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Ithaca's new Hit Music Channel, Z95.5 debuts!

T

theradiokid

Guest
It was a very busy day yesterday over at the Finger Lakes Radio Group. At 12 Noon, according to a friend, WFLR-FM (95.9 Dundee) signed off the air for good. Just minutes later, Ithaca's newest radio station was born, as WFIZ (95.5 Odessa) signed on with CHR as "Z95.5, Ithaca's New Hit Music Channel." Here are the details: A friend heard them yesterday, and tells me that they are a current but (in his words) "eclectic" CHR, spanning dance, hip-hop, and rock music. According to the news page at radio-info, they have studios and offices in Ithaca already. The new PD is Tommy Franks from DeTroit, and the new manager is Frank Luchack (not sure on spelling.) In a press release given to CNYRadio.com, Luchack said that Ithaca is a college town without a significant 18-34 population with a CHR. "They have now!" the press release screams. The station is running "Ten Thousand songs commercial free." After that, Luchack said, there'll be commercials, and, oh yeah, jocks!

All right. Now, we know that Ithaca hasn't had a CHR since WIII went AAA, and that the market hasn't had a CHR since the hit driven "Mix" format on WXHC. So, the question is: Will "Z95.5 be successful?

I say "Yes!" I've always thought that Ithaca had the population to support a CHR station. It surprises me that noone has thought to grab this golden opretunity before now. Personally, I thought that when Saga bought WIII, they would have changed it to CHR.

But then again: If CHR on WIII didn't work 15, 20, 25 years ago, then, I must ask, what if anything about the market has changed? Will "Z95.5" fail, too? Only time can answer that question.

--The Radio Kid
(AKA Oswego Jeremy, as nicknamed by George of the Radio Racket.)
My email: [email protected].
 
Who says CHR never worked in Ithaca?

I100 was not CHR, and neither was YES-FM... They were rather broad attempts at a variety based Hot AC (far too many titles). Power 99.9 WNYP was an adult leaning CHR that pulled a 10 share, on and off (big 40 shares at night as a CHR should have in a college town with only 4 or 5 sticks). WNYP was more or less the market leader, book to book, 12 plus & 18-49 from 1989-92. They only pulled the plug when the station was sold and the new owners wanted to put their own brand in place and skew the station slightly owner to increase billing.

Saga doesn't do CHR in markets that size, period.
 
Ithaca was fairly fertile CHR territory in the 1970s and 1980s. First there was WTKO on 1470 AM. Then after it drifted up demographically, WVBR-FM had a decent run as a full blown CHR in the early to mid-1980s while Tom Poleman (now boss at Z100 and the Clear Channel New York City cluster) was attending Cornell and programming it.

Each of those stations, however, depended largely on student talent to keep them going (TKO recruited from IC, VBR from Cornell) and as student interest in hit radio waned and tastes turned more toward new rock and alternative music, the talent from the campuses to make a CHR station work dried up. VBR eventually went back to album rock after Poleman graduated, and TKO first went news/talk, then changed call letters to WNYY and went first to sports and then to syndicated progressive talk.

Maybe that CHR audience is still there, and no longer interested in trying to pull a good signal from 93Q in Syracuse...if it is, Z95.5 may have a chance. It might not do all that much with the rock-oriented college crowd, but might do well in attracting local 12-28s, the way WTKO and later WVBR did 20 or 30 years ago.
 
Let's not forget that, to whatever extent Cortland's 99.9 got into Ithaca in the 80s and 90s, it was doing CHR in several of its incarnations (OK100, Yes-FM)...
 
Bob1370 said:
Maybe that CHR audience is still there, and no longer interested in trying to pull a good signal from 93Q in Syracuse...if it is, Z95.5 may have a chance. It might not do all that much with the rock-oriented college crowd, but might do well in attracting local 12-28s, the way WTKO and later WVBR did 20 or 30 years ago.
Click to expand...

Usually around the bottom of every Ithaca Arbitron book you will see stations from Syracuse: WWHT & WNTQ, WMRV from Binghamton, and WNKI from Elmira, so this station has a realistic chance of picking up a few shares. The bigger coup would be if they could eventually pull a #1 in the 18-34 demo in the market.

I think CHR is going to be tough to sell on the street, it usually has been in that area, but I think someone had to flip to a younger demo in that town.
 
Maybe it's professional skepticism, but a CHR in a college town in 2008 soon to be 2009... hmmm. Cell phones, iPods, computers with terabite hard drives and college kids who have that detached cynicism we've come to know and love... to say nothing about Arbitron diary methodology that makes contacting these prime target demos with cell phones damn near impossible. Well, maybe the townies will make the station a success in spite of all this. Bon chance!
 
supposedly Arbitron is going to get their act in order and start using cellphone diaries, but I trust that as much as I trust in the current administration.

I think CHR will work, but it has to be done right, and it has to be creative.
 
I was actually driving the area over the past couple days and heard the station. Great job guys, its a sound that is needed for the local area. Have a great day.

Steve

[EDIT]

[EDIT-unauthorized promotion]
 
No, Pickle, they do not have a website yet... Or, well, at least, not that I can find on any radio resource page. Could someone please do a google search for a website for "Z?" Thank you.

--The Radio Kid
(AKA Oswego Jeremy, as nicknamed by George of the Radio Racket.)
My email: [email protected].
 
Sounds like someone plugged a radio in, turned it to 95.5, and fed it to the stream.
I hear white noise, and slight static. Hey, that's one way to do it! At least it's processed and compressed. Nothing annoys me more than a stream with constantly changing audio levels!
 
A question for those of you who listened to the stream. Do you have to install that plugin? Is there any way around that?

--The Radio Kid
(AKA Oswego Jeremy, as nicknamed by George of the Radio Racket.)
My email: [email protected].
 
I was at a friend’s house this weekend, and was able to DX the new “Z95.5.” So, here’s my analysis:

I thought the imaging and jingles were very well produced. The use of a male and female for imaging made the station look like it could appeal to a wide range of young people.

What I liked most was the music variety. When my friend first turned it on for me, the first thing I heard on “Z” was an emo song. This was followed by a rhythmic dance track. Of course I heard all the new hits (Acon, Cris Brown, Katie Perry, ETC), but also heard many older songs, including Trapped “Headstrong,” Nellie “Hot In Here,” No Doubt “Hella Good,” and most surprisingly, Verticle Horizon “Everything You Want (2000 release), and Alia “Are You That Somebody (1998 release.) Overall, it was a great listen. Now, just you wait ‘till they get talent on the air. Then, it will be a great sounding CHR that might actually work.

--The Radio Kid
(AKA Oswego Jeremy, as nicknamed by George of the Radio Racket.)
My email: [email protected].
 
Can't wait to hear their jock line up after their 10,000 song marathon.
 
Their line up had better rock or it will have been a huge waste of money and resources! On the other side of the coin, the targeted audience has been subjected to lame college talent for so long they might not know any better. If they want to kill in Ithaca, they should consider syndication or major market voice trackers. Markets that size don't normally attract the truly talented folks!

Discuss!
 
In case you hadn't heard, my regards to Tommy Frank's family. He died this morning in his sleep at the age of 42. :-\
 
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