Funny story about WJJZ

[Interstate 78]

complain about the PPM all you want, but i have a legendary story for you about how few listeners WJJZ probably really did have. a friend of a friend told me of a story a few months back when the evening jock asked for caller 5 to win tickets.

he was caller 1, caller 2, caller 4, and caller 5. LOL!!

it apparently was only him and one other caller trying to win at 8 o'clock in the evening. now that's bad.

my theory is that the former WJJZ at 106.1 left a lot of upset listeners. we remember all the letters to philly.com. but then it took too long for someone to pick the format back up. someone should have flipped to smooth jazz that same day or that week at the latest. it gave the upset listeners time to discover other stations like WRTI, WRNB, WOGL, WBEB, WDAS, etc. or other things like satellite, cable, and HD radio. they realized how much better those sources were than WJJZ's version.

WJJZ returned a few months later in a weaker signal with even a lower budget than clear channel. less live jocks, etc. no one cared to go back.

i think the perfect sign of how much of a sad ghost of the former WJJZ this new one was was the way they signed off. the first sign off at least had some element of class. this sign off was like someone pulled the plug on a dying man. no goodbye. not even a real smooth jazz song as the final song. just a boring Boyz II Men song. then gone.

i'm not running into tons of irate listeners like when 106.1 went off. in this case i think the PPM was right. but it's not the format's fault. it's the consultants that have ruined the format. remember, it was only about 5 years ago that WJJZ was sitting on top of the world with stations like WBEB as Philly's most popular. i think we'll see some variation of smooth jazz return in a few years under a whole new presentation.

just remember, you're caller 1! you're caller 2! you're caller 4! you're caller 5! too funny. and sad.

 

[ccuphl]

WJJZ returned a few months later in a weaker signal

I see lots of people here mentioning 97.5's lousy signal. I know it's directional, but where is it bad (to the point it's costing them potential listeners relative to the other Philadelphia FMs)?

 

[Interstate 78]

well, not really sure, but case in point. visited a relative last summer that was staying at a fancy high rise hotel in center city. the clock radio in the bedroom picked up almost every other major philly FM signal (including 106.1) loud and proud. 97.5 was nowhere to be found. and this was even after the so-called tower move/signal improvement. rule # 1 with radio signals is most people use cheap radios. if you can't pick it up on a 5 dollar walmart radio, don't expect the average non-radio-geek listener to make lots of effort to pick it up. and if you're not covering the center city homes and offices, that's not good.

 

[imhomerjay]

well, not really sure, but case in point. visited a relative last summer that was staying at a fancy high rise hotel in center city. the clock radio in the bedroom picked up almost every other major philly FM signal (including 106.1) loud and proud. 97.5 was nowhere to be found. and this was even after the so-called tower move/signal improvement. rule # 1 with radio signals is most people use cheap radios. if you can't pick it up on a 5 dollar walmart radio, don't expect the average non-radio-geek listener to make lots of effort to pick it up. and if you're not covering the center city homes and offices, that's not good.

Absolutely ture--and it begs the question, what can they really do as a "Philly" station that will work given those challenges? I suppose it depends on what they're looking to achieve--like, would some AC variant be considered a good return if it just takes a bite out of the B? (They can't win even if they had a good signal.) For that matter, I can't see how country would be a good call either--one country in town makes sense, but two doesn't, and it makes even less sense if you're the one against the heritage among country fans of WXTU.

Talk? Mostly local would be prohibitively expensive as a start up, and which shows are left that they could make any noise with?

Moving 950 to FM? Probably the cheapest option, but little to no return even on a minimal investment with a lineup that has almost nothing the majority of listeners find more interesting than WIP.

 

[mcmannors]

A couple of things:

First off, different formats have different types of listeners. For example, CHR listeners are much more apt to call their favorite station to either make a request, make a "shout out", or win a contest than a smooth jazz listener. CHR listeners are considered "active", while smooth jazz listeners are considered "passive". That might explain why it was so easy to get through to WJJZ. A CHR with equal or less ratings to WJJZ would probably be hard to get through to also via telephone.

Secondly, I know we're talking over 30 years ago, but didn't WIFI 92 get semi-respectable ratings back in the 70's when: 1) AM still had more listenership, and 2) WIFI's signal was nowhere to be found in Center City?

Just curious.

 

[Soon Yi CIV.V]

For most of WJJZ's second life, I lived in South Jersey. I did most of my driving in Gloucester, Camden, and Burlington counties and the signal wasn't great. I'd hear interference which was very frustrating. I never hear any sort of interference on any of the other 17 presets so it just seemed very antiquated and annoying. Would I say signal problems led to WJJZ's demise? Not with any certainty. But would I say I personally changed the station because of the bad signal? That I can say with 100% certainty.

 

[nd2023]

WJJZ at 97.5 was broadcasting from Trenton for a few months before they moved the stick down I-95 to where it is now. There wasn't much promotion of the new WJJZ.

