DC has the worst radio selection Ive ever heard

[Silkie]

DC used to have a really decent, extra beautiful oldies station in WXTR, XTRA 104.1. Those days are gone.

 

[kilamanjero]

WPGC isnt the station it use to be either. That was a fantastic urban station in the 90s.

I can agree WPGC isn't the 'urban' station it used to be back in the 1990s, but the musical trends have changed and PPM has forced that on as well. There is an entire thread dedicated to this discussion.

 

[ddsparxx]

Silkie, you're right, XTRA 104 was a good oldies station, we had it on during work hours. This was before WXTR replaces it with an all-70s format that included disco, if that was correct. The seventies format really had low ratings.

 

[Silkie]

Yes, they added too much disco. Disco was for dancing to in the late 70s, but not real good radio.

 

[TheBigA]

IIRC XTRA 104 used to run Wolfman Jack's syndicated night show at one point.

 

[Silkie]

He was also live every Friday night at Planet Hollywood, including the last night of his life.

 

[nocomradio]

I grew up in the DC Metro area next to a radio, on the Virginia side of the Potomac, and I can only say this:

Since the early 80's, D.C. Radio has steadily declined. It seems like a format can't be left alone for more than 45 minutes, before it has to go with the latest trend or switch to some other idea of what "everyone" wants to hear, yet no one will claim. I've never seen a more transitional place when it comes to radio. If any station has kept a format for more than 5 years in the last 30 years, I'd be really surprised. Many of the local DJ's have bounced from station to station so much, it would be a study in itself to track the personnel changes. I gave up on D.C a long time ago and point my antenna in a different direction.

 

[TheBigA]

If any station has kept a format for more than 5 years in the last 30 years, I'd be really surprised.

Your comment seems obviously narrowly directed to certain music formats?

 

[Slinky]

El Zol @ 107.9 has a permit to move its COL from Annapolis to Bowie with city-grade coverage in both the DC and Baltimore core urbanized areas. The new tower location for 107.9 will be the same as the one for 99.1, their former signal, and have the same coverage area. CBS knew what they were doing with these moves and actually it serves the interests of having all-news and Tropical Latin/Spanish formats in the market.

[email protected] has no construction permits in the FCC database, and can't move very far west because of 107.7. If they had a construction permit to move to the same location as 99.1, that would be a huge upgrade, but I haven't seen any evidence of that being the case.

 

[nocomradio]

If any station has kept a format for more than 5 years in the last 30 years, I'd be really surprised.

Your comment seems obviously narrowly directed to certain music formats?

Well, I can't think of too many FM's in the DC market that went much more than 5 years without some major changes in format since the 80's other than WTOP's news, WMZQ's country or the NPR station. The rest have bounced all over the dial. Rock, Country, Light Rock, etc, and I listened to many of them.

 

[Slinky]

Well, I can't think of too many FM's in the DC market that went much more than 5 years without some major changes in format since the 80's other than WTOP's news, WMZQ's country or the NPR station. The rest have bounced all over the dial. Rock, Country, Light Rock, etc, and I listened to many of them.

Are you counting tweaks as "major changes in format"?

WASH-FM has been an AC forever.

DC101 has been a current rock station for a long time, although they've bounced back and forth between Alternative and Active Rock. They've been Alternative for the past 9 years at least.

WKYS has been Urban for 30ish years.

WPGC has been Rhythmic or Urban for more than 20 years.

Majic 102.3 has been an adult-targeted Urban station for more than 20 years (they started as Urban Oldies but evolved to Urban AC)

Mix 107.3 has been Hot AC for more than 20 years.

WHUR has been Urban AC since the early 90's.

Even Hot 99.5 has been CHR for more than 10 years now.

Obviously the metro area itself is very transient, but I don't think the DC dial is more transient than any other city's dial.

 

[Silkie]

Still holds true that if you can't make it in New York, you move to DC; and if you can't make it in DC you become obscure in the middle of nowhere - all the way around.

 

[atlantaboy]

I don't see what differentiates the DC radio dial from any other major city, except maybe the lack of Triple A

 

[nocomradio]

Well, I can't think of too many FM's in the DC market that went much more than 5 years without some major changes in format since the 80's other than WTOP's news, WMZQ's country or the NPR station. The rest have bounced all over the dial. Rock, Country, Light Rock, etc, and I listened to many of them.

Are you counting tweaks as "major changes in format"?

WASH-FM has been an AC forever.

DC101 has been a current rock station for a long time, although they've bounced back and forth between Alternative and Active Rock. They've been Alternative for the past 9 years at least.

WKYS has been Urban for 30ish years.

WPGC has been Rhythmic or Urban for more than 20 years.

