How Conservative Is South Bend, Ind? Check Out U-93

[CHRles]

So I'm looking at the website of WNDV, better known as U-93 South Bend
http://www.u93.com

First thing you notice in the header it says "Today's Best Music Home of the 9-5 No Rap Workday. "
No Rap workday? What is this a Lite Rock station???
Then you see it again, right below it says "U93 Today Best Music without the rap!". Ummm, 1991 called, it wants its outdated slogan back.

So just what exactly does this station play?
http://www.u93.com/index.php?/music/charts

It's great that the music mix is unique, with some Modern Rock support and all, but overall this feels like a very Adult leaning radio station, moreso than stations like Q-102 Cincy or Mix 106.5 Baltimore.

So just how conservative is South Bend? It's situated halfway between Chicago and Fort Wayne. Would a more Rhythmic/Pop friendly CHR do well in this market?

 

[jsu5381m]

Sound like U93 would make a great Cumulus station.

 

[SoulCrusher]

Britney Spears, Kesha, and Selena Gomez are all on the list. So I don't see how this station could even remotely be interpreted as "adult oriented". Get rid of them, and perhaps you would have a decent Hot/Modern hybrid that would work with adults. But when you're playing "Till The World Ends" as your #1 song, you're going to alienate many adults right there.

 

[only1moore]

I feel sorry for the folks in Michiana. The only outlet they can go to for their "CHR" fix is Rhythmic WSMK (Smokin' 99.1), and their signal is questionable. Every other station in that market seem to favor Country, AC, Oldies, Christian Contemporary or News/Talk. Even satellite-fed Urban AC WUBU serves as the de-facto R&B outlet and they don't play Hip-Hop.

 

[CHRles]

Britney Spears, Kesha, and Selena Gomez are all on the list. So I don't see how this station could even remotely be interpreted as "adult oriented". Get rid of them, and perhaps you would have a decent Hot/Modern hybrid that would work with adults. But when you're playing "Till The World Ends" as your #1 song, you're going to alienate many adults right there.

Plenty of Hot ACs play Britney Spears and Ke$ha, and U-93 can easily be intepreted as an Adult oritend CHR (not AC) when you look at some of the other titles which you conveniently ignored:
Songs 11-13 Maroon 5 "Never Gonna Leave This Bed", Colbie Cailat "I Do" Lifehouse "Falling In"
Songs 21, 23-25 Andy Grammer "Keep Your Head Up", Sara Bareilles "Uncharted", Michael Franti "I'll Be Waiting", Parachute "Something To Believe In".
A station labelled as CHR/Pop that has all these songs in rotation tends to be VERY adult leaning.

 

[CJ40]

I live in the U93 listening area and they used to be a really good CHR. They had a little bit of an alternative lean to it. They played some songs that were hits on Alternative radio that other CHR stations stayed away from. About 5 years ago, they got a new PD and she took the station in a much more conservative direction. The station sounds a lot like Cumulus' WKFR, which is too bad because I tuned into U93 to get away from KFR. Depending where you are in the market, you can get B96 and KISS FM out of Chicago but you have to be closer to the lake.

 

[atlantaboy]

So just how conservative is South Bend? It's situated halfway between Chicago and Fort Wayne. Would a more Rhythmic/Pop friendly CHR do well in this market?

That's definitely not a "conservative" playlist (Foster The People is about as cutting-edge as you can get right now)

Small markets like this have CHRs than lean adult because there's no Hot AC - take away the Hot AC format from most markets and this is the kind of station you'd find everywhere - and BTW this is nothing like a Cumulus playlist (Cumulus wouldn't be playing all those cutting-edge HAC/Modern AC tracks, or at least not this early)

 

[CHRles]

So just how conservative is South Bend? It's situated halfway between Chicago and Fort Wayne. Would a more Rhythmic/Pop friendly CHR do well in this market?

That's definitely not a "conservative" playlist (Foster The People is about as cutting-edge as you can get right now)

You might want to listen to a typical hour, the station is extremely conservative.
I also don't think the Foster For The People song is all that cutting edge
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDTZ7iX4vTQ

It might have been cutting edge in 1991...back when taglines like "Today best music without the rap" meant something

 

[atlantaboy]

So just how conservative is South Bend? It's situated halfway between Chicago and Fort Wayne. Would a more Rhythmic/Pop friendly CHR do well in this market?

