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Mix 97.1 and Cougar 93.7

C

CleveFan

Has anyone else been following the two stations that both are based out of Mentor when they launch? OMW has a lot more on the blog and Twitter feed, and there are websites with logos up.

http://www.mix971fm.com

http://www.cougar937.com

Cougar - WQGR - looks to be brand new with the slogan "Lake County's First FM." Mix - WREO - appears to be a future change from the longtime "Star 97.1" branding. That station is still located in Ashtabula, so I'm wondering if the Mentor location will either be a secondary location or completely new?
 
Cougar 93.7...sounds like a station aimed at the J Lo demographic...45-54 year old females who date 25-34 year old men. ;)
 
Ohio Media Watch discussed this issue in their last posting. WQGR/Cogar93.7 is a brand new station that is licensed to North Madison but will serve all of Lake County. Mix97.1 is indeed WREO out of Ashtabula. It appears that they are going to try and rebrand it to primarily serve Lake County with it's big signal. I think it has been their intention to try and establish WREO as more of a Lake County station for some time now due to the better demographics and it's strong signal. Whether it actually physically moves or not is still not known.

http://ohiomediawatch.wordpress.com/category/radio/
 
Could some of 93.7's signal spill over into parts of Cuyahoga, Geauga and Ashtabula counties? Maybe the cities near Lake County might likely get a decent reception of the station in the car at least.

"Cougar" sounds like it could be some type of rock or country station. "Mix" might be Adult Top 40 or some sort of AC station.
 
93.7's signal will spill into western Ashtabula and northeast Geauga Counties, but you can forget about Cuyahoga. 97.1 on the other hand could potentially be moved about 10 miles west and would be a credible rimshot over aboutt 60% of the Cleveland metro.
 
Cougar 93.7 appears to be on the air now, but with stunting. They're playing John Cougar Mellencamp songs right now, likely for this weekend. The jingles indicate they're going either Mainstream or Adult CHR.
 
SonoSational18 said:
97.1 on the other hand could potentially be moved about 10 miles west and would be a credible rimshot over aboutt 60% of the Cleveland metro.
Click to expand...

Moving WREO 10 miles SW would only place the 65 dbu a tad west of Mentor. It would catch a big piece of Lake County, and about a third of Geauga. That would give it useful coverage of about 200 thousand people, or about 10% of the market.
 
WREO is already short-spaced to co-channel WXYT-FM in Detroit. It's 214 km between the two sites, while full spacing would be 241 km.

Both stations existed before 1964, of course, so they're grandfathered against each other, but that doesn't really help much: WREO can't make any move that would increase the existing amount of interference to and from WXYT-FM, and any move closer to Cleveland would by necessity increase that interference. There's also the matter of second-adjacent spacing to WONE-FM and third-adjacent to WAKS, which is not grandfathered. In short, WREO can't usefully move anywhere closer to Cleveland than it already is.

The one useful move that 97.1 could make would be southward, into the Youngstown market, and Clear Channel had filed to do just that a few years back, dropping 97.1 to a class A signal. (WREO would have relicensed to McDonald, while WBBG 106.1 would have moved from Youngstown up to Geneva-on-the-Lake, still as an A.) The move was dropped pretty quickly amidst Clear Channel's sale of the Ashtabula cluster.
 
If moved, WREO's 65 dbu contour would hit around Bratenahl and encompass the heights area of Cuyahoga Co. Generally a usable signal will extend beyond to contour nd the station should be listenable to around Lakewood, Parma, and Akron. Still a rimshot but could at least be a niche player in the Cleveland metro.
 
SonoSational18 said:
If moved, WREO's 65 dbu contour would hit around Bratenahl and encompass the heights area of Cuyahoga Co. Generally a usable signal will extend beyond to contour nd the station should be listenable to around Lakewood, Parma, and Akron. Still a rimshot but could at least be a niche player in the Cleveland metro.
Click to expand...

And if WREO moved to Parma it could be a full-market player...except that it can't move.

What part of "it's already short-spaced to Detroit and to WAKS" is missing here?
 
SonoSational18 said:
If moved, WREO's 65 dbu contour would hit around Bratenahl and encompass the heights area of Cuyahoga Co. Generally a usable signal will extend beyond to contour nd the station should be listenable to around Lakewood, Parma, and Akron. Still a rimshot but could at least be a niche player in the Cleveland metro.
Click to expand...

A 10-mile move towards Cleveland (which, of course, is impossible) would still not get the 65 dbu into Cuyahoga County... and would even miss the more western parts of Lake County.

95% of urban at home and at work FM listening takes place in the 65 dbu contour, so 97.1 in this purely theoretical situation would have no indoor-suitable signal even out to Gates Mills, let alone Lyndhurst or Mayfield Hts. or Cleveland Hts. or the surrounding areas.

While good, usable in-car reception might be possible well into Cuyahoga County, since 2/3 of listening is not in the car, there would really be no useful purpose in trying to move that station were it even possible.
 
Even with spacing issues involving 96.5, 97.5, and Detroit's 97.1 I saw a study that showed that WREO's stick could be moved to Perry Twp. or thereabouts. As I said earlier, it would still be a far cry from a full-market signal.
 
Was that as a full class B, or with a significant downgrade? It is indeed possible to slide 97.1 westward, but only by taking it way down in class. Using the existing WKKY site as an example, you'd be fully spaced as a class A to Detroit (with no need to invoke grandfathering) as well as to WONE and WAKS.

So maybe you do end up with a class A signal somewhere around Perry - all you're doing is taking a signal that's already plenty strong there (~72 dBu) and making it even stronger right over that corner of Lake County, at the expense of the existing signal over Ashtabula County and beyond. If your goal is to super-serve Lake County, you might have something there, but only if you're willing to sacrifice that great big class B signal for good. Is it worth it? The consensus seems to be, probably not.
 
CleveFan said:
97.1 is more of an Ashtabula station, but 93.7 could be a Cleveland station if possible.
Click to expand...


6000 watt 93.7 coverage does not get anywhere near Cleveland, and they can't move it any closer or up power.
 
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