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No Sale Looming, ESPN 98.7 expected to pivot to Music

After all of the speculation, the wait is over! As of late last night, WEPN-FM at 98.7 dumped ESPN Radio and flipped to Hot AC as “TJ 98.7”. But the bad news, “Kiss-FM” at 98.7 will not be coming back to New York City ever again.

TJ 98.7 New York Debuts - Format Change Archive

Previous Format: Sports “ESPN New York” WEPN-FM (Moved to 880 WHSQ) New Format: Hot AC “TJ 98.7” Date & Time Of Change: August 31, 2024 at 12:00am More Info: RadioInsight
formatchangearchive.com
 
MTNProductions said:
After all of the speculation, the wait is over! As of late last night, WEPN-FM at 98.7 dumped ESPN Radio and flipped to Hot AC as “TJ 98.7”.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately.
MTNProductions said:
But the bad news, “Kiss-FM” at 98.7 will not be coming back to New York City ever again.
Click to expand...
As of right now, it's been confirmed that water is now wet.
 
chrocket87 said:
I’m surprised they’re paying for a morning show, if that is indeed what they’ll be doing come Tuesday. I thought this would be a bare bones operation.
Click to expand...

It's a syndicated show. It's barter. It's basically an audition. It'll attract attention to a show and a company that isn't front of mind.
 
To give those of you who are outside the New York metropolitan area an idea of the music mix that is being played on TJ 98.7, here is a list of the songs that were played on Saturday, August 31 between 7:49 and 9:04 am. My HD radio does not display the song information for WEPN-FM, so I had some help from Shazam.

"Closing Time" by Semisonic
"Scars to Your Beautiful" by Alessia Cara
"Suerte (Whenever, Wherever)" by Shakira
"I Had Some Help" by Post Malone feat. Morgan Wallen
"Stay" by Rihanna feat. Mikky Ekko
"Little Talks" by Of Monsters and Men
"feelslikeimfallinginlove" by Coldplay
"Too Sweet" by Hozier
"U + Ur Hand" by Pink
"H.O.L.Y." by Florida Georgia Line
"I Am Not Okay" by Jelly Roll
"Die for You" by The Weeknd
"Nine in the Afternoon" by Panic! At the Disco
"Castle on the Hill" by Ed Sheeran
"Slow It Down" by Benson Boone
"Leave Before You Love Me" by Marshmello & Jonas Brothers
"I Gotta Feeling" by Black Eyed Peas
"Forget Me" by Lewis Capaldi
"Firework" by Katy Perry
"A Bar Song (Tipsy)" by Shaboozey
"Montero (Call Me by Your Name)" by Lil Nas X
 
Marcos_C said:
To give those of you who are outside the New York metropolitan area an idea of the music mix that is being played on TJ 98.7, here is a list of the songs that were played on Saturday, August 31 between 7:49 and 9:04 am. My HD radio does not display the song information for WEPN-FM, so I had some help from Shazam.
Click to expand...
Thanks for doing this. Based on playlist I guess the TJ does not stand for TJ Lubinsky (producer of PBS “My Music” series)
 
Loverofradio said:
They’re evidently paying to have a morning show on there. Why not?
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Where do you get this idea that "they" are paying for this?

Apparently, they will be running the TJ Show, which is a nationally syndicated show:

radioinsight.com

The TJ Show Expands To 25 Affiliates

Gemini XIII's "The TJ Show" hosted by TJ Taormina has announced it has crossed the 25 affiliate threshold less than
radioinsight.com radioinsight.com

If you compare the font of the TJ Show with the logo for TJ98.7, they are identical. (See post #684)

thetjshow.com

The TJ Show – All TJ…all the time.

welcome! welcome! join The TJ Show's significant newsletter radio show podcast
thetjshow.com thetjshow.com

Apparently the show and its syndicator think this is a great way to publicize their show.

A lot of this reminds me of what happened to KREV after the station was turned over to a company called AutopilotFM.

radioinsight.com

AutopilotFM Starts An EDM Revolution on KREV As It Begins Operating Stolz’ Properties

Following the closing of the involuntary transfer of Ed Stolz' stations to bankruptcy court ordered trustee Michael W. Carmel, AutopilotFM
radioinsight.com radioinsight.com
 
Gee - a syndicator using 98.7 to clear programming. I wonder who on this very forum pondered this as a possibility just a day or two ago? :)
 
MarkW said:
Gee - a syndicator using 98.7 to clear programming. I wonder who on this very forum pondered this as a possibility just a day or two ago? :)
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It makes no sense to me. But as I said, it could be for publicity. Personally I never heard of this show until it was mentioned.

Mind you, this is all still just speculation. The TJ show doesn't have a twitter page where they're teasing big news Tuesday. So who really knows?
 
I don't think TJ lasts that long at all. This is probably more of a stunt to get attention to the frequency, before 98.7 is spun off to EMF or somebody else.
Definitely Hot AC with a mix of '00s to '20s.
 
TheBigA said:
Personally I never heard of this show until it was mentioned.
Click to expand...
Understandable. I checked the affiliate map, and the show has only one affiliate in a Top 25 radio market: WBEA on the East End of Long Island. (KISY, which is indicated as the Dallas station, is actually too far from Dallas to be listenable over-the-air.)
 
Running in HD now, too (much to my DXer chagrin). Running sweepers like "This is TJ FM, here until we're not here" and calling themselves a "pop-up radio station" etc. They're certainly not hiding the fact that they're merely stunting. Decent mix though - currently just played Nine Days - Story of a Girl - love those power pop one hit wonders.
 
K.M. Richards said:
Although regular listeners should have already changed their preset to 880 by now. They were given plenty of advance notice.
Click to expand...

True story:

When KTAR in Phoenix moved from 620 AM to 92.3 FM in 2006, they spent huge amounts of time and money promoting the move, during a two-and-one-half-month long simulcast.

On January 1, 2007, KTAR-AM went all-sports.

The AM ratings stayed high. The FM had trouble gaining traction. It went on for a year. Finally, Bonneville did some research---and found that a significant number of the KTAR audience never switched to the FM.

Because KTAR-AM had always had a significant sports presence (Diamondbacks, Cardinals, Suns, ASU), people interviewed said they tuned into the AM, thought they must have tuned in during a game, a pre-game or post-game show, stuck around to hear the talk show they expected---and when it took too long, turned it off.

Bonneville spent another boatload of money and finally got the full talk audience over to the FM.
 
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