T
The Platypus
Guest
Anyone else notice that G Rock Radio doesn't exist anymore?
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So this means that Z100 is dead in the Jersey Shore 
Does anyone know any info on why G-Rock flipped? Or is this one of them sudden changes like The Buzz in AC.
Does anyone know any info on why G-Rock flipped? Or is this one of them sudden changes like The Buzz in AC.
C
ccuphl
Guest
EastEnda said:
Info on the format: http://www.dial-global.com/dg_247_hitsnow.asp
And their toll-free listen line: (866) 924-3425 ext. 5.
If you call the listen line, you'll get a "press 1 for adult contemporary, press 2 for..." phone menu. How sad is it that Press killed G Rock for a "press 5 for CHR" format?
Satellite CHR in market #51 -- SAD!!!!!!!
Well, how about they're 4th or 5th down ratings book in a row? Which they just received...
Or their magically disappearing cume ever since, well... for a long time now...(think a few years)...
Or the fact that they didn't serve their clients with innovative value added promotions...
Or perhaps it was the itty bitty rates they were charging couldn't put much of a dent into their overhead...
Or maybe it was the fact that a niche format would never, ever work on a giant double signal like they had... and now a "big tent" approach has a much better chance of generating a large female audience with some decent TSL to attract some decent advertisers.
Or their magically disappearing cume ever since, well... for a long time now...(think a few years)...
Or the fact that they didn't serve their clients with innovative value added promotions...
Or perhaps it was the itty bitty rates they were charging couldn't put much of a dent into their overhead...
Or maybe it was the fact that a niche format would never, ever work on a giant double signal like they had... and now a "big tent" approach has a much better chance of generating a large female audience with some decent TSL to attract some decent advertisers.
Wow, first Indie 103.1 and now this. G-Rock, in the last two years or so, had become one of the best Alternative stations in the country, with a wide library and a very progressive approach to new music. And now there's no proper Alternative outlet in my listening area. I guess there's no room for variety on the dial with today's economy. Or for live and local programming, in a lot of cases. What a shame.
S
Shu the Moody
Guest
Oh no! Where will the emo Jersey kids get their Red Jumpsuit Apparatus/MCR/AFI fix now? Really, nothing of value was lost, unless you loved hearing the Flobots 2-3 times a day. The X plays much better music anyway.
WTF this is crap as somone just said first indie now grock why when there is no need you guys have z 100 well not a snart move at all and wtf what does the midatlantic regions have against alt stations there is none unless you include 101.9 a bad paatch for the alternative format peeps.
Shu the Moody said:
I used to listen to G-Rock all the time, until I got satellite radio. This was back in 2005 and they were pretty good then. Thing is, now there is no outlet for the new alternative listener. G-Rock wasn't perfect, but now listeners get nothing more than a second rate Z-100 knock off, playing garbage like britney spears and kanye west 3 times a day. There is already one station playing that trash that is listenable for most of 106.3's coverage area, we don't need another one.
hotpatrick2004 said:
Former, coveted G-rock listener. Coherence is a state of mind. Punctuation is a waste of time.
hotpatrick2004 said:
Z100 barely covers 1/5 of the 106.3/5 coverage area. Most listeners in the 106.3/5 coverage area wouldn't even know Z100 exists.
In 2008: G Rock was the most improved commercial FM of the year.
In 2009: G Rock was a victim in what will most certainly be the most boneheaded programming decision of the year ... unless Millennium Radio Group decides to drop NJ 101.5 for a polka format, and I don't see that happening.
This is all the fault of Press Communications. They ran the station into the ground because of their impulsive programming decisions, all of which caused the audience to erode. The audience winds up as the big losers here because the powers that be at Press are a bunch of morons.
Here's a history lesson of WHTG under the ownership of Press Communications.
