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Cumulus is rumored to be launching a nationwide Country station

P

Poledo

Cumulus just entered New York City with the only country format on the dial (I know, it's hard to imagine a radio dial with less than six country stations). Anyway the new NYC station is branded as "NASH-FM" and rumors are abound that the Dickies plan to roll this national format out to all of their currently owned country stations.

The question? Is Cumulus stupid enough to kill Country 105.5 and WXBM only to place country programming originating from NYC on the top stations in FWB and Pensacola... not to mention all the other top rated country stations Cumulus owns in Dixie?
 
Any idea on a timeline or markets? IMHO switching top Country stations down here on the coast or even ones in Montgomery, Albany, Atlanta, etc to something programmed by Yankees would be one of the worst moves ever in corporate radio. I have no knowledge of any mediocre country stations owned by Cums in Dixie.

Obviously if the hope the country format survives in NYC they won't be running and programming it out of Cumulus' Atlanta headquarters. Heck, we don't even speak the same language that those New Yorkers speak down here.

The only exception to this would be any Cumulus owned stations south of Tampa/Orlando. Those folks just might understand NYC country.
 
http://radio-and-media-news.blogspot.com/2013/01/cumulus-debuts-nash-fm-at-nycs-947-fm.html

UPDATE: Cumulus has now confirmed that "Nash FM 94.7" will soon have the WNSH call letters, and that the new brand will indeed be a national one. Cumulus CEO Lew Dickey says the company plans to build a network of "Nash" Cumulus stations and to launch a similarly-titled country lifestyle magazine, through Modern Luxury, the magazine company it operates. The company, says Dickey, is also exploring ways to bring the "Nash" country brand to cable television. Original radio content produced by Cumulus for the brand will also be sold to non-Cumulus stations under the "Nash" brand.
 
It's not really surprising. Local radio, at least as far as music goes, has been dead for a long time. Music makes stars on the national stage now, and regional hits are more or less a thing of the past as far as I know. Corporate chain radio just makes this spread across the nation a little faster, that's all. So it's hardly a surprise that someone is finally debuting a real national terrestrial brand for country music. It should have happened a long time ago.

Seriously, do you think there's songs on WXBM that don't get played on Chicago's WUSN? It's all the same. Only the voices are different. Usually. ;)

Now, unless they're talking about the actual playlists and ad breaks and whatnot being EXACTLY the same on each Nash FM, I don't see how this would be any different than the fact that SL-100 in Hattiesburg and 107.3 Hit Music Now in Pensacola play the same songs at the same time with only the commercials being different during some dayparts.

Personally I think Cumulus might've started the downhill trend when they ditched the live and local people on WXBM after the sale went through. It's the one station down here on my watch list to see if it gets this Nash FM treatment.

Country may not be a barn-burner in NYC but it'll give the format that little extra bit of clout that it's been missing without an affiliate in market #1. It'll certainly put Cumulus in a spot to try to bring some domination to this fiercely competitive format, if nothing else.
 
How lame. At least Country 105.5 sounded good. Now, what will we have? Bleh.

We do have way too many country stations, why don't they just relocate 102.7s stick eastward to cover this area, kill 105.5 (newstalk 105.5 WFTW-FM perhaps)

Easier said then done but it can be done. Does Mobile listen to WXBM??

RIP local radio..

-Rob
 
Just because they're re-branding it doesn't mean the programing will be from NY, it's all about being able to use the brand on the these non-traditional revenue sources like the magazine.
 
Easy part: Stations will get renamed and the branding will spread. The bigger stations will keep local shows at least in AM drive. Seeing that the Cumulus country stations almost all run the Kix Brooks overnight show, other national product will certainly run on most of the stations to some degree.

Hard part: Will they rebrand their country stations in major markets? (Atlanta, Indianapolis)? Will they move stations to country in markets where they don't have country but have several sticks? (Kansas City, Oklahoma City)? Will a national morning show be created to run on many (if not most) of the stations and be syndicated to non-Cumulus stations?
 
