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Eric Von Haessler is out at Rock 100.5's Regular Guys

VH always seemed to be the odd fit, especially as they veered away from including the slice of political talk they once had. He also seemed to be getting less and less talk time on the air as of late. Larry Wachs always ran the show and that was obvious.

Does this mean that Tim Andrews will get more airtime as the straight man to SSS's clown? Will Sebas get a promotion to the "4th Regular Guy"? He would make a good clown since SSS is clearly getting more uncomfortable with the role as he settles down.
 
The station is trying to be more "female friendly" and they've changed the music mix accordingly? I can only surmise the following:

1) Radio 105.7 is putting a hurtin' on them.
2) Women don't like political talk, even in EVH's small doses.
3) Kaedy Kiely is dominating rocker women in AM drive for those who want personality.
4) They may be trying to bring in a woman as a RG. With the right talent, this could work, but if they screw up that hire you can stick a fork in it.
5) SSS's upcoming nuptials will become more of a topic of conversation. Will Amanda become more of a guest on the show?

Sounds like Cumulus isn't sure what they want to do with the station...
 
The whole 'SSS is getting married' bit (along with Vinny Bucci) is what finally drove me away as a listener.

It's not a 'fun' show any more. Leaving now may allow you a jump on your comrades EVH - I'll be glad to give you a shot when you re-appear.
 
The station is a joke.

Adding some wimpy sounding alt/indie tracks is NOT going to pull any listeners away from Radio 105.7 (why on earth would they trade 105.7 for 100.5?) and is only going to alienate their existing core.

The current direction may have made sense if it were implemented a year ago. They are too late. This will never be better than a 2 share radio station.
 
I agree - They need to go straight active rock and stop screwing around with the mainstream stuff.

Rock 100.5 didn't hesitate to tweak their format once every few weeks about a year or two ago. Hell, I remember them going active rock for a weekend and switching back to classic rock the following Monday and this was when Project was around.

The big cries I see (besides that 105.7 has a small playlist and 99x would be welcomed) is for rock 100.5 to go straight active with more harder aggressive rock and leave most of the classic rock and AOR friendly 90s crap.


MarkW said:
The station is a joke.

Adding some wimpy sounding alt/indie tracks is NOT going to pull any listeners away from Radio 105.7 (why on earth would they trade 105.7 for 100.5?) and is only going to alienate their existing core.

The current direction may have made sense if it were implemented a year ago. They are too late. This will never be better than a 2 share radio station.
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I agree ^. Would also like to add that their format clocks are full of trainwreck song segues. Atlas genius - Trojans into Aerosmith? Imagine dragons - radioactive into scorpions? Atlas Genius next to AC/DC. Pink Floyd into Alt-J. I think imagine dragons were put next to tool at one point. Killers - mr brightside next to alice and chains? This wouldn't bother me as much if it was a rare occasion, but this happens on a consistent basis. Please, just drop the classic rock. You can't play hard rock, 90's AOR, alternative, and dirt old classic rock and expect it to flow well, it's just too much. Most likely the listener will like one thing or another, but not all those genres. I wish this station would be more like KFMA out of Tucson. They play alternative(aka rock 100.5's "Female friendly" tracks) and hard/active rock in one, and are able to pull it off. Excellent playlist, check them out.
 
I like TRG. I think the show doesn't seem to flow as well without Eric. Larry and Eric had a great chemistry together, even though I found Larry more entertaining. I think it was a big mistake letting Eric go. I feel that the ones making this move will be regretting it here very soon. Yes, I agree that Rock should go full active. Not sure what the hold up is on this. Seems like a no-brainer to me.
 
I always thought TRG was a “team” or a package show. The check was written to a LLC or individual and the money was divided (sometimes unequally like Abbot and Costello) to the participants. Is the name “The Regular Guys” a trademark? I am surprised that CC allowed “TRG” to escape their control. Try to use “Peach” branding on a non CC radio station and see what happens! That’s why I thought The Regular Guys was a trademark and owned by Larry and Eric.

Just a thought: Eric goes conservative talk. WSB hires him as “insurance” for Herman Cain.
 
IANAL...

Trademarks are generally "use it or lose it", meaning that if you don't use it for a certain length of time you lose it. You can also have your trademark restrained by geography. For example, you could probably open a "Varsity" restaurant in Washington state with no recourse by members of the Gordy family, but you can't open a "McDonald's", due to prior usage in an area. There is a Sears shoe store in Chattanooga that predates Sears Roebuck, and Sears Roebuck can't do a thing about it.

