Philadelphia is getting ready for a new country station!!!

[jimsocks]

Can you guess which station is going to flip? This information comes from a very trusted source. Get out your kenny chesney t shirt.

 

[geeks-r-us]

Could work if they pick the right music, new country is more and more rock/pop anyway

 

[jimsocks]

Philadelphia is one of the only markets i can think of that only has one country station. There is an obvious hole in the market.

 

[JimmyJames]

Obvious?

Who in this climate is going to put out the promotions budget they'd need to even make a dent in XTU?

 

[DanStrassberg]

Philadelphia is one of the only markets i can think of that only has one country station. There is an obvious hole in the market.

Boston also has only one country station--Greater Media's WKLB-FM 102.5. The station is quite successful in this rather non-country market, but from what the dyed-in-the-wool country fans say, it ain't really country.

 

[Betrayed]

A country station or a clone of WXTU? Another XTU for the 13 to 17 year old girls to flip to would be just what's needed. An FM station or something on AM that nobody will be able to hear? Actually, I'm on information overload. Too many facts have been included for me to keep up with. Myself, I'd rather have Bowe, Craig, Weber and Knight on FM than something pretending to be country.

 

[evolve991]

ummm Y94 Philadelphia's New Country ...???

 

[imhomerjay]

Oh, a very trusted source. So much more reliable than your garden-variety trusted source.

That makes it ever so much more believable.

 

[wprt949]

if its cbs taking 94.1 country i dont even wanna hear the flip when it happends wake me up when it flips agian

or could it be 97.5 nah too early now just came on the air

106.1 ?? how are they doing ratings wize

 

[jimsocks]

i can picture the whole thing... sales manager walking in for the meeting wearing a cowboy hat hahaha ;D

 

[evolve991]

LMAO genuine hereford rhinestone narrowtoes and a 15 gallon stetson on Rittenhouse Square LOL

 

[MikefromDelaware]

Philadelphia is one of the only markets i can think of that only has one country station. There is an obvious hole in the market.

What Northeastern market has more than one country station? If you count rim shot stations with solid signals into the market then Wilmington has 3 (103.7 WXCYfrom Havre de Grace MD; 94.7 WDSD Dover DE; and Philly's WXTU). I listen to WDSD and WXCY the most, but when they have spot breaks or a song I really don't like then I'll check out XTU. Baltimore has two, with in town WPOC 93.1 and rimshot 103.7 WXCY. Washington DC has its own country plus Baltimore's WPOC.

Now as to whether or not a Northeastern market could support two in market country stations of any kind, two today's country or one today's and one Country Gold is questionable. One thing that has changed is that people move all over the country so there are former "Southern" folks living in the Northeast, just as Atlanta has a lot of former Philly/Wilmington area people living there (enough that a company there called Philly connection sells subs and Tasty Kakes there). So my point is there may be enough people in the Philly/Wilmington/Trenton area that like country enough where two stations could survive. My guess is the second country station should not be a copy of WXTU, but have a broader playlist that favors the older country (70's-90's with lesser play of the songs of today) which might pull in those who want more from a country station than the same few songs played over and over.

I've noticed that WDSD does now throw in an occasional 90's song during the day (wish they did more), but at least it's not just the same few songs. The fact that most radio stations in all music formats seem to play a small playlist over and over and yet have good ratings shows me that most people use their radio as back ground noise and aren't really listening very closely. Would you watch the same episode of Everybody Loves Raymond night after night? Would you listen to the same hour of Rush/Hannity/Rhodes/Press, Car Talk, Fresh Air, etc, over and over? That sort of programming is harder to use as background noise where as music is a great way to have something there without it being intrusive and that may explain why radio can get away with playing the same songs over and over day in and day out.

 

[aindik]

Philadelphia is one of the only markets i can think of that only has one country station. There is an obvious hole in the market.

NYC doesn't "only ha[ve] one country station," but that's because it has zero country stations.

 

[650AM]

As far as I am concerned, Philadelphia does not have a country station presently. Something that leans more tradtional and into oldies country would be extremely welcome in my book.

 

[PhDance]

Well I'll bite. This claim is dubious on a number of levels. First, the ethnic shifts AND advancement of PPM would suggest that if there were to be ANY format flips in the near future, it would be to one that is more consistent with the recent trends in the market's demos. Ignoring PPM or ethnic shifts, you do realize splitting an already small country pie isn't exactly going to present a very optimistic billing scenario. Likely, your source was fed smoke from higher up the totem pole, in order to mask the real (if any) change.

 

[John1]

LMAO genuine hereford rhinestone narrowtoes and a 15 gallon stetson on Rittenhouse Square LOL

Or, as they called it when WRCP went country from their 2043 Locust Street studios in 1967, the Rittenhouse Ranch!

 

[ccuphl]

Can you guess which station is going to flip? This information comes from a very trusted source. Get out your kenny chesney t shirt.