That's definitely not a "conservative" playlist (Foster The People is about as cutting-edge as you can get right now)

You might want to listen to a typical hour, the station is extremely conservative.
I also don't think the Foster For The People song is all that cutting edge
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDTZ7iX4vTQ

It might have been cutting edge in 1991...back when taglines like "Today best music without the rap" meant something

I can't find them on yes.com to look at a sample hour, but Foster The People, My Chem. Romance, and Thirty Seconds To Mars are definitely not "conservative"

You're definitely obsessed with rhythmic/dance/pop being "cutting edge" and exciting, and anything rock being "conservative" and boring - Kesha and Britney are extremely "safe", while Thirty Seconds To Mars is not "safe", so out of those choices more conservative stations would choose Kesha and Britney

And lol 1991 has nothing to do with it - BTW Rhythmic/Hip-Hop was huge in 1991, and for some reason you keep using it as an example of a year when you think rock was "popular" - the reason there were CHRs with "no rap" taglines is because the Hot AC/Rhythmic split hadn't happened yet, so you basically had tons of Hot ACs (and Rhythmics) reporting as CHRs

 

[CHRles]

Oh let me count the ways in which your response is wrong.
I never said Ke$ha and Britney are cutting edge, but a CHR that plays no Hip Hop at all, censors anything talkish or any song that contains a Rap verse (and there's plenty) is on the conservative side.
The typical hour on U-93 does not contain plenty My Chem or Thirty Second To Mars, or I would have labelled them as a Rock leaning CHR. Take a listen to the station in midday or afternoons sometimes and see what I mean.
Your biggest flaw though is what you wrote about Hot ACs in 1991. There were plenty of them, and many Adult CHRs moved in their direction as well:
Q-101 Chicago (yup, they weren't always a Modern Rocker)
Kiss 100 Philadelphia
I believe WVBF in Boston was Hot AC at this time
Mix 96.5 Houston
Q-95.5 Detroit
94 KTI Milwaukee
Mix 105.1 Orlando
Mix 96 Tampa
Star 94 Atlanta (or were they still 94Q in that year?)
B-100.7 San Diego (they were borderline Hot AC/CHR in much of the 80s as well)
Mix 107.3 Washington DC
104.7 KZZP Phoenix
106.1 BLI Long Island
Magic 102 Buffalo

 

[atlantaboy]

Your biggest flaw though is what you wrote about Hot ACs in 1991. There were plenty of them, and many Adult CHRs moved in their direction as well:
Q-101 Chicago (yup, they weren't always a Modern Rocker)
Kiss 100 Philadelphia
I believe WVBF in Boston was Hot AC at this time
Mix 96.5 Houston
Q-95.5 Detroit
94 KTI Milwaukee
Mix 105.1 Orlando
Mix 96 Tampa
Star 94 Atlanta (or were they still 94Q in that year?)
B-100.7 San Diego (they were borderline Hot AC/CHR in much of the 80s as well)
Mix 107.3 Washington DC
104.7 KZZP Phoenix
106.1 BLI Long Island
Magic 102 Buffalo

Most of these reported to the CHR panel in 1991 - there was no Hot AC panel yet

Dude. you're killing me here...

 

[atlantaboy]

And BTW will you READ WHAT I WRITE???

"You had tons of Hot ACs reporting as CHRs" is not the same as "There were no Hot ACs"

 

[CHRles]

Your biggest flaw though is what you wrote about Hot ACs in 1991. There were plenty of them, and many Adult CHRs moved in their direction as well:
Q-101 Chicago (yup, they weren't always a Modern Rocker)
Kiss 100 Philadelphia
I believe WVBF in Boston was Hot AC at this time
Mix 96.5 Houston
Q-95.5 Detroit
94 KTI Milwaukee
Mix 105.1 Orlando
Mix 96 Tampa
Star 94 Atlanta (or were they still 94Q in that year?)
B-100.7 San Diego (they were borderline Hot AC/CHR in much of the 80s as well)
Mix 107.3 Washington DC
104.7 KZZP Phoenix
106.1 BLI Long Island
Magic 102 Buffalo

Most of these reported to the CHR panel in 1991 - there was no Hot AC panel yet

Dude. you're killing me here...

Radio & Records used the term CHR while Billboard magazine had Top 40, and Top 40/Dance (which changed to Top 40/Rhythm in 1992).
By the end of 1991 Radio & Records had none of the stations I've listed above were on the CHR/Pop.

BTW, it's not an obsession with all these Rhythmic/Pop, but rather you're inability to let go of the past. Rhythmic/Pop is extremely hot with the Pop audience right now, and with 18-34 year olds female listeners who listen to Pop stations. That's also why there have never been more Rhythmic stations in medium and small markets than there are now (and there are a lot less Rock stations).

