A couple of things:
As Daryll alluded to, the downfall of 99WAYS as a CHR was brought on in no small way by the direction of the format in the early 90's. It probably could have been avoided (or at least pre-empted for a time) if the then-program director of the station had not become so beholden to the record-pluggers and labels. I was in Columbus at the time of the big format switcheroo at WAYS, and I heard what was happening. The same thing happened in almost exactly the same way with a CHR in that market. Put it this way: payola may have been illegal, but it wasn't dead. A lot of crappy records got on the air on CHR's all over the country because they were "incentivized" onto the playlist.
As for the switch to oldies, the best move for the station was to keep Bill Elder on morning drive, even though he had to deal with a lot of grief from PO'd WAYS v.1 listeners. The "Where's Bill" promotion at the launch was brilliant. The worst thing that happened at the time of the format change was that the CHR PD was kept in place to make the flip. He hated the format, and in my estimation, did whatever he could to vandalize it from the get-go. WAYS had a golden opportunity to take this format flip and make it HUGE (after all, Oldies was a top format at the time), but they didn't seize on the opportunity as well as they could have. For that reason, although WAYS became a really solid Oldies station, it never really gained the traction it needed.
Fast forward a few years: Bill is correct; WAYS as an oldies station never approached the worst ratings that WAYS the CHR had. But once the identity of the station was established, it was billing okay and had a loyal following in the market. Through it all, Elder was the thread that ran all the way through the history of the station. I think Oldies 99WAYS was clicking on all cylinders by 1998-1999; we had our best numbers as an Oldies station in Fall of 1999. Then Elder retired, I left for awhile, and the owners of the station were unconcerned with selling advertising on the station, because they had the two big billers in the market under their umbrella as well. By fall of 2000, the deal was sealed that the 99.1 frequency would go to WDEN, as the 105.3 frequency was going away in the Bowden-to-Atlanta move-in deal. Once again, the owners of WAYS had a golden opportunity to re-energize the format, albeit on a lesser signal, but they dropped the ball again, and it never recovered. Cumulus was bound and determined to launch a male-oriented radio station, and they did so with the move of the ESPN Radio programming from AM1500 to 105.5 in 2005.
It has always been my contention that if Cumulus had allowed WAYS to evolve itself and re-invent itself, it could have survived, at least for a period of time. Thus, there would have been no market for Clear Channel to create its "Peach" format. And THAT, fellow posters, resolves the near-hijacking of this thread.
BTW, Bill, the imaging for 13WMAZ sounds great!
TDO
As Daryll alluded to, the downfall of 99WAYS as a CHR was brought on in no small way by the direction of the format in the early 90's. It probably could have been avoided (or at least pre-empted for a time) if the then-program director of the station had not become so beholden to the record-pluggers and labels. I was in Columbus at the time of the big format switcheroo at WAYS, and I heard what was happening. The same thing happened in almost exactly the same way with a CHR in that market. Put it this way: payola may have been illegal, but it wasn't dead. A lot of crappy records got on the air on CHR's all over the country because they were "incentivized" onto the playlist.
As for the switch to oldies, the best move for the station was to keep Bill Elder on morning drive, even though he had to deal with a lot of grief from PO'd WAYS v.1 listeners. The "Where's Bill" promotion at the launch was brilliant. The worst thing that happened at the time of the format change was that the CHR PD was kept in place to make the flip. He hated the format, and in my estimation, did whatever he could to vandalize it from the get-go. WAYS had a golden opportunity to take this format flip and make it HUGE (after all, Oldies was a top format at the time), but they didn't seize on the opportunity as well as they could have. For that reason, although WAYS became a really solid Oldies station, it never really gained the traction it needed.
Fast forward a few years: Bill is correct; WAYS as an oldies station never approached the worst ratings that WAYS the CHR had. But once the identity of the station was established, it was billing okay and had a loyal following in the market. Through it all, Elder was the thread that ran all the way through the history of the station. I think Oldies 99WAYS was clicking on all cylinders by 1998-1999; we had our best numbers as an Oldies station in Fall of 1999. Then Elder retired, I left for awhile, and the owners of the station were unconcerned with selling advertising on the station, because they had the two big billers in the market under their umbrella as well. By fall of 2000, the deal was sealed that the 99.1 frequency would go to WDEN, as the 105.3 frequency was going away in the Bowden-to-Atlanta move-in deal. Once again, the owners of WAYS had a golden opportunity to re-energize the format, albeit on a lesser signal, but they dropped the ball again, and it never recovered. Cumulus was bound and determined to launch a male-oriented radio station, and they did so with the move of the ESPN Radio programming from AM1500 to 105.5 in 2005.
It has always been my contention that if Cumulus had allowed WAYS to evolve itself and re-invent itself, it could have survived, at least for a period of time. Thus, there would have been no market for Clear Channel to create its "Peach" format. And THAT, fellow posters, resolves the near-hijacking of this thread.
BTW, Bill, the imaging for 13WMAZ sounds great!
TDO
