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Gainesville-Ocala Wish List...

vadar said:
I'm confused. How can a CHR in Gainesville with a HORRIBLE signal actually be listed as "the lone CHR" in the Gainesville/Ocala market? We have determined WYKS covers Gainesville ok, but what CHR is truly serving the Ocala market? Is there not a GM who just doesn't see the glaring hole for this market? We have 3 country stations in the market all sufficiently covering both Ocala and Gainesville but only 1 CHR that doesn't cover Ocala? I'm confused.
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Well, covering half of the market still counts as being in the market. In fact, there are stations in both counties that don't even cover all of their county well that are still "In the market". WYGC in High springs and WVLG in The Villages both come to mind. Certainly, WYKS was never inteneded to cover anything but Alachua county and I'd say it does that pretty well. In fact, I'd rate WYKS signal as amazingly good considering it's a 6kW class A. The fact that it even gets to Ocala well enogh to drive around is pretty remarkable considering the distance. So, the question of "is there a format hole in Ocala" is different than "is there a CHR in the market". There is, but it only covers half of the market, yet WYKS remains in the top 10 year after year. I imagine it would do really well if it covered Marion county.
 
Kyle, you are correct. Alachua County has been the sole focus of WYKS because of their signal limitations-- just like 70% of the stations in this over inflated market-- they only cover about half. For 3KW/466 Ft. It throws pretty well.

KISS is #1 or 2 nearly every book with women 18-34 and 18-49 in Alachua County and billing a little over a million annually. I'd say they're pretty comfortable.

Mr. Gillen owns the building he's in, owns his tower and the real estate behind it and probably pays for his monthly bills through the revenue generated from all the cells he has on his 2 towers.

Now, is there a hole in Ocala for CHR? Perhaps... but taking into account the average age in Marion county, most of the stations there seem to be doing just fine. As I've said-- the only station that would have a chance is WMFQ.

Looking at Persons 35+ in Marion county, MFQ is 9th and 8th with 45+. Based on their signal, I'm sure their sole focus is only on Marion-- just like WYKS and Alachua.

Now, if WMFQ WERE to flip to CHR and target women 18-34-- they have sister WTRS to contend with as well as Orlando CHR and Rthymic XL 106.7 and 102 JAMZ respectively, all tied for #1.

Now, as a programmer myself-- I think programming WMFQ as a CHR would be fun-- but parent Asterisk would need to be willing to spend money to do it right to go up against the big boys in Orlando.
 
Sure have a lot of CHR fans at this site. Adult Alternative (isn't than an oxymoron my daughter once said?) is a no brainer for Gainesville (WKZY?)- but if you don't 'get' the format..

Mobile, Alabama (not what you'd think of as a hip market offhand) has had such a station (WZEW) for decades.
 
I know there's AAA consultants. Also read of a station in Houston that recently flipped to 'classic alternative'. Bet that would work in G'ville too
 
Gainesville once had a AAA station - WRRX-FM 97.7 "97X" (now WSKY). It performed very poorly as a mass appeal station, but did fairly well among its small following. One of the problems with WRRX is the format changed to classic rock at night when the station aired satellite programming, but went back to AAA "local / live" at 6:00 AM and remained with it throughout the day, returning to satellite programming around 7:00 PM nightly.

Programmed, imaged, presented and marketed correctly, a AAA station should do very well in Gainesville. The big question is, as with any format change, which station do you "blow up" to make room for AAA, and is the potential gain with AAA enough to offset the losses from the previous format, and within what time frame will the new format begin to sustain itself and then turn a profit?
 
Here is a possiblity thus far no one has pondered.

With the success of listener suppoerted The Joy FM, do you believe Contermporary Christain Hit Music will work well as a commercil format in the market? If so, which commercial station(s) do you believe the format will best work and why?

Secondly, do you believe classical music will fill a void, either as a non commercial / listener supported format, or as a commercial presentation? I realize classical music is currently available on WUFT-FM 89.1 HD2, but for purposes of discussion here, we are not considering the HD channels. However, in all fairness to HD, I will begin a seperate thread devoted to Gainesville / Ocala HD radio to explore HD market options.
 
Mark, the fairly spectacular success of Orlando's Z88.3 provides some pretty solid secondary research confirming the viability of Christian Contemp in Central Florida. An in-market G-O subscriber could check WJLF + the EMF translator at 88.7 to see how well the non-comms are doing in Gainesville to weigh the potential--and to gauge how much trouble they'd be to knock off. But sales for a CCC is just like sales in any other format. Christians have to eat, too, and buy cars and clothes, et cetera.

And, yeah, all those pissed-off Classical fans didn't go out and buy HD radios for their homes, cars and offices just because UF wanted them to. A new fulltime Classical FM signal--commercial or NCE--could make a quick revenue splash--but time is awasting. It's already been a year. And FWIW, Classical skews pretty old, so aside from the "rich, well-educated and dedicated" pitch, there may not be much growth left...
 
The irony of WYKS is they actually had a better signal in most of Ocala when they were 3,000 watts on 105.5. "Upgrading" to 6,000 watts on 105.3 put them one channel adjacent from WOMX/Orlando, causing splash interference.
 
MN Maniac said:
The irony of WYKS is they actually had a better signal in most of Ocala when they were 3,000 watts on 105.5. "Upgrading" to 6,000 watts on 105.3 put them one channel adjacent from WOMX/Orlando, causing splash interference.
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Well, they had no choice. They were forced to "upgrade" by WSOS in St. Augustine who wanted 105.5 as a C3.
 