In 2000, instead of doing what they should have all along and picking up where FM 106.3 left off, they rebranded the format G 106.3 and went with a Modern AC format playing the likes of Nelly Furtado and Sheryl Crow along with some light Alternative tracks - they insisted on using the Alternative branding even though they were playing "lite rock" acts. A year or two later they start throwing acts like Bon Jovi and Guns N' Roses into the mix, making the station even more of an unfocused mess (think the 2002 version of WRXP, but even worse). Through this period and part of 2003 they played acts like Five For Fighting, Gavin DeGraw, John Mayer, Avril Lavigne, Vanessa Carlton and others while insisting they were Alternative. Then, a miracle happened: sometime in 2003, the format was tinkered with again and G 106.3 sounded like a decent, albeit safe, Alternative-lite station with much of the Hot AC fluff purged. But in early 2004, they made a highly reactionary move after a disappointing ratings book - they dropped the Alternative branding and started playing Dido, Train, Santana, Sting, Norah Jones, and Sarah McLachlan (yes, even "Adia" and "Angel", songs that have NO place on Alternative). After a few months, watching bands like Franz Ferdinand and Modest Mouse gain some mainstream attention, they went back to sounding much the way they did in late 2003. They later acquired WBBO (then on 98.5) in 2004 which was your token Top 40 station at the time with anemic ratings and shifted the mix to sort of an Adult CHR with some Alternative acts and used the tagline "More Music Radio". After things did not improve, they announced a merger of WHTG & WBBO, both stations broadcasting "G Rock Radio". When it launched in early 2005, it was pretty safe: hits from grunge-era artists, "soccer mom" rockers Nickelback and 3 Doors Down having songs in high rotation, and very little music from the '80s ... maybe you would hear the occasional Cure, Clash or Ramones song, and it was usually predictable stuff like "Friday I'm In Love", "Should I Stay Or Should I Go?" and "I Wanna Be Sedated". It remained this way until late 2006, when the Nickelback and bands of that ilk were dropped and more '80s titles started to find their way into the mix. Then, in about March of 2007, Terrie Carr was brought in as PD and did the midday shift. After a period of stagnancy with many songs remaining in Current rotation for several months, this station finally hit its stride. Through the middle of 2007, they finally nailed down a regular jock schedule, added a slew of listener-interactive features (including the Retro Request Hour at Noon, the 5 O'Clock Shuffle, the all-request Radio Kaos on Saturdays, and Queens Of Noise and The Punkyard on Sundays), and the mix became what it should have been all along: they were playing more than just the big hits from core artists, they were evenly split between '80s, '90s and '00s, and they finally included some harder rock acts like Tool and Rage Against The Machine.
My point: If Press had not been so impulsive, and if they had continued with the FM 106.3 sound (but with more professional imaging), WHTG could have been a greater success. Instead, they went through PDs like Motorhead goes through band members and tinkered with the sound so much that they alienated much of their audience. If it hadn't taken them 7 years to come full circle ... if people with zero knowledge of the Alternative format had not insisted on micromanaging the heck out of the station ... things would have been different. If they had come out of the gate in 2000 sounding the way they did in 2007, I know G Rock would be one of the top players in the Monmouth/Ocean market and we wouldn't be lamenting its demise right now.
Press has no one to blame but themselves for G Rock's recent disappointing ratings. Their trigger-happy programming tactics and lack of patience with the current incarnation leave most of us who listened faithfully with nowhere to go for a Modern Rock fix, and a pathetic, inadequate, embarrassing satellite Top 40 format in its place. As if Press weren't tight enough with their money - if they're going to be this damn cheap maybe they should just leave the broadcasting industry.
So now we have yet another CHR - let's see, on the north end this format will have plenty of overlap with WHTZ (Z-100), WPLJ and WJLK (94.3 The Point) ... and on the south end, WIOQ (Q 102), WGBZ/WZBZ (Kiss-FM), WAYV and WSJO (SoJo). It bears mentioning again that before it carred G Rock, WBBO was home to a CHR that had pitiful ratings in its final year or two. I also have to mention that while G Rock appealed to diverse demos, Hit 106 (or Hits Now, or whatever this is called) will be virtually unlistenable to all but teens and younger. Good luck, Press - maybe you'll get those highly coveted Chuck E. Cheese and Build-A-Bear Workshop ad dollars after all.
As for the displaced G Rock listeners - some can turn to Radio 104.5 in Philly, which is alright but has a playlist that's about half the size of G Rock and a disappointing "shut up and play the music" philosophy which frowns upon jock banter. I don't think I've ever heard them play a Smiths song other than "How Soon Is Now?", which even 95.7 Ben-FM plays. WRAT is just too soft, WCHR (105.7 The Hawk) too old and tired, and both too bland and predictable to satisfy the G Rock audience. I guess it's back to iPods, CDs and mixtapes for the majority of us.
What really angers and disappoints me is how the staff and format were dropped on such short notice, and not even given the opportunity to say goodbye. This is no way to treat the people that gave their all to make WHTG/WBBO (which was once Press' flagship station) what it was, and it's a slap in the face to the audience of G Rock.
I wanted to say thank you to Terrie Carr, Matt Knight, Matt Murray, Erin Vogt, Scott Lowe, Pete Lepore, Michele Amabile, Michael Leigh and the rest of the staff at G Rock. What happened to all of you was a damn shame, and Press owes everyone an explanation as to why they were so shady and underhanded about this format change and seemingly no longer even acknowledge the existence of G Rock. You deserved much better than this. I wish you all the best of luck in your future endeavors - maybe if Millennium is smart, they'll drop the sinking ship that is The Hawk and hire you all to give a proper Alternative format a fair chance. Ah, but that's wishful thinking on my part.