 

[atlantaboy]

BTW, it's not an obsession with all these Rhythmic/Pop, but rather you're inability to let go of the past.

Foster The People has nothing to do with the past lol - I'm not sure how much longer you're gonna take this rock=the past=conservative=1991 thing, but you're definitely gonna be in over your head with it in a couple months

 

[the golden boy]

There have been a few CBS adult top 40s/hot ACs that have popped lately that use the "today's best hits without the rap" tag, like Now 100.5 Sacramento and Play 98.7 Tampa.

 

[werecat]

South Bend radio does seem to be very anti-rap.

WSMK is based in Michigan and has a weak signal that doesn't reach very far into Indiana. I lived in Mishawaka, a town right next to South Bend, for a couple months back in 1999. WSMK had some static when I tried to pick it up on my boombox.

This means that the towns directly south of the South Bend area are not within listening range of any sort of urban/rhythmic station or rap-friendly top 40 station. If you're traveling through the area and like rap music, you may want to bring some music with you instead of depending on FM radio. WPWX covers a good chunk of northwestern Indiana, but not all of it.

Canadian hot AC stations play more rap music than U93 does. I live in rural Saskatchewan now and have heard "Black and Yellow" by Wiz Khalifa on Yorkton's 94.1 the Fox.

 

[atlantaboy]

Canadian hot AC stations play more rap music than U93 does. I live in rural Saskatchewan now and have heard "Black and Yellow" by Wiz Khalifa on Yorkton's 94.1 the Fox.

I think Canadian Hot AC is basically CHR with lower spin counts - stuff that we think of as traditional "Hot AC" doesn't go over that well in Canada (for whatever reason)

 

[Bongwater]

It depends. Rap/hip-hop WAS cutting edge at one time. But that was in the '90s and some people are just put off by it today. They want to hear somebody actually SINGING instead of talking about their exploits in rhymes. Or they think it's music for 14 year old delinquents (and if you surveyed said delinquents on their most preferred music choice, they wouldn't be too far off either.)

The other problem is with few exceptions, rap hasn't really developed very far since the '90s (you still have the same "Amen" break derived beat structure, the over-emphasis on the boomy bass thumps, Auto-Tune, and the usual topics in these songs are pretty cliche by now.)

On the other hand, if I hear one more thrash metal band with a lead singer who sounds like he's channeling the Cookie Monster........

It's not to say rap/hip-hop is dying or on it's way out. But it's in serious danger of that. Rock n' roll had to evolve to survive and rap music needs to start letting go of it's worst cliches and finding new and DIFFERENT avenues to explore. The problem is, most people in rap (both performers and labels) are very resistant to change and the few that aren't are usually shunned in favor of the same old formula that made many people (including myself) extremely weary of the genre.

I think sometime in the next few years (and we're LONG overdue for it) is another previously ignored sub-genre, completely different than anything else currently on the radio finally becoming a mainstream phenomena, like the Seattle grunge rock revolution of the early '90s. All it takes is one big record to tip the scales. We're at the point now where I think we're more than ready for it. But WHAT that will be is anyone's guess. Bollywood? Bluegrass? Outsider music? Anything is possible at this point (I pray hard that it's not Glee covers........)

 

[atlantaboy]

I don't really understand what rap we're talking about - the most conservative cities in the country have Pitbull all over the radio

This is obviously a station that targets adults, and conservative adults wouldn't be listening to Thirty Seconds To Mars, Foster The People, etc. - the playlist has nothing to do with politics, it has to do with age of the target audience (and probably ethnicity)

Plus, rap/hip-hop isn't even that dominant in 2011 - dance/pop is

 

[J. Rob]

It's not to say rap/hip-hop is dying or on it's way out. But it's in serious danger of that. Rock n' roll had to evolve to survive and rap music needs to start letting go of it's worst cliches and finding new and DIFFERENT avenues to explore. The problem is, most people in rap (both performers and labels) are very resistant to change and the few that aren't are usually shunned in favor of the same old formula that made many people (including myself) extremely weary of the genre.

It's not the artists, it's the labels. Just look what Atlantic did to Lupe Fiasco.

Honestly, I'm very glad that CHR is shying away from Urban music (especially Hip-Hip). IMO, Top 40 airplay is one of the worst things that happened to Hip Hop and R&B in terms of music quality. Urban artists started catering to the Top 40 crowd by making their music watered down, pop-ish and very formulaic. Now that Top 40 radio isn't playing all that much Urban music anymore, Urban artist are starting to return to their roots, which is a good thing