How can Philadelphia be getting ready for a new country station when no one in Philadelphia knows where to get ready for it? That's like getting ready to be struck by lightning -- you can't.

Your "very trusted source" apparently does not work in radio as the PPM isn't setting the country music world on fire, unlike it's effect on rock and CHR formats. And no one is going to put a country format on FM in a big city playing music from the 70s. It will never happen! Any new FM country station would be mostly current-based. There's a reason why WXTU just dropped practically everything before 2000 and bumped up their currents to 60 spins/week.

One thing that has changed is that people move all over the country so there are former "Southern" folks living in the Northeast, just as Atlanta has a lot of former Philly/Wilmington area people living there

Moving is a new concept?

This is a great thread... if one extrapolates what's written here, there should be 600,000 people walking around Center City everyday wearing cowboy hats. Maybe the "Southern folks" left 'em down south when they were busy inventing moving.

 

[MikefromDelaware]

In the 60's, country music was pretty much an unknown genre in the Philly/Wilmington area. It certainly wasn't mainstream music for this region. Today, one of the top FM stations in Philly (WXTU) and one of the top stations in the Wilmington market (WXCY) play country. Country doesn't mean western, in a broad sense it means southern music and attitude and folks from Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, The Carolina's, Tennesee, and Virginia generally don't consider themselves to be western. What brought the demand for this form of music to this area is the corporations moving people around in large numbers. In Wilmington: DuPont, Astra Zenica, Hercules, numerous credit card banks have brought many people to the area from the South and yes Texas too. Philly has all sorts of large corporations operating there and they too moved people around causing the same influx of cultural change to happen there too. Those folks bring their cultural likes and dislikes with them. Back in the 1960's there weren't any taco places in Delaware (can't speak for Philly, but doubt there were any then), as then the only Hispanic folks here in Wilmington and probably Philly were from Puerto Rico. Today the Mexican hispanics are here in large numbers and today there are all sorts of Mexican restaurants, food stores, and yes even Delaware has two Mexican oriented radio stations. One in upper Delaware and one in lower Delaware. All that has to do with people moving around. People are even more moble today than then in the 1960's. Also as some groups population grows (what are today's minorities will be tomorrow's majority) and others shrink that too will affect the musical formats of the radio markets in both Philly and Wilmington. Nothing is static.

 

[PhDance]

In the 60's, country music was pretty much an unknown genre in the Philly/Wilmington area. It certainly wasn't mainstream music for this region. Today, one of the top FM stations in Philly (WXTU) and one of the top stations in the Wilmington market (WXCY) play country. Country doesn't mean western, in a broad sense it means southern music and attitude and folks from Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, The Carolina's, Tennesee, and Virginia generally don't consider themselves to be western. What brought the demand for this form of music to this area is the corporations moving people around in large numbers. In Wilmington: DuPont, Astra Zenica, Hercules, numerous credit card banks have brought many people to the area from the South and yes Texas too. Philly has all sorts of large corporations operating there and they too moved people around causing the same influx of cultural change to happen there too. Those folks bring their cultural likes and dislikes with them. Back in the 1960's there weren't any taco places in Delaware (can't speak for Philly, but doubt there were any then), as then the only Hispanic folks here in Wilmington and probably Philly were from Puerto Rico. Today the Mexican hispanics are here in large numbers and today there are all sorts of Mexican restaurants, food stores, and yes even Delaware has two Mexican oriented radio stations. One in upper Delaware and one in lower Delaware. All that has to do with people moving around. People are even more moble today than then in the 1960's. Also as some groups population grows (what are today's minorities will be tomorrow's majority) and others shrink that too will affect the musical formats of the radio markets in both Philly and Wilmington. Nothing is static.

WOW. I don't know where to start; the fact that you're arguing ethnic shift patterns based on your recollection of 3 relocated companies, or that your argument is framed on the assumption that everyone in the South and Texas listens to country music. Well, I live in the deep south and I don't listen to country music so I'm going to go on a limb here and say there might be something flawed with your reasoning.

 

[MikefromDelaware]

I'll take it even further. Chrysler, up until just recently prior to going bankrupt, had an auto plant in Newark DE, since 1952. In the early 60's a large number of people from West Virginia and Kentucky came to Newark for the job opportunites and they did bring their cultural interests which included Blue Grass Music. Prior to that you never heard Blue Grass Music in New Castle County. Today some of the most popular shows on non-comm WVUD Newark (Uof Del ) is their blue grass programs. Yes, the Wilmington Metro area has grown and became far more diverse due to many thousands of families being transferred in and out of the Wilmington area by our largest employers.

I agree, that not all Southerns listen to country music, but a large percentage do, far more than do generally in the Northeast. So as more and more country listeners migrate North the demand for that music will also grow. Same with any ethnic music. As that particular population group grows so will the demand for that group's music. I'm not saying that there aren't any other factors to be considered, but what I've said is part of the equation. Sorry to disagree, but I'm sticking with my analogy.