Any gospel format on FM on a NYC-based signal would only compete with WPLJ, and to a lesser extent WAWZ.
Urban Gospel ala WLIB on FM and Christian AC ala WPLJ and WAWZ have little to no overlap. Both play Christian Music, but one's target is Women 25-54 the other predominantly African American audiences 55+. There's a reason the only markets that have Gospel on FM are predominantly African American. New York DOES NOT have the right demos for it. An operator would make more money in New York playing Beautiful Music.
Even with their own money issues, SBS has to be looking at Hot 97 like this upon hearing the news.Interesting that other properties that Emmis lease out, are in trouble too.
MediaCo Holding Expresses Substantial Doubt Over Ability To Continue As A Going Concern
In its 2023 Annual Earnings report released on Monday, MediaCo Holding, the parent of Hip Hop "Hot 97" 97.1 WQHTradioinsight.com
The Alarcons can have their little fantasy for now, let them enjoy it.
Unless they can sell their TV holdings, I don't see them making a major acquisition now. They still have to close the Houston deal and finance the start-up there.
Let's hope no one flips Hot 97 or BLS being that they are both heritage. Pair Hot, BLS, and 98.7 with WLIB and sell them to one owner. It would make the most sense. Make 98.7 a Throwback R&B station to keep it consistent with the other stations in that cluster.
Assuming installment payments have been made on time, SBS has paid down $3.9M of the $7.5M purchase of KROI in Houston, with closing supposedly on July 1. Absolutely no word yet on what the new format will be, or if anything has been done in setting up the local operation. The SBS TV deal failed while they were in the process of buying KROI from the divestiture trust set up by Radio One, robbing them of expected funds to pay for the station.
SBS probably doesn't want to buy WBLS anyway. Hot 97 is what they are after because, despite being in English, they do well with Hispanic demos.
"Throwback" is not the appropriate term for classic R&B. And such a station would be inconsistent in this scenario because it would partially overlap with WBLS.
What is the dividing line between classic R&B and throwback R&B? Is it '80s and before vs. '90s to '10s? Pre-mainstreaming of hip-hop vs. since? Pre-Janet Jackson or pre-Boyz II Men vs. since? Or is it strictly based on the overall "sound" of the individual songs on the playlist, year of release notwithstanding?
They're one and the same depending on the demo using the terminology. In radio format terms both would be "R&B Oldies" And correct in that all it would do is skew old and hurt WBLS.
And you have the fact that Hot does as well with Hispanics as it does with Blacks and is closer to being a crossover general market station.
And Hot comes with former SBS national programmer Pio Ferro who is, of course, Hispanic.
Why would i hope that ?? i dont listen to either of them....rather have a sponsored by FD or DK gambling station.
Like many format terms, they are vague and can cover fairly wide ranges of things like current quantity and rotation, nimbler and age of gold and each station’s own presentation.
Um, no. Only chance of that happening here is if Audacy decides to split the WFAN simulcast and puts sports/gambling talk on 660 AM full-time.
Personally, I associate the term "throwback" more with Hip-Hop. In the mid-'90s, East Coast (primarily NYC-area) rap artists often wore classic sports jerseys, aka throwbacks. This was also the "Hoodies and Timbs" era, as I like to call it. But, as with all Hip-Hop lexicon, it has crossed over into the mainstream.
I think throwbacks typically refers to what one hears on WXBK amd the term classic soul is more common than classic r&b. Soul was used much more in the 80s and makes me think of The whispers or Motown. Throwbacks is Janet Jackson. Just my take...also given current ppm showings, it looks like 4 urban stations are alot for NYC but I'll point out that many largely African American cities have very low rated urban stations. Plus NYC urban stations do not only attract african Americans. WQHT also attracts whites and hispanics.
Based on this comment I can ascertain that most likely you're over the age of 50. There is no such things as a "Pure" era. Every person has a different viewpoint of music from their entry point. There is likely someone out there who things Sisqo's "Thong Song" is the pinnacle of R&B. They're opinion is valid, simply because it is opinion. To a 20 something this could be the greatest era of pop music because its all they know and they love it.
That's through marketing and brand perception. Let's say iHeartMedia, Audacy, Spotify, Netflix, Tik Tok, Apple and the record labels make a deal with all their sponsors and to decide to rename Hip-Hop as "Bing Bong" on . Eventually it will catch on with people as its pushed down.
Yes they do, but in most cases they are not the target sales demographics. WQHT and WXBK do have a broader sales reach, but with their low ratings there isn't much of a coalition audience there to sell at the moment hence my comment earlier about their being one too many stations targeting the available audience.