Who owned TRG before TRG went to 96 Rock? If the team (or LLC, etc.) owned it, then CC would have no rights except as spelled out in a contract such as a noncompete. And Eric's rights to it (if any) would be spelled out in the articles of incorporation and bylaws of the corporate entity.

When the band KISS started, all 4 original members jointly owned the rights to the name and the design of their makeup. That's why when Ace and Peter were replaced, their replacements had to use different makeup. Later, Gene and Paul bought out Ace and Peter, giving Gene and Paul sole rights to the makeup (all 4 original designs) and name. The other current members of KISS besides Gene and Paul are "employees" or contractors of KISS the corporate entity owned by Gene and Paul.

Similarly, the name "Alice Cooper" is owned by the original bandmembers, as the name originally referred to the band in total and not just their leader. The former Vincent Furnier has to pay royalties to the band for the right to use the name as a solo artist.

Re: Peach, CC has been using "Peach" close enough to Atlanta where they may be able to claim some geographic rights of current use. But if you went to, say, South Carolina and used it, you could probably get away with it.

Kiss (the radio station) is owned as a trademark by someone other than Cox, but due to prior usage Cox can still use it in Atlanta.

And, obviously, Cumulus (as heir to Susquehanna) and Lincoln Financial (as heir to Jefferson-Pilot) and CC have no claim against CC and Cumulus and Cumulus, respectively, for "Power" (as in Power 96 and Power 99) and "Q" (as in Q100 and 94Q) and "Rock" (as in Rock100.5 and 96 Rock), although you could argue "rock" is a generic term.
 
And I do agree that EVH would make a good conservative talker and could wind up at one of the second-tier stations until he proves himself, then WSB might find a place for him.
 
Hey buddy - Check out 105.7 The Point out of St. Louis.




danman425 said:
I agree ^. Would also like to add that their format clocks are full of trainwreck song segues. Atlas genius - Trojans into Aerosmith? Imagine dragons - radioactive into scorpions? Atlas Genius next to AC/DC. Pink Floyd into Alt-J. I think imagine dragons were put next to tool at one point. Killers - mr brightside next to alice and chains? This wouldn't bother me as much if it was a rare occasion, but this happens on a consistent basis. Please, just drop the classic rock. You can't play hard rock, 90's AOR, alternative, and dirt old classic rock and expect it to flow well, it's just too much. Most likely the listener will like one thing or another, but not all those genres. I wish this station would be more like KFMA out of Tucson. They play alternative(aka rock 100.5's "Female friendly" tracks) and hard/active rock in one, and are able to pull it off. Excellent playlist, check them out.
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The clowns at Cumulus cannot program their way out of a paper bag. Not impressed at all with the job Troy Hanson has done so far.

All he's done is fire some popular personalities and sissify the playlist in an effort to become a poor man's version of Radio 105-7. The fact he has the nerve to tinker with the morning show is amazing. All he did in Nashville was carry a syndicated morning show from Michigan, of all places just to fill space and save money. He knows nothing about building a successful morning show.

100.5 needs to play more:
Disturbed
Tool
FFDP
A7X
White Zombie / Rob Zombie (but not the new stuff)
Mudvayne
...and in general, a wider variety of hard rock from the mid 90's to now.

I guess I shouldn't be too surprised. A bunch of crotchety old men call the programming shots at Cumulus, Troy looks like he's suffering mid-life crisis, and didn't he basically run 94-9 Zeta in Miami into the ground years ago when he was PD there? When his hiring was announced, I thought maybe there would be some upside. Boy was I wrong. I also didn't realize 102.9 in Nashville had moved away from Active Rock earlier this year. Shame on me; I should've done better homework before taking an optimistic view on Hanson's hiring.

The comment from Dickey about making the station less "male centric" had me laughing. IT'S A ROCK STATION -- IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE MALE CENTRIC, YOU FOOL!!!
 
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I spoke with someone from Clear Channel that knows a little about what is going on behind the scenes at cumulus. Apparently, the PD wants to go more modern but the Dickey's want to make sure classic rock is still being ran on the station. In addition, the station is after the woman - Hints the chick that does the liners now.

Personally - I love a station that plays everything (active rock, classic rock, alternative/indie) but that is something the average listener will not listen to. While I can go from Muse to Pink FLoyd, the average person cannot.

