They definetly need to go local. Maybe they could get Bill Whyte to come aboard. Just a thought. By the way I am new to the board and love to talk and read about music and the stations.
97.3 should flip back to The Sound.
radioboymark said:It's a different game nowadays. 94.1 shaves .5 to 1.0 points off of B105 to make WGRR look better. But more important is that if they take a little off the top perhaps the totals look better for Cumulus versus Hubbard. It's a cluster battle now and not one individual station. When the AE is calling on the client/agency, they don't show stations/formats they show reach and frequency by cluster.
richstrunck said:Spoke to a friend who is up there at Cumulus HQ in Atlanta, the decision to flip was a few months ago and had to do with the following:
1) The Cluster, Hubbard and Cumulus always battle for the number 2 and 3 spots in the total cluster, in November Hubbard won, in December Cumulus won, however Cumulus has more stations, so they wanted help the Cluster numbers.
2) By pulling listeners from B105 and the Wolf, Cumulus hopes to propel WGRR into the #1 FM in the market. Currently 1.2 shares seperate them!
3) WYGY is doing little to protect B105, in fact the two out of town stations that show up in the local arbitron PPM's total numbers beat WYGY Given the fact WYGY has a week signal also helped with the decision. December numbers WNKR 1.3 (Cume 60,500) meaning their TSL is higher than WYGY 1.3 (Cume 154,300) and then WSCH 0.9(Cume 49,600) thats a 3.5 share alone between those other gold based country stations! Meaning there is a place they believe for a gold based station here!
4) The cluster did fairly well with 96.5 the Star which was also gold based. 94.9 The Wolf did poorly though, the thinking it was more current based at the time!
5) Journey 94.1 had poor numbers but hurt Warm 98 they were seventh in Cume in the market overall in November, Cumulus was shooting themselves in the foot, the station was sharing two many listeners and wanted them back in the Warm fold!
So yes the entire Cluster has very much to do with the format flip!