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Danbury's B94.5 is now 94.5 The Hawk

Out of 3 Classic Rock stations - I95, 102.9 The Whale, and Rock 102 - these are the order of my favorites. However, I95 does not come in on my Clock Radio in Southington and reception in my car may vary depending on where I am in Southington. I absolutely refuse to download the I95 app. If your station isn't available on one of the 3 Apps I have on my phone - Tune In, Radio dot Com, or iHeart, I'm not listening to your station on my phone.

102.9 The Whale ranks higher than Rock 102 on my list because for 16 weeks (sometimes longer) Rock 102 pre-empts music for 9 hours every Sunday for Patriots football.

I don't listen to WPLR. That's why it's not on my list. Besides the reception issues I have on my clock radio, WPLR's music mix sucks, and so do Chaz and AJ. Chaz and AJ are not funny. Their show is targeted to the lowest common denominator such as the backwoods rednecks who live in Connecticut.

Other notes about 102.9 The Whale I like their Midday DJ - Klonk and I like Mikey V, who does Sunday mornings. (Mikey is a friend of someone I used to work with). The other DJ from The Whale I used to like is no longer with the station - Brandon Hamilton who used to do weekends and fill-ins.
 
MarcB said:
Out of 3 Classic Rock stations - I95, 102.9 The Whale, and Rock 102 - these are the order of my favorites. However, I95 does not come in on my Clock Radio in Southington and reception in my car may vary depending on where I am in Southington. I absolutely refuse to download the I95 app. If your station isn't available on one of the 3 Apps I have on my phone - Tune In, Radio dot Com, or iHeart, I'm not listening to your station on my phone.

102.9 The Whale ranks higher than Rock 102 on my list because for 16 weeks (sometimes longer) Rock 102 pre-empts music for 9 hours every Sunday for Patriots football.

I don't listen to WPLR. That's why it's not on my list. Besides the reception issues I have on my clock radio, WPLR's music mix sucks, and so do Chaz and AJ. Chaz and AJ are not funny. Their show is targeted to the lowest common denominator such as the backwoods rednecks who live in Connecticut.

Other notes about 102.9 The Whale I like their Midday DJ - Klonk and I like Mikey V, who does Sunday mornings. (Mikey is a friend of someone I used to work with). The other DJ from The Whale I used to like is no longer with the station - Brandon Hamilton who used to do weekends and fill-ins.
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So you are a Hartford-market classic rock listener who listens to the in-market classic rock station, at least partially because of reception issues with the alternatives (although you'd think a clock radio in Southington would get WPLR; it comes in fine on my little portable here in Meriden). Having a personal acquaintance with, or with a friend of, someone on the air staff is surely another good reason to keep your listening in-market, though the numbers of people who can cite that as a reason are surely too small to influence ratings. What are the chances you'd know, or know someone who's friends with, a station from somewhere else?
 
CTListener said:
So you are a Hartford-market classic rock listener who listens to the in-market classic rock station, at least partially because of reception issues with the alternatives (although you'd think a clock radio in Southington would get WPLR; it comes in fine on my little portable here in Meriden). Having a personal acquaintance with, or with a friend of, someone on the air staff is surely another good reason to keep your listening in-market, though the numbers of people who can cite that as a reason are surely too small to influence ratings. What are the chances you'd know, or know someone who's friends with, a station from somewhere else?
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Obviously I'm not going to post my exact address on a public message board, but I live off Route 10 in Southington not too far from both the Plainville and Bristol townlines. On both my clock radio and Walkman I get overload on both 99.1 and 101.3 - I can hear both WPLR and WKCI, but there's a lot of static and other stations mixing in. I have to have the wire antenna on my clock radio adjusted just so to pick up 96.1 Kool Radio and 98.5 Bomba FM. 97.9 WUCS doesn't come in that well om my clock radio either. This whole area - if I walk around my neighborhood or over to Route 10 I have to listen to Kool Radio on 990-AM on my Walkman. (The earphone jack on my smart phone, broke so I had to go back to listening to my Walkman when I'm out for a walk). Obviously on my car stereo I have no issues with any of these stations.
 
CTListener said:
The map shows WPLR very strong in Hartford and most of its suburbs. It doesn't show up in the Hartford ratings, at least not the publicly available ones, nor does WAQY. (I'm pretty sure I've seen WAQY in previous Hartford books, bumping along in the 1s and low 2s, though.) So if there are Hartford listeners who prefer a New Haven (or Springfield) station's take on classic rock, there's no way for a non-insider to know how many. I'd be very surprised if the numbers were any threat to WDRC-FM, though.
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DRC-FM owns Hartford with classic rock.

Is SAGA even subscribing anymore? None of the stations in Springfield are showing up there.

