The only people they pissed off were a few radio geeks. No offense, we are all geeks on here. I think they did it perfectly. They misled the competition. They DID debut the advertised format on 99.1 on the date and time promised. It just didn't last long. It was a big middle finger to Albany Broadcasting and CC who probably wasted a few of hours this week discussing how to handle the new Sunny station being launched. Brilliant.
The only press release they sent was about Hot 99.1 yesterday. Everything else was pure speculation from a Facebook page or what the trades wrote about the Facebook page. I'm sure you weren't alone in passing the word along to friends that a better station is coming.
It's getting harder and harder to make a format change the right way these days. The last thing you want is your competing clusters to get wind of things and beat you to the punch. Plus, you've got a website out there that has nothing better to do than to scan domain registrations every day trying to ruin the surprise. Yes, the information is public and can be found by anyone, but get a life!
In the format changes I've been involved in, the new website was kept on a laptop until the very last minute and the only people that knew about the format change besides headquarters were key personnel (GM, Sales Manager, PD, Ops Manager, Engineer, IT director, and any talent that will remain). Most of those key people were only told about the change two or three days ahead of time.
Luckily you can activate a domain and have it visible within 2 hours these days which eliminates the need to reserve it weeks ahead of time.