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Is iHeart testing the waters for a Rhythmic AC station in Philly?

W

whitenoise

Since TDY flipped to Hot AC, I’m hearing a lot more “throwbacks” on Q102 than I’m used to. And I’m not talking the typical songs they’d toss in from time to time like “Yeah” by Usher or “In Da Club” by 50 Cent.

Here’s a few unique ones throughout the day yesterday (08/13/2023):

5:05 PM - “Ms. Jackson” by Outkast (2000)
5:28 PM - “B***h Better Have My Money” by Rihanna (2014)
5:52 PM - “Replay” by Iyaz (2009)
7:17 PM - “Too Little Too Late” by JoJo (2006)
7:31 PM - “Best I Ever Had” by Drake (2009)
7:45 PM - “Dirty Little Secret” by The All-American Rejects (2005)

Earlier this morning they even played “Freek-a-Leek” by Petey Pablo, “1, 2 Step” by Ciara and “Move ya Body” by Nina Sky.

A few of these songs I’m fairly certain haven’t been played on this station in years, if not over a decade.

So is this their way of testing out a 2000s pop-leaning rhythmic AC format to see how it plays here?
Or is this merely an attempt to boost Q102’s own ratings by appealing to an older demographic by sprinkling in a few more throwbacks?
 
Almost certainly the latter. iHeart runs a similar music mix on Channel 955 in Detroit, and it's #1 there.
 
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This isn’t new among CHRs currently. Lots of good analysis out there about the reasons, and some that have gone full on with a mix of throwbacks and new. Q may not be going that direction, but to see them dip a little more into the past isn’t surprising in and of itself. Doubtful there’s some deeper thing going on.
 
I think it’s worth mentioning the time stamp is between 5-8 PM on a Sunday and “early morning” on Monday. I’d be curious to know what time early morning is because there is a huge difference between 3 AM and 7 AM. It’ll also be interesting to see if the pattern continues during that same 5-8 PM time period throughout the week during rush hour.
 
SKFlyers93 said:
Early 2000s Q102 had it all... the imaging, the music, the personalities. Nice to see some of those 'throwbacks' making a slight return.
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Yes! I really liked that Q102 had live DJs in every day part. I liked that the DJs would go online and chat on the website to interact with the listeners, and I’m still friends with one of the former DJs now. I liked the mix shows and live broadcasts from a nightclub.
 
JackindaBox said:
They could be testing out the songs to see if they will flip this station to a similar format than Kiss 107.1 in the future.
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Stations don't "try out" songs on the air. Testing is done prior to putting recurrents or gold on the air, and only then are songs that pass the test process put on the air for listeners.

Only new releases are put on the air with no research prior to their inclusion on a playlist.
 
I feel like CHR in general recently went into a cycle where Golds are once again important. The folks at Q102 can't sit back and act like they're free and clear because the competing Top 40 station altered their format. Listeners don't care what the format is called; they care about what they're hearing. Q102 has become repetitive, and it seems a lot of listeners prefer what WTDY is doing now. One station is giving variety and the other was playing a tiny number of songs, seemingly spaced out about 90 minutes. Gimme the variety!
 
How different would this sound compared how Philly's 106.1/My 106.1 sounded when it initially launched? I could see iHeart pushing some more Gold into the Q102 product, but not an outright flip of a station at the moment.
 
It would make absolutely no sense for them to move in a direction that puts them in competition with other stations when they currently have the CHR lane all to themselves. They are tweaking things by adding more Gold, but they are not headed toward Rhythmic AC (or Hot AC or any other flavor of AC). It would be a terrible business decision.

I also think it's fair to say iHeart is done attempting iterations of Rhythmic AC in this market for many, many, many years. It's the proverbial definition of insanity at this point.

EDIT: I need to edit this, so I'm being clear. iHeart isn't putting Rhythmic AC on 102.1 or 104.5. Ain't gonna happen.
 
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Miguelito said:
It would make absolutely no sense for them to move in a direction that puts them in competition with other stations when they currently have the CHR lane all to themselves. They are tweaking things by adding more Gold, but they are not headed toward Rhythmic AC (or Hot AC or any other flavor of AC). It would be a terrible business decision.

I also think it's fair to say iHeart is done attempting iterations of Rhythmic AC in this market for many, many, many years. It's the proverbial definition of insanity at this point.

EDIT: I need to edit this, so I'm being clear. iHeart isn't putting Rhythmic AC on 102.1 or 104.5. Ain't gonna happen.
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You never know. They brought back Rumba on 106.1. Could bring back rhythmic AC on 104.5. Same formats as in 2006, but on the opposite frequencies
 
AbrahamJSimpson said:
This Rumba isn’t the old Rumba.
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Exactly. "Rumba" is a name, one that comes from an obsolete type of dance music from the 50's and 60's. The word, in slang, took on the meaning, in a loose translation,m of having fun
 
NickD said:
They brought back Rumba on 106.1.
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As Abraham said, nothing was brought back. The former Rumba was a very different format.
 
Speaking about Rumba, I do wish that iHeart added a subchannel of it here in NY, maybe even get a translator.

Anyways, this isn't surprising. B96 in Chicago recently did this and KISS 102.7 (not to be confused with KIIS) has been doing this for quite some time tossing in even EARLIER hits like "Sweet Dreams" and "Everybody Wants To Rule The World".
 
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