So we have a situation where the Dickey's want to keep classic rock in the roll while the new pd wants to play more modern rock. Why not active rock? Active rock plays hard classic rock and modern rock. Project did it and despite what the ratings suggest, I think it was pretty descent. Maybe not a 100k watt stick but a 25k stick - Sure.

Cumulus has plenty of active rock stations across the country that they could follow. I just don't get it. Dickey's need to give it up.
 
Active rock is on a downturn. The product that's mass appeal right now is the more modern/alt music. So there's not a great future in being a strictly active rock station.
 
Not so in the south. Personally, I love alternative over active but this is the south. Active rock tends to do much better than alternative. Sure, it has it's moment but if rock 100.5 goes active rock, you will see ratings increase.

If modern/alt was doing so well in the south, you would have see X98.5 out of Greenville do better.

Are you suggesting they go straight alternative and compete with radio 105.7? You can't possibly think their current format of recurrent alt rock, active rock and classic rock will work. Right now, they are mainstream with a 1.8 share. Based on their facebook responses, this alt lean is going to KILL them.
 
I will say this - If Radio 105.7 does not spread it's wings already and stop with the "Sail" every damn hour (which came out two years ago), Rock 100.5 going more in an alternative direction WOULD kill Radio.

I don't see any cumulus stations doing this but Rock 100.5 should do what The Point of St. Louis is doing.
 
I don't think Rock 100.5 going "alternative" would be the answer. But the station has gone through so many incarnations, classic heavy, more active, "quality rock" triple A leaning, I'm not sure there's any solution for this. Are any of those audiences large enough in 2013? I'm not sure there's a strong enough rock trend of any flavor to fix 100.5.
 
They can make a few classics an hour fly if they simply cut out the Imagine Dragons, Muse, Coldplay and whatever other wimpy sounding alt rock tracks they happen to be playing right now and replace it with Disturbed, A7X, Bullet for my Valentine, Nine Inch Nails, Three Days Grace, etc. When Bone and Rock 100.5 "became one," the playlist still sounded too much like the old Rock 100.5. At the moment, it sounds like a bad mix of the old Rock 100.5 and 99X (they need to give it up already; the 99X brand has been miserably executed for the past decade. Cumulus doesn't know how to program alt rock...period).

The other option would be to weed out most of the Classic Rock and tighten up the alt rock categories while including more hard charging Active Rock, but apparently that isn't an acceptable option, per the intel posted earlier.

I cannot even think of the last format change in a Top 25 market that Cumulus has pulled off successfully. Any successful stations they have in those markets were inherited from other companies in recent years or are heritage stations that have been around for 20+ years. Say what you want about Clear Channel (I'm not a big fan of theirs personally), but in most large markets their track record with regard to format changes & format tweaks -- especially on the FM dial -- is better than that of Cumulus.
 
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I agree with the exception of the Atlanta market with Q100 and Power. Q100 is kicking Power's ass.

Regarding rock 100.5 - They can go active rock and include some edgier alternative tracks. I think they need to go in that direction or go straight classic rock. This mainstream rock crap sucks because they don't play anything worth a damn in the classic rock spectrum and they play little modern rock in terms of currents - It's all recurrent.


MarkW said:
They can make a few classics an hour fly if they simply cut out the Imagine Dragons, Muse, Coldplay and whatever other wimpy sounding alt rock tracks they happen to be playing right now and replace it with Disturbed, A7X, Bullet for my Valentine, Nine Inch Nails, Three Days Grace, etc. When Bone and Rock 100.5 "became one," the playlist still sounded too much like the old Rock 100.5. At the moment, it sounds like a bad mix of the old Rock 100.5 and 99X (they need to give it up already; the 99X brand has been miserably executed for the past decade. Cumulus doesn't know how to program alt rock...period).

The other option would be to weed out most of the Classic Rock and tighten up the alt rock categories while including more hard charging Active Rock, but apparently that isn't an acceptable option, per the intel posted earlier.

I cannot even think of the last format change in a Top 25 market that Cumulus has pulled off successfully. Any successful stations they have in those markets were inherited from other companies in recent years or are heritage stations that have been around for 20+ years. Say what you want about Clear Channel (I'm not a big fan of theirs personally), but in most large markets their track record with regard to format changes & format tweaks -- especially on the FM dial -- is better than that of Cumulus.
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