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Confirmed: Rock 104 Is Going Country!

Oh, no—I'll be out of town this weekend. I didn't even consider the possibility of country. Is it true "that the biggest growth in the country music audience is among 18- to 24-year-olds"?
 
"Gainesville's Only Country station" LICENSED to Gainesville maybe....

But, WOGK and WTRS can be heard IN Gainesville just fine, and that's all that matters.

Stupid.
 
ThatGuyOnTheRadio said:
"Gainesville's Only Country station" LICENSED to Gainesville maybe....

But, WOGK and WTRS can be heard IN Gainesville just fine, and that's all that matters.

Stupid.
Click to expand...

WTRS has a poor signal in Gainesville, so maybe WRUF figures that they can pull numbers from WOGK in the Gainesville market similar to what WTRS is doing in Marion County. Of course, they fail to note that the majority of listeners to the format live in Marion county where WRUF has a marginal signal. Sounds like an overpaid consultant from out of town is calling the shots, and rather poorly, IMHO.
 
Rock 104 will live on online at rock104.com.

Yeah, that'll last. Lemme go check 96wave.com real quick. Oh shi-.....

G
 
upstate29651 said:
Rock 104 will live on online at rock104.com.

Yeah, that'll last. Lemme go check 96wave.com real quick. Oh shi-.....

G
Click to expand...

HA!!
 
Okay, let me quote myself from September 27 on the "Rock 104 and Lex & Terry" thread below... "They can go after any segment they want in that market because they have the signal, the time and the money to do it. Even Country--a great cultural match, frankly, but unlikely given the crap they'd take for doing so within the Big U (and a tougher road given the competition, as well)."

A much tougher road.

WOGK has the signal WRUF wishes it had. Instead, 103.7's signal is a rough equivalent to the 102.3/WTRS signal (in reverse, actually--with weak coverage of Ocala similar to TRS's weak coverage of Gainesville). And signals matter. Coverage matters.

It matters enough that "The Gator" will play hell ever wrestling the Country format leadership away from 93.7. Frankly, their first task will be wrestling the #2 Country spot away from WTRS, because reality is that they will start out with zero audience--like every station that ever flips formats. So they start out with zero audience and near-zero sales revenue (some clients will stick around because of AE relationships--and a few will buy into their "new & exciting" pitch).

But very few advertisers buy a "pig in a poke" (something unproven)--and even fewer ever buy two-deep in a format (compare WTRS billling to WOGK billing)... and almost never buy three-deep in a format.

And Dix is pretty good. K-Country is pretty good. WTRS ain't bad. Three years from now, WOGK will be running along at #1 in the market with around an 8 share, slightly down, but still on top... 103.7 will still have a 4 or 5 share, hanging around at #5 or #6 as usual... and WTRS will--well, they kind of become the wild card.

I wish my friends at UF the very best. But I sure wouldn't want to put any of my own money on this call. There were several other much better options.
 
So, let me get this straight:

Gainesville, a college town with a student body of roughly 50,000 and a support population of twice that... will not have its own rock format station...

Is this really the way things are now in Hogtown? If true that's a big niche waiting to be filled, if someone could do it right.

I will say that, to the best of my knowledge, country has always done pretty well financially there.

Kind Regards,
David
Born, raised, and played lots of rock music on the radio in Gainesville.
 
David, Gainesville still has 100.5 The Buzz. It's now the only rock station in the market... good for them.

Look for the Buzz to really clean up it's image too.
 
David Reaves said:
So, let me get this straight:

Gainesville, a college town with a student body of roughly 50,000 and a support population of twice that... will not have its own rock format station...

Is this really the way things are now in Hogtown? If true that's a big niche waiting to be filled, if someone could do it right.

I will say that, to the best of my knowledge, country has always done pretty well financially there.

Kind Regards,
David
Born, raised, and played lots of rock music on the radio in Gainesville.
Click to expand...

Well, Dave, we have WHHZ, (The Buzz), a Newberry C2 with a transmitter located deep into Gilchrist county, about 30 miles west of Gainesville. It's true that this is a good opportunity for them to make some gains, but as a C2 with a transmitter so far out of town, they probably will still not make a huge gain, though I used to think the same about Magi 101.3. So, I suppose that proves that people will listen through static if you are playing what they want to hear.
 
All I want for Christmas is a Rock 104 shirt so I can wipe my tears all over it. Seriously, the Buzz is going to serve Gainesville? Can you pick up 98 Rock, 101 JRR or Rock 1045 in Gainesville? :(
 
vadar said:
All I want for Christmas is a Rock 104 shirt so I can wipe my tears all over it. Seriously, the Buzz is going to serve Gainesville? Can you pick up 98 Rock, 101 JRR or Rock 1045 in Gainesville? :(
Click to expand...

Rock 1045 and X1029 have an iffy signal in Gainesville...but its there.

Radio-X
 
vadar said:
All I want for Christmas is a Rock 104 shirt so I can wipe my tears all over it. Seriously, the Buzz is going to serve Gainesville? Can you pick up 98 Rock, 101 JRR or Rock 1045 in Gainesville? :(
Click to expand...


WHHZ puts a 60dBu service contour almost right down 13th Street, so the signal ain't great, but it's about 12 dB better than any of the Jacksonville stations have, which makes WHHZ viable, but not any of the Jax properties.
 
Kmagrill said:
So, I suppose that proves that people will listen through static if you are playing what they want to hear.
Click to expand...

As an old timer I had to laugh at that. It wasnt THAT long ago when us teenage rock and roller junkies got our fix tuning through the AM static to hear WABC, WLS, WCFL, WBZ at night and the rockers in the local big cities (I lived out in the boonies) during the day because, as you say, they were playing what we wanted to hear! :D So now they may have to put up with a little fade and multi-path as they drive through the concrete jungle-boo hoo!
 
Nostalgia said:
Kmagrill said:
So, I suppose that proves that people will listen through static if you are playing what they want to hear.
Click to expand...

As an old timer I had to laugh at that. It wasnt THAT long ago when us teenage rock and roller junkies got our fix tuning through the AM static to hear WABC, WLS, WCFL, WBZ at night and the rockers in the local big cities (I lived out in the boonies) during the day because, as you say, they were playing what we wanted to hear! :D So now they may have to put up with a little fade and multi-path as they drive through the concrete jungle-boo hoo!
Click to expand...

ABSOLUTELY! In the "old days" of Top 40 AM radio it was always common to listen to static in the background as it was the music content that influenced me, as a young teen, to listen to the radio in the first place.
 
Gainesville: Consider yourself fortunate! At least one rock station services the area! In my hometown (college town in VA about 60 mi from any civilization) we had a class B AC that interfered all over town, a class A country station, and a class A classic rocker run by a reclusive hippie (think authentic progressive rock radio...circa 1975 or so).

If we wanted rock, you had to buy a external TV antenna and pick up iffy signals from WRXL/Richmond or WROV/Roanoke. And forget about getting any distant signals in downtown! FM was dominated by this class B that bled through EVERYTHING!

I will miss Rock 104 if this goes down. Good active rocker and always made a point of listening from Jax-Daytona while driving on 95. And a pretty easy catch on good DX conditions. Got it as far north as Hilton Head and regularly picked it up in Orlando.

Radio-X
 
Gainesville actually has two remaining rock stations - WHHZ 100.5 The Buzz (Alternative) and Wind-FM 92.5/95.5/107.9 (Classic Rock). However there is no Active Rocker now that Rock 104 is now Country 103.7, The Gator.
 
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