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Mix 106.5

C

carolinaradio

We were talking about this station a little on the CHR board, and I was wondering....why is WWMX/Mix 106.5 even considered a Hot AC station? CBS and Mediabase both label it as Hot AC. There are a few hot AC sounding songs in there, but most of it looks straight up CHR. Tons of Ke$ha, Eminem f/ Rhianna, Usher, etc....I even saw David Guetta and Flo Rida / Ke$ha's "Right Round"....hardly hot AC. Presentation even sounds CHR. There are a few H/AC'ish songs in there, but I'd call this station CHR with maybe a pop lean...

thoughts??
 
Well Mix1065 is in a tight ratings race with Z1043 that maybe why the station sounds the way that it does which is a good thing. Now if Baltimore could get a CHR/Urban that would be great.
 
Good point.

However, I don't think "Mix" fits what the station is trying to do anymore. They should go "Amp" or "Now" (which is what they sound like) or drop the rap-sounding songs and go adult CHR like "Play" in Tampa. JMO.

WZPT/Pittsburgh is a similar case to Mix.
 
carolinaradio said:
Good point.

However, I don't think "Mix" fits what the station is trying to do anymore. They should go "Amp" or "Now" (which is what they sound like) or drop the rap-sounding songs and go adult CHR like "Play" in Tampa. JMO.
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The audience in Baltimore doesnt associate the word "Mix" with Hot A/C radio. The station's evolution towards CHR/Pop started well over 2 years ago, and it seems to work. You'll notice that Clear Channel owned CHR/Pop station Mix 96.1 San Antonio also does very well. There's also ix 97.7 in Myrtle Beach, the market's longtime CHR/Pop leader.
 
CHRles said:
The audience in Baltimore doesnt associate the word "Mix" with Hot A/C radio. The station's evolution towards CHR/Pop started well over 2 years ago, and it seems to work. You'll notice that Clear Channel owned CHR/Pop station Mix 96.1 San Antonio also does very well. There's also ix 97.7 in Myrtle Beach, the market's longtime CHR/Pop leader.
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True. Mix 97.7 has been around for quite a while.

I wonder how much longer this station will report as Hot AC....seems like there are a lot of Hot AC-turned CHR stations these days that are still classified as H/AC on Mediabase.
 
Mix 106.5 - mislabeled?

The false designation of Mix 106.5 as Hot AC is likely part of a bad trend that started years ago. Many broadcasters know that for the major players in a market the advertising buys are frequently done by out-of-town agencies for larger national clients. If they think the image of a "Hot AC" station is better with advertisers, then they will call their CHR/Top40 station "Hot AC" and pretend that it is in sales pitches, industry forums, listings, etc..

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, but the market is stronger for cats, name it "kitty"!
 
Re: Mix 106.5 - mislabeled?

samb15 said:
The false designation of Mix 106.5 as Hot AC is likely part of a bad trend that started years ago. Many broadcasters know that for the major players in a market the advertising buys are frequently done by out-of-town agencies for larger national clients. If they think the image of a "Hot AC" station is better with advertisers, then they will call their CHR/Top40 station "Hot AC" and pretend that it is in sales pitches, industry forums, listings, etc..

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, but the market is stronger for cats, name it "kitty"!
Click to expand...

Not really. It's much more simple than that. Baltimore had no CHR, so Mix 106.5 (being the default young female station) started to fill that role at a time when CHR started to get really hot (a couple years ago).
 
So they (or anyone else) can report as whatever they want and get away with it while they're not even playing that format? Interesting.
 
To answer your question, yes. Most sources of radio listings rely on self-reported formats. Since there is no "legal" definition of a format, almost anything goes. If a classical station reported itself as country music people would report an error, but when there are blurry lines between formats (CHR, Hot-AC, AC, Light-AC, Easy-Listening; or (Urban, Urban CHR, Hip-Hop/Rap, etc.) then anyone who challenges even obvious misreports can be told "it's a matter of opinion".

Back in the 1970's, "MOR" was considered a good solid format. In many markets, Top-40, A/C, actual MOR, and Easy-Listening stations all called themselves "MOR". Locally at times that included WMAL (was MOR), WCBM (A/C-Oldies), WLIF (Beautiful music/Easy), and WASH (hot-AC/light Top-40) all reported MOR at the same time in the SRDS, a station guide popular with ad agencies and large advertisers.
 
Hot AC and CHR almost sound alike these days but not to much can still see a difference as a Hot AC plays more rock songs like Lifehouse, John Mayer, Train, etc. But where you see both the CHR and Hot AC owned by the same company you will see a huge difference. For example New York where you got Fresh 102.7 AC/Hot AC and 92.3 Now FM CHR. Some songs cross over which is a given such as Katy Perry.

As for Mix 106.5 I would consider them half Hot AC and half CHR. This cause Baltimore was left without a CHR for many years.
 
Hot AC and CHR right now are kind of like how Alternative and Active Rock were back in the early 2000's. There's a lot of overlap between the two, sometimes to the point where you couldn't tell which was which.

Hot AC comes in many different flavors, depending on the market. Some Hot AC's really don't touch much before 2000 anymore, with a CHR presentation, while some CHRs still market themselves as 80s, 90s, and Now. Mix is battling a newcomer CHR, so it's natural that they'll morph a little bit to combat, and with the formats so similar right now, it doesn't hurt them much at all.
 
Mix 106.5 is a CHR. The HD text and RDS text both say Baltimore's No. 1 Hit Music Station MIX1065 (as of the last tropo opening in September the day before the "hurricane" hit)
 
If you go to Radio.com you have access to CBS stations,AOL stations,Yahoo music and whats left of Launchcast,LastFM,MP3.com,some others I can't recall and probably the backdoor to a few old IBM workstations in forgotten basements and maybe a few toasters,a weather outpost in Alaska and a traffic repeater on the highway to nowhere. ::) Seriously....CBS has put together a pretty decent platform for listeners.....even if they still can't get a winning grip on formats or heritage stations.....
 
evolve991 said:
CBS has put together a pretty decent platform for listeners.....even if they still can't get a winning grip on formats or heritage stations.....
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What you mean by that? Can't get a winning grip on formats or heritage stations.
 
I mean they flipped longtime much loved radio stations in alot of cities and brought them back on subchannels you cannot recieve on 'regular' FM. In most cases they fouled up the format and ignored advice from thier own talent and thier listeners before jerking them off the airwaves. Quite a few were standalone stations with very loyal followings despite the skewed numbers they used to justify changing the format. Only recently has CBS made some good decisions and it makes me wonder if its all a 'happy accident' or if they have finally wised up and started taking advice from professionals who know music rather than spreadsheets and statistics.
 
Most of those stations I see are Smooth Jazz stations that moved over to HD 2 to make way for a new format Hot AC or CHR. They are doing good things flipped a couple stations to CHR. Backed Jack's bags and brought back WCBS-FM (surprise they haven't done the same in Chicago). The down time in CBS Radio I feel is when the FREE FM format happened and they were left with under performing FM talk stations. Which CBS cleaned up with by moving AM sports stations to FM and making on a CHR AMP Radio.
 
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