Majic 102.3 has been an adult-targeted Urban station for more than 20 years (they started as Urban Oldies but evolved to Urban AC)

Mix 107.3 has been Hot AC for more than 20 years.

WHUR has been Urban AC since the early 90's.

Even Hot 99.5 has been CHR for more than 10 years now.

Obviously the metro area itself is very transient, but I don't think the DC dial is more transient than any other city's dial.

Now that you mention it, I guess in true format changes there haven't been as many as I thought, but there certainly have been many changes within those formats, and of course personnel.

Growing up on the likes of DC101, I can't really consider them a true rocker anymore though. They have a sort of alternative sound with that moaning Nickelback theme across the playlist. WASH tends to play some older stuff once in a while, but even that is watered down with some crossovers from country now, to me far from their roots. The Urban stations all tend to sound alike in my opinion, but again, I probably am not a decent judge of them as I really don't like that genre anyway. 107.3 I'd forgotten about. Their signal was always so spotty that I never listened regularly, especially as the area developed and more tall building were built making them even harder to listen to reliably.

 

[ddsparxx]

Hot 99.5's music (and probably many other CC top 40 stations as well) has been garbage since it made its debut in 2001, with the playlist possibly limited to only artists with little or no music talent (mostly bubble-gum stuff and what sounds like kiddie hip-hop) and various hip-hop stuff. That appeared to be little or no change to the station in the last 10 years.

 

[DToTheJ]

I had commented earlier in this thread that Hot 99.5 was "in the top three". The latest numbers on DCRTV show WIHT in second place behind... no, not WTOP, but WASH (remember, it's holiday hits time) in first place. Who would have thought, WTOP in third place in any category? Looks like CBS got an early Christmas gift as 99.1 is set to launch in two weeks!

 

[Wildstyle K]

The worst?

I'm going to have to check this out. It would be ironic if my birthplace truly has 'the worst' radio selection. Are they worse than Anchorage?

 

[Wildstyle K]

Alright, so far I've only checked out about three stations, and musically, they look pretty interesting and more diverse than some other places in the U.S. The CHR looks alright, the first 'urban' I saw on the list seemingly has a pretty diverse musical playlist, and even the first Hot Ac I checked out seems... pretty alright. I haven't checked out the rest of the plethora of urban  ac & hot Ac's yet, though. Just looked again and realize that there are two urbans. I'm thinking one of those 'urban' formats must be rhythmic.

I'm still checking as I type, and I see the second Hot AC on the list is even better than the first one. I've gotta say that based on how things look, DC is looking pretty alright, music playlist-wise. I wouldn't mind living there. But then again, looks can be deceiving.

I guess some of those stations come in from out of state, but still... When I saw "the worst," I assumed that it would be worse than living in Flagstaff or some field in Nebraska or something.

 

[kilamanjero]

Alright, so far I've only checked out about three stations, and musically, they look pretty interesting and more diverse than some other places in the U.S. The CHR looks alright, the first 'urban' I saw on the list seemingly has a pretty diverse musical playlist, and even the first Hot Ac I checked out seems... pretty alright. I haven't checked out the rest of the plethora of urban ac & hot Ac's yet, though. Just looked again and realize that there are two urbans. I'm thinking one of those 'urban' formats must be rhythmic.

I'm still checking as I type, and I see the second Hot AC on the list is even better than the first one. I've gotta say that based on how things look, DC is looking pretty alright, music playlist-wise. I wouldn't mind living there. But then again, looks can be deceiving.

I guess some of those stations come in from out of state, but still... When I saw "the worst," I assumed that it would be worse than living in Flagstaff or some field in Nebraska or something.

Yeah, WPGC is an urban-rhythmic hybrid station.

 

[gabba2]

Nah. Just like NYC (if you like rock anyway), the best stations are not in DC, but come in around DC. WRNR-FM is a good AAA, 98 Rock is a good Active Rocker, WTMD is a good AAA, classic rock stations pretty much are all the same and there are a bunch in the area out west, in Fredericksburg, and Baltimore, and DC has a decent classic rocker and alternative rocker too. NYC is the same. The stations in the city are lacking, but Long Island has classic rockers and a AAA out east, NJ has an active rocker and mainstream rocker, and CT has a bunch of rock stations. Growing up in NY I always thought that NYC was awful for radio (for my taste in music), but living on Long Island I had the LI and CT stations to keep me happy. I now live outside of DC in Maryland and the stations that I listen too for rock mostly come from Baltimore and Annapolis other than the DC classic Rocker which is my choice for that when, on rare occasion, I'm looking for old stuff. DC does have a good newser (WTOP), and is good for talk radio too. "Urban" and Country aren't my thing, so I don't have any opinion on those stations.