Everyone's out at WXBM... not just Linda? You mean Marty's out at WXBM too?
Down here you could almost always count on the voice on the big country station to be a live/local one. If something happens with weather or traffic, just flip over to WXBM and they'll tell you what's going on within 5-10 minutes.

The only phrase I liked in that article is "build a national network of Country stations"... hoping that implies already successful stations will be left alone and they'll use this format to launch Country in markets that Cumulus doesn't already own top rated Country stations. (I don't think anyone cares what they do with the 8PM-5AM time block though).

It seems like CHR and AC would be easier to "nationalize" than Country. If WXBM goes national Cumulus will be giving Pensacola to Cat Country, same in FWB, if they mess with 105.5 we'll finally see Highway 98.1 break ahead of the pack. Mobile is safe I think, I can't imagine CC neutering 95KSJ any further.... heck, 95KSJ probably brings in enough revenue to fund the whole CC Mobile cluster.

The only comparison I can think of off the top of my head was Sinclair's attempt to nationalize local TV news programs across the US... that really worked out well for them, didn't it? Speaking of Sinclair, isn't it weird to see "Copyright 2013 Sinclair Broadcasting" at the end of WEAR ABC 3 and WPMI NBC 15 news... who'd a thought Sinclair of all companies would be running two of the big 4 plus two indie TV stations in Mobile... all at full power, no LP or Class A stations involved? What ever happened to the "Deerfield" shell company?

I guess this could also be compared to "Jack FM" but Jack was a new format launched on under-performing stations. Also CC's Kiss FM, but many former Kiss FM stations have since flipped.

Anyway, I don't like this one bit and I also don't like contemporary country music, so it must be bad. I'd have no problem with a national Classic Country brand, just because the cost savings involved might be enough to get Classic Country back on more frequencies... where it belongs.

As Black Flag said circa 1988, "Corporate Radio Still Sucks". Wish I still had the t-shirt.
 
Well it looks like I shot myself in the foot. When *** bought the Pensacola Pamal cluster I pondered on this very board that they may try to use WXBM as a dual market Mobile-Pensacola Country station to boost the ratings of #1 WBLX and #2 WDLT and wondered if the cumulative revenues from a new "defacto" #2 Pensacola and #2 Mobile Country station would exceed the revenues earned from focusing solely on Pensacola. That idea/theory was promptly shot down by the board members... Now it's happening, albeit under a slightly different and unforeseen set of circumstances.
Cat Country #1 in Pensacola by the end of the year?

Could a similar fate await WMEZ? Why not? With the power and dominance of CC's Lite Mix 99.9 I wouldn't be surprised to see Cumulus look for a new dual market format hole for 94.1. CBS Radio Sports Network anyone? That would make all of the Cumulus Mobile and Cumulus Pensacola owned stations essentially dual market stations. With CC already owning Rock on two dual market signals could the blatant overlap of formats soon be coming to an end in the Mobile-Pensacola TV market?
Could we be getting close to the end of separate Arbitron books for Mobile and Pensacola allowing us to become probably a top 100 US radio DMA? Possibly as high as #70 or better?

Thoughts?
 
I believe you are correct and that has been the overall objective of Cumulus since it bought into all these stations..i.e., acquisition of the major market
players (they told their smaller stations that they were only after small and
medium market stations to join the "family"..uh, WABC and WLS are not
small or medium market players!). So the bottom line is they will acquire
then clone all their "brands", formats and eventually simulcast via satellite
from NYC or LA, etc, the same format to the medium and small market stations thus eliminating PD's, MD's and airstaff although that might vary
according to market size, probably keep a "live" morning drive or afternoon
drive, all the rest "on the bird". Doubt they will contract "superjocks" to handle
the duties at these different formats but NASH may be the forerunner.
As far as consolidating MDAs with Arbitron, they recently struck up a deal of some magnitude to cooperate with Arbitron so it's anybody's guess.
 
