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Dayton's Soft Rock 92.9 = RATINGS DISASTER

The Jack format is certainly more gender neutral than the "Soft Rock" format (which screams "we're radio for old ladies"), and in all likelihood will lead to some ratings improvement.

Perhaps more importantly for Alpha, it gives them an excuse to slash the personnel budget.

In terms of market demand, I think a CHR/Pop, a rhythmic friendly Hot AC (akin to Mix 94-9), or a hard rock format would've garnered better ratings. I really would've liked to have seen this station return to its Z93 roots!

Is Ohio State football airing on 92.9 again this year? If so, seems to me a Rock format might've been the best fit. (That said, Variety Hits is certainly a better fit in that regard than CHR or music for menopausal women.)
 
Jack FM? Meh.

Slash the personnel budget? I get what you mean, but I'm sorry anytime a radio person loses a job. Even more when jobs are lost to something fed off the bird. Especially when it's a class B full market signal being wasted.

Frankly, I was shocked by how Soft Rock sounded at times. But was it worthy of the venom MarkW has directed its way? In my view, probably not. And yes, Jack *will* likely improve on the under-performance of Soft Rock. But is Jack's snarky anti-radio one size fits all national playlist jukebox smoke and mirrors version of play what we want "variety" an improvement on local radio? I've never thought so. And after five hours of Dayton's Jack FM, I don't see that opinion changing anytime soon.

Again, I'm probably the only one but to me, Alpha Dayton continues to disappoint.
 
I sort of had to read between the lines to realize WGTZ had made a change to Jack, no less. Apparently the even sprung for the name and logo, unlike the "Fly" incarnation of what was essentially the same format. Was Dan Edwards the only jock on the air?
 
Dan did mornings. Paul Ellis did middays until about six months ago. PM was someone named Danielle. Nails on a blackboard voice that doesn't know the words "self edit." She used to work at WIVK. I suspect she'll survive and move elsewhere on David Road -- maybe Hank.
 
woofboom said:
Jack FM? Meh.

Slash the personnel budget? I get what you mean, but I'm sorry anytime a radio person loses a job. Even more when jobs are lost to something fed off the bird. Especially when it's a class B full market signal being wasted.

Frankly, I was shocked by how Soft Rock sounded at times. But was it worthy of the venom MarkW has directed its way? In my view, probably not. And yes, Jack *will* likely improve on the under-performance of Soft Rock. But is Jack's snarky anti-radio one size fits all national playlist jukebox smoke and mirrors version of play what we want "variety" an improvement on local radio? I've never thought so. And after five hours of Dayton's Jack FM, I don't see that opinion changing anytime soon.

Again, I'm probably the only one but to me, Alpha Dayton continues to disappoint.
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I agree with you. This station has a pretty nice signal and this is what Alpha decides to do with it. No local people and just an automated jukebox. Sad! It's just too bad they can't go back to Fly 92.9 branding but I guess it would be considered a failure if they did. Amazing they can't find a good format for the 92.9 frequency after all those years with Z-93
 
Danielle had been there since the early Fly days. I wasn't aware she had been in the Knoxville market. It might be possible Jack will add personalities at some point, or not. I wasn't quite so sure about the move to "soft rock", they didn't quite occupy the space that Lite 99.9 once occupied, as the upper demo A/C station.
 
Alpha has gone the ultimate cheap route in Dayton and Louisville. The reason it is branded as Jack-FM and not Fly is because they are using the Jack branded service from SparkNet. They are both, along with many smaller market Jack stations, running the same log, same playlist, same time. Don't expect personalities, no localization of the music list to fit the tastes of the market. In Louisville, day #1 was littered with dead-air, songs playing while commercials played, distortion, etc. This is how Alpha, who touts "Live & Local", is handling things now.
They bought too many stations, too fast. They are now in over their heads, and cutting costs and doing things on the cheap. Oh, we've heard this story before.
I'm no iHeart fan, but Mix 107-7 is still very locally programmed, local jocks and they do a great job. They have nothing to worry about with the satellite-fed 'Jack'.

Btw, if there was room for a straight-ahead AC in the market, WGTZ did it all wrong. Horrible brand name. Playlist was too old and too soft. It's not 1998 anymore. Mix also does a very good job being a pseudo-AC with their 80's aspect.
While a good CHR with a playlist modeled after WKRQ, WNCI or WZPL and a return to Z-93 would have been nice...that would have cost money to do effectively and Alpha is not in that mode right now.
 
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Btw, if there was room for a straight-ahead AC in the market, WGTZ did it all wrong. Horrible brand name. Playlist was too old and too soft. It's not 1998 anymore. Mix also does a very good job being a pseudo-AC with their 80's aspect.
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AMEN!!!

I completely agree with all of the above.

The "Fly" brand should've never been tossed to the curb in the first place, and the station should've been reshaped into something more fun & energetic.

Radio in Dayton for the past few years has sounded awful. Being next door to a great market such as Cincinnati makes it all the more noticeable.
 
Sorry, MarkW. But you lost your point when you chose the words "great market" to describe Cincinnati. Twenty years ago, I'd have agreed with you. Certainly not today.
 
It's not as good as it once was - you are correct about that. Still, it is a much more intriguing market than Dayton. Far more variety on the dial.

Dayton has only one CHR (and a poorly programmed one at that), only one station serving the entire AC & Hot AC space, no true classic rock station, and no in-market hard rock station.
 
Funny you mention AC. You started this thread by declaring it a dead end format. As for "far more variety", number of signals plays into formats available. Yet, Cinti has no Jack. Cinti has no classic country. It's a stretch to say Cinti has two CHRs. There has always been the complaint that Q tends to play it too safe and that Kiss suffers from similar programming issues as Channel. Cinti has no news/talk on FM outside of a small translator. Cinti has nothing close to Dayton's WYSO. Cinti has nothing like the college radio at UD or Wright State. (Some might say that's a positive.) I certainly think Dayton has suffered at the hands of moves like Alpha's most recent. iHeart Dayton has had its share of questionable moves. But Cincinnati has also suffered some great losses...WNKU most recently. Cinti long ago lost WNOP while Dayton still has WDPS. My point? What makes a market great may be more than a simple perception of format variety. We can both cite what's missing. No market has ever carried every possible format. I grew up in Indianapolis. Yet in my mind, the "radio landscape" was always greener in Cincinnati. It's only as I've aged that I've realized that all markets have advantages and disadvantages. Personally, I'm not sure that makes one market greater than another...only different. Good talking with you.
 
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