KODZ Eugene Goes Rhythmic AC/Gold? Why?

[Gregg.]

It happened a couple of months ago. I see that KODZ 99.1 in Eugene, Oregon's second largest market, has flipped to Rhythmic AC/Gold. Artists frequently heard include Notorious B.I.G., Nelly, Fat Joe, Kanye, along with some older acts such as Michael Jackson, Salt n Pepa, En Vouge, Will Smith, Madonna and Rick James.

KODZ has the best FM signal in the area, 100,000 watts at 1630 feet. It had been Classic Hits for many years. (The call letters refer to Oldies.)

Here's the problem. The Eugene-Springfield market has a Black population of 2% and an Hispanic population of 9%. They're playing Heavy D & The Boyz for an audience that is 89% white?

The ratings put "99-1 The Beat" at #8. I'm sure if you played Lithuanian Love Songs on that signal, you'd get similar ratings. Why not just stay Classic Hits and freshen things up a bit, as Audacy has done with a few of its long-time Classic Hits stations?

 

[lanceventa]

Here's the problem. The Eugene-Springfield market has a Black population of 2% and an Hispanic population of 9%. They're playing Heavy D & The Boyz for an audience that is 89% white?

To the next demos down these are mass-appeal hits. Plus Eugene is a college town. The Beat is the defacto Rhythmic CHR (playing a handful of currents), while KODZ's former format was already getting beaten regularly by 105.5 Bob-FM.

But lets look a little deeper at the Spring 2023 ratings you quoted. The format changed happened in March, so it was about 2/3 of the survey period with the new format. KODZ was up slightly 3.1 to 3.4. The biggest problem is that it pulled almost all of its new audience from co-owned CHR 104.7 KDUK which dropped 6.3 to 4.5, but likely still bills better.

Perhaps that's why when Bicoastal replicated the format a couple weeks ago in Medford, it did so on the now former CHR "107.5 Kiss-FM" KIFS.

A New Beat Kisses Southern Oregon - RadioInsight

Bicoastal Media has flipped CHR "107.5 Kiss-FM" KIFS Ashland/Medford OR to Rhythmic Gold "107.5 The Beat". Matching the format and brand launched earlier this year in Eugene OR, the new format is positioning as "100% Throwbacks" and focusing on Pop/Rhythmic hits from the 80s through 2000s...

radioinsight.com

 

[davideduardo]

IHere's the problem. The Eugene-Springfield market has a Black population of 2% and an Hispanic population of 9%. They're playing Heavy D & The Boyz for an audience that is 89% white?

"Hispanic" is not a race; it is not even a culture. It's an ethnicity. There are white Hispanics, Black Hispanics, Asian Hispanics as well as many with Indigenous Peoples heritage. And there are more mixes than in the Campbell's Soup aisle at the market.

The U.S. Census counts nearly all Hispanics as "white".

 

[boiseengineer]

99.1 almost went country after the beautiful music ended.
Signal north is pretty bad toward Lebanon Albany. Shadowed by mountains.
There was also lots of multipath I thought due to that dual RCA BTF40E1 transmitter put in at the Ch 16 building & tower (had been there a few times). Really hard to keep the AM out of them.