I find it harder to get through when calling up a little LPTV station on Channel 6 posing as an FM station in New York City than you did when calling WJJZ. And that was when they weren't running a contest.

 

[mcmannors]

I find it harder to get through when calling up a little LPTV station on Channel 6 posing as an FM station in New York City than you did when calling WJJZ. And that was when they weren't running a contest.

Which proves my point that I made earlier. The listeners of "Pulse 87" are more "active" than those of WJJZ. You constantly hear phone bits on the air on Pulse, even when no contest is running. Just the nature of the CHR and CHR/Rhytmic format.

 

[StemCell]

As I pointed out in other posts, JJZ has a strong, city grade signal in all of the ratings area, in fact, better than XTU and RFF in many areas.....that is not the reason for their demise...RFF has a bad signal in many areas plenty of bleed in....

 

[jaypea]

'JJZ tanked for one reason. the "smooth jazz" format had run it's course. say what you want about clear channel, but they know when to give up on something. greedy media was just too stupid to understand that.

 

[DToTheJ]

'JJZ tanked for one reason. the "smooth jazz" format had run it's course. say what you want about clear channel, but they know when to give up on something. greedy media was just too stupid to understand that.

"Greedy Media"? Now there's a nickname that'll rank right up there with "Cheap Channel", "Cume-u-less", "S***-adel", and the regional favorite "Tragic (Magic) Broadcasting"...

 

[GSPGUY]

97.3 really beats up 97.5 in the southern portion of NJ....has gotten much worse with the 97.5 tower move to northwest of Philly.

 

[Play Freebird]

I see lots of people here mentioning 97.5's lousy signal. I know it's directional, but where is it bad (to the point it's costing them potential listeners relative to the other Philadelphia FMs)?

You can find the test report for WJJZ's directional antenna here:

http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/prod/cdbs/forms/prod/getattachment_exh.cgi?exhibit_id=498671

See page 12 for a polar plot; the blue line is the envelope limit (what the FCC would permit) and red is the measured composite (greater of either the vertically- or horizontally-polarized components.)

The wide reduction from 80 to 200 degrees is necessary to protect WXKW 97.3 in Millville. This is the reason the signal is lacking in Center City -- at 170 degrees, the antenna radiates only 16 percent of the full power (slightly more than 4 kW). None of this suppression was necessary at the previous site near Trenton because the contour overlap was covered under a mutual short-spacing agreement negotiated in the early '80s. But when the transmitter was moved to Wyndmoor, the old agreement would not allow any additional overlap. However, the 97.3 in South Jersey has no corresponding reduction towards Philadelphia; its antenna radiates 50 kW to the north. Imagine what would happen if the 10 dB IBOC power increase is approved -- WXKW's upper digital sideband (which actually falls within the 97.5 channel) will increase to 2.5 kW, so it will have nearly the same power as WJJZ towards Center City.

The deeper protection towards the west is required to protect the 97.3 in Harrisburg. The resulting city-grade contour falls just past King of Prussia.

Note that the actual antenna pattern doesn't completely fill the envelope to the southwest, over Delaware County. This was a very challenging pattern to build, so that's where the biggest compromise was made.

Another major group with stations in this market was considering buying this facility, when it was still an unbuilt construction permit. I talked them out of it and now that they've had a chance to evaluate its "success", I think they feel they made a wise decision.

 

[qtpieislit]

I see lots of people here mentioning 97.5's lousy signal. I know it's directional, but where is it bad (to the point it's costing them potential listeners relative to the other Philadelphia FMs)?

The wide reduction from 80 to 200 degrees is necessary to protect WXKW 97.3 in Millville. This is the reason the signal is lacking in Center City -- at 170 degrees, the antenna radiates only 16 percent of the full power (slightly more than 4 kW). None of this suppression was necessary at the previous site near Trenton because the contour overlap was covered under a mutual short-spacing agreement negotiated in the early '80s. But when the transmitter was moved to Wyndmoor, the old agreement would not allow any additional overlap. However, the 97.3 in South Jersey has no corresponding reduction towards Philadelphia; its antenna radiates 50 kW to the north. Imagine what would happen if the 10 dB IBOC power increase is approved -- WXKW's upper digital sideband (which actually falls within the 97.5 channel) will increase to 2.5 kW, so it will have nearly the same power as WJJZ towards Center City.

The deeper protection towards the west is required to protect the 97.3 in Harrisburg. The resulting city-grade contour falls just past King of Prussia.

Note that the actual antenna pattern doesn't completely fill the envelope to the southwest, over Delaware County. This was a very challenging pattern to build, so that's where the biggest compromise was made.

I think the major error in calculation was to put the antenna in Wyndmoor. Sould have been located in Center City with the major radiation north. The 10 dB I-bash will obliterate center city reception, or whatever will be left.

 

[nd2023]

Could they move it to the Comcast Tower now?

 

[fybush]

Could they move it to the Comcast Tower now?

Nope, at least not without a big class downgrade - it pretty much has to be where it is because of spacing issues to 97.3 in Millville and 97.3 in H'burg.