’all are hilarious. Where do you get this stuff?!!! If you just look at the current Christmas967.iHeart.com, we already give hints of who the new D.J.s are gonna be for the new 96.7 branding. Hint. Hint. Valentine In the Morning has even been signed to a new syndication contract with the new forthcoming 96.7 branding🤣 😝
 
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radioislife2020 said:
Station will launch as el patron with a new effort to make regional Mexican work .
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The domain you mention was registered by Clear Channel / iHeart Media in 2007 for another market outside of Atlanta, GA and even Georgia period. It’s kind of funny how you think this is a hint of a different format, than the hints already being dropped as promos on the radio airwaves as well as displayed presently on Christmas967.iHeart.com. 🤣
 
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AMFMRadFan said:
TGC Radio in Athens, despite being an Internet-only radio station, will be flipping to Christmas music Sunday 11/14/2021. They'll be playing Christmas music all the way through 12/25 Christmas Day Night at 11:59 PM into 12:00 AM (12 Midnight) on the morning of 12/26. They're calling it TGC's Magical Musical Christmas and like last year in 2020, the show Georgia Gold Saturday Night with Ron Parker will continue with its usual oldies & classic hits rotation. Other stations I'm monitoring: 107.7 The Breeze/AM 1450 WCON-AM/W299AT-FM in Cornelia and The Peach Radio in Atlanta. 107.7 The Breeze & The Peach Radio have not yet announced whether or not they'll be flipping to Christmas music this year. Why am I monitoring The Peach Radio? The reason is because back when we had EZ Peach Radio, they flipped to Christmas music for 2 years in a row. The 1st time they played Christmas music, IIRC, they played Robert Goulet's rendition of "I'll Be Home For Christmas". Since the company that owned EZ Peach Radio also owns the still existing radio station WEZI EZ Radio up in Memphis, TN, you can take it to the bank that WEZI EZ Radio will definitely flip to Christmas music. The way they do it is they play the music and they have 1 guy do the liners for the station at Christmastime. I don't know his name but if you tune into WEZI EZ Radio, you won't hear the normal DJs that are on their team doing the liners like you normally would during the regular time of the year. You won't hear Steve Goss. You won't hear anyone else on their team. No, you will NOT hear Jeff Laurence doing the liners. The unknown guy who did one of the liners on EZ Peach Radio at Christmastime always ended with "Merry Christmas from Peach!" If WEZI EZ Radio uses the same unknown guy that was used for EZ Peach Radio for their Christmastime liners, one of those liners may end with either "Merry Christmas from WEZI!" or "Merry Christmas from WEZI EZ Radio!" Could something like that be in the works for The Peach Radio, the EASY hits WITHOUT the pits station? I don't know. It's possible. The whole WEZI EZ Radio stuff is based off of speculation. Anyway, that is all.
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Hi everyone! I apologize for not keeping everyone posted on what's been happening with 107.7 The Breeze & The Peach Radio. Throughout this season, 107.7 The Breeze/AM 1450 WCON-AM/W299AT-FM in Cornelia went all Christmas. WEZI EZ Radio in Memphis, TN kept on going with their regular time of the year format with Christmas music mixed into the rotation. As for The Peach Radio, they went down the same path WEZI EZ Radio went and even Biltmore Radio went down the same path as well. From my observation, if you're going to keep your regular time of the year format going and you're going to mix Christmas music into your rotation, PLEASE move to South Florida such as Naples, Miami, and the Florida Keys & Key West. I say this because Christian radio station Z88.3 WPOZ-FM in Orlando went all Christmas. We here in Atlanta & North Georgia keep going year to year getting spoiled by radio stations flipping to all Christmas. We had a snowy white Christmas in 2010 and the folks in the Tallahassee, FL/Thomasville, GA/Valdosta, GA area had a clipper system deliver them a white Christmas back in 1993. The snow was confined to that media market. Not too long before that, that same system delivered snow to Jackson, MS. The company that owns The Peach Radio, Biltmore Radio, & TGC Radio owns an oldies & classic hits station in Deerfield Beach, FL/Boca Raton, FL called CV Radio (Century Village Radio). Did they flip to all Christmas? I doubt it because oldies & classic hits stations never flip to all Christmas by design. Country music, hip-hop, mainstream rock, R&B, and urban CHR stations are the same way. Smooth Jazz 101/Smooth Jazz 100/Smooth Jazz 96/101.1-100.1-96.5 FM/1310 AM WJZA-AM/W243EE-FM/W266BW-FM/WNSY-FM flipped to all Christmas this year but not all smooth jazz stations go all Christmas. Most of them usually only go all Christmas on just Christmas Eve & Christmas Day of every year. Now for those of you who want Christmas music delivered to you in beautiful music/easy listening form, you can listen to WBEZ EASY CHRISTMAS radio out of Glasgow, KY. They're Internet only just like WEZI EZ Radio & The Peach Radio are. WBEZ EASY CHRISTMAS' parent station WBEZ EASY 92 maintains their regular time of the year format all year round while WBEZ EASY CHRISTMAS plays Christmas music all year round. To listen online to WBEZ EASY 92, you can go to https://www.radionomy.com/en/radio/wbez/index. As for WBEZ EASY CHRISTMAS, you can listen online to them by going to https://www.radionomy.com/en/radio/wbezchristmas. I apologize for this being a lengthy post. Anyway, that is all. Merry Christmas on this Christmas Eve 12/24/2021.
 
radioislife2020 said:
It’s been published by a few pages
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Well, that’s interesting. I can tell you unless something is officially being reported by iHeart Media or being reported as confirmed by iHeart Media, it’s highly likely this is false information and just best for one not to jump to conclusions or continue to misreport these stories. Do you care to kindly share some of these sources? Thank you. Happy Holidays! Merry Christmas!🎄 Happy Hanukkah! 🕎
 
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