I am erasing Press Communications from my radar much as they did G Rock. For the abrupt and impulsive way in which they handled the format change and laid off the G Rock staff, both 99.7 and 106.5 are no longer on my presets, and I am no longer supporting anything having to do with Press. They are a bunch of morons who deserve failure for their idiotic decisions. Replacing a terrific fully-staffed Alternative station with a generic satellite-fed Top 40 format - what a stroke of genius. When this latest example of jumping the gun crashes and burns, I'll say "I told you so". You reap what you sow, Press. Do Monmouth and Ocean Counties a favor and leave the radio business FOR GOOD.
In 2009: G Rock was a victim in what will most certainly be the most boneheaded programming decision of the year ... unless Millennium Radio Group decides to drop NJ 101.5 for a polka format, and I don't see that happening.
This is all the fault of Press Communications. They ran the station into the ground because of their impulsive programming decisions, all of which caused the audience to erode. The audience winds up as the big losers here because the powers that be at Press are a bunch of morons.
Here's a history lesson of WHTG under the ownership of Press Communications.
In 2000, instead of doing what they should have all along and picking up where FM 106.3 left off, they rebranded the format G 106.3 and went with a Modern AC format playing the likes of Nelly Furtado and Sheryl Crow along with some light Alternative tracks - they insisted on using the Alternative branding even though they were playing "lite rock" acts. A year or two later they start throwing acts like Bon Jovi and Guns N' Roses into the mix, making the station even more of an unfocused mess (think the 2002 version of WRXP, but even worse). Through this period and part of 2003 they played acts like Five For Fighting, Gavin DeGraw, John Mayer, Avril Lavigne, Vanessa Carlton and others while insisting they were Alternative. Then, a miracle happened: sometime in 2003, the format was tinkered with again and G 106.3 sounded like a decent, albeit safe, Alternative-lite station with much of the Hot AC fluff purged. But in early 2004, they made a highly reactionary move after a disappointing ratings book - they dropped the Alternative branding and started playing Dido, Train, Santana, Sting, Norah Jones, and Sarah McLachlan (yes, even "Adia" and "Angel", songs that have NO place on Alternative). After a few months, watching bands like Franz Ferdinand and Modest Mouse gain some mainstream attention, they went back to sounding much the way they did in late 2003. They later acquired WBBO (then on 98.5) in 2004 which was your token Top 40 station at the time with anemic ratings and shifted the mix to sort of an Adult CHR with some Alternative acts and used the tagline "More Music Radio". After things did not improve, they announced a merger of WHTG & WBBO, both stations broadcasting "G Rock Radio". When it launched in early 2005, it was pretty safe: hits from grunge-era artists, "soccer mom" rockers Nickelback and 3 Doors Down having songs in high rotation, and very little music from the '80s ... maybe you would hear the occasional Cure, Clash or Ramones song, and it was usually predictable stuff like "Friday I'm In Love", "Should I Stay Or Should I Go?" and "I Wanna Be Sedated". It remained this way until late 2006, when the Nickelback and bands of that ilk were dropped and more '80s titles started to find their way into the mix. Then, in about March of 2007, Terrie Carr was brought in as PD and did the midday shift. After a period of stagnancy with many songs remaining in Current rotation for several months, this station finally hit its stride. Through the middle of 2007, they finally nailed down a regular jock schedule, added a slew of listener-interactive features (including the Retro Request Hour at Noon, the 5 O'Clock Shuffle, the all-request Radio Kaos on Saturdays, and Queens Of Noise and The Punkyard on Sundays), and the mix became what it should have been all along: they were playing more than just the big hits from core artists, they were evenly split between '80s, '90s and '00s, and they finally included some harder rock acts like Tool and Rage Against The Machine.
My point: If Press had not been so impulsive, and if they had continued with the FM 106.3 sound (but with more professional imaging), WHTG could have been a greater success. Instead, they went through PDs like Motorhead goes through band members and tinkered with the sound so much that they alienated much of their audience. If it hadn't taken them 7 years to come full circle ... if people with zero knowledge of the Alternative format had not insisted on micromanaging the heck out of the station ... things would have been different. If they had come out of the gate in 2000 sounding the way they did in 2007, I know G Rock would be one of the top players in the Monmouth/Ocean market and we wouldn't be lamenting its demise right now.
Press has no one to blame but themselves for G Rock's recent disappointing ratings. Their trigger-happy programming tactics and lack of patience with the current incarnation leave most of us who listened faithfully with nowhere to go for a Modern Rock fix, and a pathetic, inadequate, embarrassing satellite Top 40 format in its place. As if Press weren't tight enough with their money - if they're going to be this damn cheap maybe they should just leave the broadcasting industry.
