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Joy FM St Louis to attempt Christian CHR format in the new year.

X

xmusicmatt

"Gateway Creative Broadcasting has confirmed plans to launch a second station in the St. Louis area.

The owners of Christian AC “Joy-FM” 99.1 KLJY Clayton will launch a Christian CHR on a trio of frequencies in early 2014. The new format will be heard on 94.1 KPVR Bowling Green (which serves the northwest suburbs), 97.7 KHZR Potosi (which serves the southern suburbs), and 101.9 K270BW Bellefonte (a 250 watt translator owned by Educational Media Foundation that will serve the city itself). KHZR and KPVR currently simulcast KLJY’s programming."

http://radioinsight.com/blog/headlines/86661/kljy-to-launch-st-louis-christian-chr/
 
This is great news. I have a cousin who lives in St. Louis, she will be really happy! I wonder if this is an end run to prevent EMF from coming into the market with Air-1?
 
rbrucecarter5 said:
This is great news. I have a cousin who lives in St. Louis, she will be really happy! I wonder if this is an end run to prevent EMF from coming into the market with Air-1?
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I doubt it - If I remember the plan was to sell 97.7 and 94.1 after Joy's format moved to 99.1 big powerful signal. I guess that for whatever reason Joy has decided to try a CHR type format here instead. I really hope their able to do well with it -- Maybe it will spur others to give it a try.

One of the reasons so many CHR stations have flipped to AC or sold off to other broadcasters is sadly the $$$ to support a more edgy format has been tough to come by. In recent years the CHR/Rock type formats on air have struggled to gain listener support -- Not saying people aren't listening to them but sadly those who are don't open their pocket books enough to support it. And radio that works based on listener support can't survive if there is no money to make it happen and worse in most of the cases the financial support was so low that the on air product started to suffer as they could not afford the proper staffing to make the station sound good and be something more than a jukebox.

Joy has one of the 'top' programmers behind this new venture so I am confident they will start off running with something very good for St. Louis.
 
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xmusicmatt said:
One of the reasons so many CHR stations have flipped to AC or sold off to other broadcasters is sadly the $$$ to support a more edgy format has been tough to come by. In recent years the CHR/Rock type formats on air have struggled to gain listener support -- Not saying people aren't listening to them but sadly those who are don't open their pocket books enough to support it. And radio that works based on listener support can't survive if there is no money to make it happen and worse in most of the cases the financial support was so low that the on air product started to suffer as they could not afford the proper staffing to make the station sound good and be something more than a jukebox.

Joy has one of the 'top' programmers behind this new venture so I am confident they will start off running with something very good for St. Louis.
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I think it is a matter of what people have gotten used to. The praise and worship push by the Nashville CCM record labels devastated the Christian CHR musical style in the early 90's. Some of us tried to resist, but there were powerful influences behind the push for praise and worship style CCM. Now everybody thinks that is all that CCM ever was. The days of Stryper and other CHR artists are largely forgotten, and there is no such thing as a CCM oldies format. Most of the artists went underground, playing for small venues and youth church services - but with the internet, the genie is out of the bottle. I think people are slowly discovering that CCM can be more than lukewarm, dreary, plodding 4:4 beat praise and worship music. Hence - the rise of Air-1. EMF is putting a lot of money into the belief that CHR is coming back. And Air-1 is meeting or beating fundraising goals, so maybe they are right. CHR signals are still on inferior sticks, but if it continues to revive that may reverse itself. I, for one, don't know a single person that listens to AC / praise and worship CCM, and I belong to a large mega church. On the other hand, people are pretty excited about Air-1 and the ones that can get the signal are excited about NGEN, a local Christian rock / hip-hop format. Most of my friends, by the way, are in their 40's and 50's, and if that age group is excited about CHR and not AC / PW CCM - it spells long term trouble for the lukewarm format.
 
Air1 has had a translator in Saint Louis for a few years at 101.5 since around April of 2007. It recently upgraded to 101.9 and EMF is allowing Gateway to use it for a local christian chr.
 
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