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Christmas comes to Lafayette and South Bend

A

Apollo7979

It looks like North Pole Radio is back on WSSM/WSMM, 97.7 & 102.3 The Stream, in South Bend as well as WSHP, 95.7 The Rocket, in Lafayette.

The Stream made the move earlier this week while The Rocket flipped today.

I'm hearing speculation whether The Rocket's classic rock format will return in the New Year. Then again, a newspaper article was written during last year's North Pole Radio stunt that promised a new format for the station, which was the reason why Bob & Tom was dropped from the station. That format was active rock and lasted just shy of 3 weeks before reverting back to classic rock.

While I like Dial Global's classic rock format on WSHP, it can also be heard fairly well in Lafayette on Crawfordsville's Thunder 103.9. The market needs a shake up. There are two big format holes in the market...AC and talk. It would be nice to see one or the other on 95.7, but something completely different would be welcome as well.
 
That's where my money's at since that's more or less what they did last year.

I've always wondered if they ever realized that a station whose tower is a mere 19 miles away was running the exact same satellite network. There's plenty of classic rock 24/7 network choices out there--3 others under Dial Global. It never made much sense to air DG Total's Classic Rock since there's so much signal overlap between the two stations around Lafayette. You'd think they'd want to differentiate themselves from the competition.
 
Dial Global has 3 service tiers...local, total, and custom.

Total is your standard 24/7 format with magic calls and timed records with a hard ID break at the top of the hour. Total offers Classic Rock and Classic Hits (which by the way is classic rock lite, not today's version of oldies. The format is also very well done).

Local is the old Waitt Radio Networks service with Storq automation. This service utilizes voicetracks to localize your station. Depending on how much cash or barter your station decides to shell out determines how many local DJ breaks and weather breaks your station will get from this service. Local also has a floating clock so IDs won't fall at :59:52 every hour and timed records, if your station decides not to break, aren't exactly 3:30 or 4 minutes in length. In addition, breaks don't have to be a set time. You can run 3 minute breaks or 5 minute breaks without a problem. Classic rock offerings include Genuine Classic Rock (which is run on 94.9 K-Rock in Danville, IL) and Rock 2.0 (an updated version of classic rock that centers on 80s and 90s classic rock--think the old Extra 99.1 in Champaign).

Finally, Custom is a music log and imaging service. You choose from one of the 24 format options, and they supply the music logs. Each station is responsible for the DJs, liner placements, imaging (although they will voice them), hourly clocks, etc. Rock options include Heritage Rock, Active Rock, Mainstream Rock, Alternative Rock, Classic Rock, Adult Rock/AAA, and Heart of Rock.
 
The Rocket has an ad looking for an Afternoon Drive Rock Jock.
 
Are you referring to their online stream page? That's a hold over from last year when they dipped their feet into active rock before dropping the idea and going back to CR.

They're back to classic rock using the exact same Dial Global format that can also be heard on Thunder 103.9 in Crawfordsville, which comes in pretty well in Lafayette.

This leads me to another question...Why is Forcht Broadcasting fine with this arrangement? There's a lot of signal crossover between these two stations, which has to create audience erosion in WIMC's northern and western coverage areas not to mention confusion that these two stations are simulcasting from advertisers, which I suppose could be a good or a bad thing depending on the company. I had a similar situation happen to me when I was a PD. The company I worked for was protecting Jones' Good Time Oldies format by clearing net spots for some reason. When I found out another station closeby was using the same format, I complained and got two CD libraries, an option for their harddrive format service or another 24/7 format (which we didn't take), and no longer had to clear the spots from GTO.
 
Talk to the FCC. Only City of License is protected in an FCC ruling on Networks back to the late 1960's.
I forget which is which as Artie and crew have so many changes but the one North of Lafayette (Brookston?) would have no protection even in 60 dbu signal overlap in Crawfordsville. While Brookston and Attica are both claiming Lafayette signals, they ahve poor coverage. Even WAZY ahs had problems for years at 50 kw with signal penetration.
 
WSHP is licensed to Attica, and their tower is co-located with WAZY in New Greenhill, which is in northeastern Warren County.

I understand the FCC rules regarding this, and I'm not arguing that. It just seems like a bad business decision on all sides to have the same format utilized on two stations that are less than 20 miles apart from each other. Artistic could have researched a little better to determine what nearby classic rock stations utilized what services so their programming was different from their competitors. I realize Thunder is nothing more than a blip in the Lafayette ratings, but they're there, and the station markets in Lafayette in addition to Montgomery County. Also, the DG sales rep could have warned AMP that there was a station down 231 that was using the same format they wanted and could have tried to offer an alternate choice. DG, afterall offers many different classic rock choices on their Local and Custom tiers that would have, if executed correctly, made the Denver jocks sound local on The Rocket. On the flip side, Crawfordsville should have been notified about the affiliation up in Lafayette and given the option to change to a different service or stay as-is. Maybe this happened, maybe it didn't, but from an agency sales point of view, Artistic stands the chance to lose listeners and ad dollars due to Thunder 103.9 eating away at their listenership in southern Tippecanoe County due to Thunder 103.9's stronger signal. Then again, going to a female-targeted Christmas format on WSHP for 6 weeks, then going back to male-targeted classic rock probably didn't help matters for them either.
 
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