I believe the WYKS frequency change was a Randy Michaels project when Sam Zell's Jacor Communications owned WTBT-FM 105.5 New Port Richey. Jacor wanted to upgrade WTBT (now WDUV) from a class A to a C1 with its tower in Holiday just North of Tampa Bay. I believe ThatGuy is correct in that Jacor paid Doug Gillen to move frequency so WTBT could upgrade. Of course when WYKS moved, this opened the door for Saint Augustine to also upgrade to a C3.
 
jmtillery said:
I believe the WYKS frequency change was a Randy Michaels project when Sam Zell's Jacor Communications owned WTBT-FM 105.5 New Port Richey. Jacor wanted to upgrade WTBT (now WDUV) from a class A to a C1 with its tower in Holiday just North of Tampa Bay. I believe ThatGuy is correct in that Jacor paid Doug Gillen to move frequency so WTBT could upgrade. Of course when WYKS moved, this opened the door for Saint Augustine to also upgrade to a C3.
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I played an unintended part in the process and it didn't start with Jacor. Our corporate attorney was the same one that represented WSOS. He's still practicing and is pretty well known, so I won't name him. At the Time, WSOS was a 3kW class A on 105.5, co-channel to WYKS. As part of my engineering work on another upgrade, I noticed the potential for WSOS to become a C3 on 105.5 and mentioned it, in confidence, to the attorney, but he blabbed it to his clients and that's what set the ball rolling. The first thing I knew, they were trying to get me to convince Doug what a good move it would be for him to change channels, but I told them no way was I going to lie to Doug, even though he wasn't my client. I'm pretty sure that Doug wasn't too crazy about the idea and I didn't speak to the attorney for about 15 years after I told him what I thought of his tactics. As to whether the attorney (who was a partner in a high-powered DC firm) suckered Jacor into paying Gillen as part of some side deal, I don't know. I walked away from the whole project in disgust.
 
ThatGuyOnTheRadio said:
Kyle, when did the WSOS calls move to 94.1?
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At the same time. My memory is fuzzy on the details, but I think tower siting was more advantageous for WSOS on 94.1. Normally, a move to 94.1 would not be a minor change because it's neither an adjacent channel or an I.F. frequency, but WSOS proposed vacating their channel of 105.5 by moving to 94.1 and then opening a new allocation for a C3 on the vacated channel. That was accepted by the FCC. Of course, the FCC could have counter-proposed that WSOS upgrade on the existing channel of 105.5 and then opened the new allocation on 94.1. This would have been in better keeping of the rules, but the FCC will give you a little leeway when you're proposing something that's generally beneficial for everyone.
 
Kyle - I remember initially WSOS submitted two proposals as you outlined, and I also remember seeing your name associated with the proposals in FCC records.

If memory serves me correct, WSOS proposed upgrading 105.5 to a C3 just as you outlined, with a back-up proposal to change frequency to 94.1 as a C3. I thought 94.1 was chosen as the alternate C3 for WSOS to avoid forcing WYKS to move frequency while at the same time allowing 105.5 to be re-allocated from Saint Augustine to Saint Augustine Beach as a first service. Somehow at some point Jacor got involved and paid Gillen to move WYKS from 105.5 A to 105.3 A so WTBT 105.5 could upgrade to a C1. I believe Gillen got a new tower and transmitter for WYKS as part of the Jacor deal.

At that time Jacor bought and moved several stations in Sebring to make it possible to upgrade WTBT 105.5 and WFLA-AM 970. One such affected station was WJCM Sebring which Jacor purchased and moved from 960 at 5kw to 1050 with 1kw. This opened WFLA to upgrade to 25kw. Jacor also paid WKZM Sarasota to move from 105.5 A to 104.3 A. Jacor also acquired WYMR-FM 105.5 A Sebring and moved it to 105.7 C3, later selling all the Sebring stations once the Tampa upgrades were complete.

This is what I remember, although I may be off on a few details. If I missed anything, or if I am incorrect on any of the details, feel free to make the necessary corrections.
 
jmtillery said:
Kyle - I remember initially WSOS submitted two proposals as you outlined, and I also remember seeing your name associated with the proposals in FCC records.

If memory serves me correct, WSOS proposed upgrading 105.5 to a C3 just as you outlined, with a back-up proposal to change frequency to 94.1 as a C3. I thought 94.1 was chosen as the alternate C3 for WSOS to avoid forcing WYKS to move frequency while at the same time allowing 105.5 to be re-allocated from Saint Augustine to Saint Augustine Beach as a first service. Somehow at some point Jacor got involved and paid Gillen to move WYKS from 105.5 A to 105.3 A so WTBT 105.5 could upgrade to a C1. I believe Gillen got a new tower and transmitter for WYKS as part of the Jacor deal.

At that time Jacor bought and moved several stations in Sebring to make it possible to upgrade WTBT 105.5 and WFLA-AM 970. One such affected station was WJCM Sebring which Jacor purchased and moved from 960 at 5kw to 1050 with 1kw. This opened WFLA to upgrade to 25kw. Jacor also paid WKZM Sarasota to move from 105.5 A to 104.3 A. Jacor also acquired WYMR-FM 105.5 A Sebring and moved it to 105.7 C3, later selling all the Sebring stations once the Tampa upgrades were complete.

This is what I remember, although I may be off on a few details. If I missed anything, or if I am incorrect on any of the details, feel free to make the necessary corrections.
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Well, I cannot say for sure, except that WYKS definitely did not get a new transmitter out of the deal, though the Gillens may have taken the money and used it elsewhere. WYKS continued to operate with the original 1969 Harris FM-1h until Harris announced that they were discontinuing support for the whole line in 2007. Then Doug finally bought a new FM transmitter, with reluctance. To be fair, the FM-1 was a pretty simple and very reliable transmitter. I'm pretty sure that after nearly 40 years on the air, it didn't owe anything to anyone.
 
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