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March PPM's

It was embarrassing watching Mix flail around trying to find a lane. The only saving grace was that no one was listening to witness it!
 
It was embarrassing watching Mix flail around trying to find a lane. The only saving grace was that no one was listening to witness it!
It was only surpassed by Now 97.5 and their 4 flavors of AC/Hot AC in their short one year life. I remember them starting as a "slightly younger B101" then trying straightforward Hot AC, then being a bit of a Modern/90s to Now AC, with an all-Christmas flip as well less than 2 months after they signed on!
 
To be fair, both Mix & Now were outgunned. B101 was in it's prime then, and Jerry Lee was not going allow a competitor to get a foothold in the AC arena.

B simply invested in their product more than other broadcasters. They were spending a lot on marketing & contesting. They did tons of research in those years: it was said they did 8 music tests a year along with a rolling ongoing perceptual study. That meant they could quickly see if any competitor was moving the needle with a tactic and would counteract anything they saw as a threat.
 
It was only surpassed by Now 97.5 and their 4 flavors of AC/Hot AC in their short one year life. I remember them starting as a "slightly younger B101" then trying straightforward Hot AC, then being a bit of a Modern/90s to Now AC, with an all-Christmas flip as well less than 2 months after they signed on!
And when they launched, they actually used the on-air slogan "A Younger Approach to Soft Rock." I remember looking at the stereo in my car and thinking, "That's something Sales should say to leads. You don't friggin say that on the air!"

I did love their Christmas library that year. Probably the last time I listened regularly to any terrestrial station during the season.
 
Does anyone remember if Now 97.5 was jockless? I want to say it was but some days I don’t remember what I ate for breakfast.
IIRC, they were initially jockless, which isn't unusual. But they definitely ended up with an airstaff, most notably Glenn Kalina.
 
To be fair, both Mix & Now were outgunned. B101 was in it's prime then, and Jerry Lee was not going allow a competitor to get a foothold in the AC arena.

B simply invested in their product more than other broadcasters. They were spending a lot on marketing & contesting. They did tons of research in those years: it was said they did 8 music tests a year along with a rolling ongoing perceptual study. That meant they could quickly see if any competitor was moving the needle with a tactic and would counteract anything they saw as a threat.
Everything you said here about B101 is true, and it's why they were such an amazing station at the time. I think Greater Media's thinking was "We know we can't beat them, but if we can get even a slice of that desirable demo, we can at least make money with it." They tried their best.

As for Mix, IMO, they were just never gonna catch on. That whole "music for soccer moms" fad kept ignoring that the soccer moms weren't looking for new friends; they were perfectly happy with B101.
 
Every move someone made, B101 was right there countering them. Someone came at them from the soft end, they could soften a bit. Emphasize a given decade? They were on it before anyone knew there was another station around. All while not shedding listeners. They could make those little adjustments feel organic enough and subtle enough that nothing was jarring.
 
Except that was fine. Jerry Lee and his team didn’t do that on a whim. CBS however, acted fairly impulsively to rush back to the B. Rebranding to More echoed rebranding to B in the first place. It may be funny to say about an AC station, but Jerry was all about keeping up with the audience and evolving.
 
IIRC, they were initially jockless, which isn't unusual. But they definitely ended up with an airstaff, most notably Glenn Kalina.
Looking at an archived version of their site, it had Glenn Kalina and Jenn Ryan in mornings, but no one else on the website. There could have been other airstaff without the website being updated, but I don't know who.
 
Just the one. Maybe they made it a year, plus or minus a bit. It was god-awful but they had a couple of personalities who got to do more once they became Eagle, so that also came out of the failed experiment.
 
I never listened to Electric 106. But wasn't it essentially doing exactly the same thing that Hot Hits 98 was doing?
 


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