I fail to see how a country station works into the strategy of boosting ratings for urban stations. The urbans are already #1 or #2 depending on the demo. They could literally disappear tomorrow and they'd still pull top 3 numbers for the next two books thanks to write-in diaries. There's very little, if any, audience crossover. The plan is a simple one. siphon from KSJ and Cat. That's it. The only cumulus station that could benefit from any country movement is WABD. Even then, it's not going to give ABD bigger ratings. But simply place them a spot or two higher in rank.
 
As I recall WBLX and WDLT are always #'s 1&2 in the Mobile 18+ (with WBLX and WXBM historically holding those titles in Pcola) but I believe WKSJ has always been #1 25-45 in Mobile? If Cumulus has any success rebranding 102.7 as Nash FM Mobile-Pensacola and pulls say 10% of the KSJ audience would that open up the #1 25-45 spot to WDLT?

I have no access to detailed numbers. Just rolling thoughts off the top of my head. Basing my ideas off the tactics used by Cox in Atlanta in the 1990s to keep WSB AM&FM in the top two spots in the ratings.

I don't think many people expect 107.3 to stay top 40 very much longer unless a mutiny occurs at 97.5. So if 107.3 and 94.1 were to flip to new formats the Mobile and Pensacola markets could easily be merged, kinda like Ocala-Gainesville but it would make a whole lot more sense in our case due to the twelve 100kw dual market signals. (only 3 Mobile exclusive signals and 1 Pensacola only signal, not including any possible translator invasion)

12 100kw dual market signals and only three owners. Look what consolidation has done to us.
 
A 25-45 demo isn't in the thinking. Simply 18-34 or 25-54. Magic 106 the past couple years has been #1 or 2 25-54 in Pcola. Don't know how much that's changed since the DLT move to 104.1. Country got slammed this Pcola book. All of them.

Re-combining the two cities for one market won't happen. Too many small AM signals in both cities coupled with the 4 smaller FMs in either city would never show up. That's why they separated them in the first place.

Don't see 94.1 flipping. Lite Mix isn't as dominant as you may think. Especially in Pcola. Plus, Cumulus values the AC outlet to directly compete with CC in combo buys. That's why they snagged it in the 1st place.
 
It really would not surprise me if Cumulus doesn't make more changes with WXBM. I even said back in September that when they let Dave and Stacey go that was probably just the beginning, so I really think Marty and his partner (the one who replaced Linda, can't remember her name at the moment), Lynn West, and Ryan Andrew shouldn't breathe a sigh of relief just yet. You really can't tell with Cumulus, they can be very unpredictable. They could make WXBM the new "Nash FM" and have satellite programming 24 hours a day, or they could just rebrand the station and keep the current jocks. It sounds to me like they are going to a corporate satellite feed for all their stations though.

The next few months will be interesting.....I still say I don't think Cumulus is done cleaning house with WXBM and possibly WMEZ. We shall see though.
 
Check out this excerpt I read from earlier today. It pretty much mirrors what I said earlier.

"NASH Magazine, published by Modern Luxury, is scheduled to debut in the second half of 2013 and will also include social media content and exclusive concert events. NASH radio programming will include live shows and will be available to stations throughout the day through Cumulus Media Networks."

Here is the link to the complete article

http://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/news/2013/01/22/cumulus-launches-nash-entertainment.html

If I worked at WXBM or the Wolf, I would be getting a little concerned right about now.
 
Zach said:
I didn't think anyone still worked at WXBM. Didn't they get rid of everyone outside of mornings already?
Click to expand...

No, from what I understand the only two they got rid of (so far) is Dave Collins and Stacey Noles, plus some part timers on the weekends. From what I understand (from someone who still lives in the area and has close ties to the station), they have really trimmed down their weekend schedule as well. They are adding a lot more CMT programs and less local programming, when they used to be local all the time. I worked at their sister station, WMEZ, when it was in Gulf Breeze and I remember WXBM having someone in the building all the time. I no longer live in Florida, but i tune in online from time to time and the station doesn't sound the same. It's definitely lost it's hometown feel. I can see the writing on the wall, I think there will be more cuts coming soon. Cumulus has been known to come in and clean house, even if it is done slowly. I really think WXBM will soon be nothing but a nationally-syndicated shell of it's former self.
 
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