December.https://ratings.****************/content/arb117
 
DonMatsen said:
DRC-FM owns Hartford with classic rock.

Is SAGA even subscribing anymore? None of the stations in Springfield are showing up there.

December.https://ratings.****************/content/arb117
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You're right. I remember reading that Saga had signed up with some smaller new ratings service, ditching Nielsen.
 
Bill1820 said:
WAXB 850 and translator 94.5 in Danbury went from classic hits to classic rock this afternoon as 94.5 The Hawk. The station streams on thehawkct.com, and will compete with long time classic rocker I-95.
https://radioinsight.com/headlines/184741/94-5-the-hawk-flies-into-danbury-classic-rock-duel/
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I wonder if Newtown High's mascot being Nighthawks was part of the inspiration for the name?

There are so many formats lacking in terms of stations right out of Danbury that challenging the main one that already is there right next to it on the dial no less is, as many have already said, a pretty bold move. I-95 has always been my favorite classic rock station in CT- always avoid listening to The Whale and never really liked PLR all that much either. Whenever I drive down 84 in that direction, I have always flipped over to I95 right after Kool Radio's signal on 96.1 goes away just past Waterbury. The only reason I might tune in to 94.5 instead is just out of curiosity because it's a new station and to hear what their mix of music is like/which titles they play most frequently compared to WRKI, but otherwise there is no reason to change over.

Glastonbury, my hometown, is fringe for i95 but I can sometimes pull it in with a decent signal in if my car stereo is located in the right place.
 
MarcB said:
102.9 The Whale ranks higher than Rock 102 on my list because for 16 weeks (sometimes longer) Rock 102 pre-empts music for 9 hours every Sunday for Patriots football.
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Have to disagree here- not a Patriots fan, but I am a big sports fan in general and have no problem with FM stations that are first and foremost music stations being affiliates for sports teams (as long as it's a sport like football where you only play once a week in the fall and not baseball where you play every day for more than half the year. Baseball absolutely has to be on a sports or news talk formatted station.)

That said, the pregame shows on Rock 102 are a bit lengthy and I do wish they would play music for longer on those Sundays and not switch over to football until right before kickoff.
 
FTRlistenerAM said:
Have to disagree here- not a Patriots fan, but I am a big sports fan in general and have no problem with FM stations that are first and foremost music stations being affiliates for sports teams (as long as it's a sport like football where you only play once a week in the fall and not baseball where you play every day for more than half the year. Baseball absolutely has to be on a sports or news talk formatted station.)
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Or on a music station with nearly all of its listeners in 55+. Great Eastern Radio's '60s/70s oldies combo in New Hampshire/Vermont (Woodstock VT and Walpole and Keene NH) has been on the Red Sox network for years and promotes the broadcasts often during regular programming.
 
CTListener said:
Last two songs played on I-95: Breakdown--Tom Petty, and Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic--The Police. Last two on The Hawk: Sledgehammer--Peter Gabriel and School's Out--Alice Cooper. Musically, they seem to be identical -- there are only so many classic rock tracks you can play without losing the comfort factor and becoming too geeky, and neither station looks like it's going to be taking any chances.
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Drove through the Danbury area yesterday and alternated between the two stations while listening in the car. Heard Don't Stand So Close to Me by The Police on both stations within the space of an hour, but at least it wasn't at the exact same time so that's good. That one seems to be getting a lot of airplay recently because of all the Covid-related parodies of it. But it also had me thinking that maybe i95 is saying "Don't play the same format so close to us on the dial!"....Haha.

The Hawk's name is cool, but I do think overall i95's music mix is still slightly better (and I always liked their name as well.) I95 was technically doing a specialty show this weekend with the Memorial Day countdown, although it was just a countdown of what they thought were the 500 greatest classic rock tracks of all time and thus they weren't really playing that many songs that aren't in their regular rotation. As their one liner said, "Every song we're playing in this countdown is a true classic." Only listened to about an hour's worth of Hawk programming but it seems that of the two stations, the one more likely to take a chance and still play a lesser known 60s or early 70s classic rock song every once in a while in 2020 is definitely i95. Hawk leans a bit more towards harder 80s tracks, although i95 of course plays plenty of those as well.
 
As to whether i95 would take any chances- I do remember as recently as 2016 that they would sometimes play songs like Bang The Drum All Day by Todd Rundgren and Shanty by Jonathan Edwards during the 5:00 drive home hour. Don't know if they do that anymore-my guess is not!

When I tuned in over Memorial Day weekend, heard two songs that I always really liked- The Chain and People Are Strange- back to back on i95. Nothing unusual about that at all since both songs have been in the station's library for years, but had never heard them one after the other before and it was a cool segue.
 
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