So now we have yet another CHR - let's see, on the north end this format will have plenty of overlap with WHTZ (Z-100), WPLJ and WJLK (94.3 The Point) ... and on the south end, WIOQ (Q 102), WGBZ/WZBZ (Kiss-FM), WAYV and WSJO (SoJo). It bears mentioning again that before it carred G Rock, WBBO was home to a CHR that had pitiful ratings in its final year or two. I also have to mention that while G Rock appealed to diverse demos, Hit 106 (or Hits Now, or whatever this is called) will be virtually unlistenable to all but teens and younger. Good luck, Press - maybe you'll get those highly coveted Chuck E. Cheese and Build-A-Bear Workshop ad dollars after all.
As for the displaced G Rock listeners - some can turn to Radio 104.5 in Philly, which is alright but has a playlist that's about half the size of G Rock and a disappointing "shut up and play the music" philosophy which frowns upon jock banter. I don't think I've ever heard them play a Smiths song other than "How Soon Is Now?", which even 95.7 Ben-FM plays. WRAT is just too soft, WCHR (105.7 The Hawk) too old and tired, and both too bland and predictable to satisfy the G Rock audience. I guess it's back to iPods, CDs and mixtapes for the majority of us.
What really angers and disappoints me is how the staff and format were dropped on such short notice, and not even given the opportunity to say goodbye. This is no way to treat the people that gave their all to make WHTG/WBBO (which was once Press' flagship station) what it was, and it's a slap in the face to the audience of G Rock.
I wanted to say thank you to Terrie Carr, Matt Knight, Matt Murray, Erin Vogt, Scott Lowe, Pete Lepore, Michele Amabile, Michael Leigh and the rest of the staff at G Rock. What happened to all of you was a damn shame, and Press owes everyone an explanation as to why they were so shady and underhanded about this format change and seemingly no longer even acknowledge the existence of G Rock. You deserved much better than this. I wish you all the best of luck in your future endeavors - maybe if Millennium is smart, they'll drop the sinking ship that is The Hawk and hire you all to give a proper Alternative format a fair chance. Ah, but that's wishful thinking on my part.
I am erasing Press Communications from my radar much as they did G Rock. For the abrupt and impulsive way in which they handled the format change and laid off the G Rock staff, both 99.7 and 106.5 are no longer on my presets, and I am no longer supporting anything having to do with Press. They are a bunch of morons who deserve failure for their idiotic decisions. Replacing a terrific fully-staffed Alternative station with a generic satellite-fed Top 40 format - what a stroke of genius. When this latest example of jumping the gun crashes and burns, I'll say "I told you so". You reap what you sow, Press. Do Monmouth and Ocean Counties a favor and leave the radio business FOR GOOD.
If they had to blow up G-Rock, adding a simulcast of K98.5 wouldn't have been the worst idea ever. I personally wouldn't listen to the station, but I know people in the area who would, and I'm all for filling voids instead of repackaging the same music you can get elsewhere. A satellite CHR format is just a waste of airspace.
So, any bets on why it happened?
- Does anyone think that Press can make more money with a canned CHR format, given the number of non-canned CHR stations out there?
- Is it possible that this is happening because Press couldn't afford to feed a payroll for a station that, at best (no matter what format they run) won't ever get big enough to pull in dwindling ad buys? Is it possible they're looking to get these stations off its hands, and sees the canned format as a way to keep the power bill paid while waiting for either (a.) a market upturn that would bring in more ad sales for some future format while they sit on the license, or (b.) a bigger sucker to buy it?
I'm starting to lean toward (b), but I'd be interested in more informed commentary than mine...though in my mind, given a regulatory environment that might be changing, a license challenge for this sort of stewardship isn't out of the question. Paid a lot for the license? Tough - serve your community, like the license says.
-Sean
Altrok Radio at altrokradio.com
- Does anyone think that Press can make more money with a canned CHR format, given the number of non-canned CHR stations out there?
- Is it possible that this is happening because Press couldn't afford to feed a payroll for a station that, at best (no matter what format they run) won't ever get big enough to pull in dwindling ad buys? Is it possible they're looking to get these stations off its hands, and sees the canned format as a way to keep the power bill paid while waiting for either (a.) a market upturn that would bring in more ad sales for some future format while they sit on the license, or (b.) a bigger sucker to buy it?
I'm starting to lean toward (b), but I'd be interested in more informed commentary than mine...though in my mind, given a regulatory environment that might be changing, a license challenge for this sort of stewardship isn't out of the question. Paid a lot for the license? Tough - serve your community, like the license says.
-Sean
Altrok Radio at altrokradio.com
K
K-Tel
Guest
A license challenge because you don't like the format is rather silly.
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