PLJ's Format Flip

[JustinCase]

As for other peoples comments about advertisments. A country station would have advertisments from a lot of companies. Im sure Mc Donald's, other resturants, local car dealships, NY ads, JcPenny's, Sears, Macy's, etc. Their are some adveristers.

Controlled agency buying and in NYC they almost exclusively buy ratings not formats... why is it always people from way far away telling us here in NY we need something? I never hear anyone local to the metro area asking for country.

 

[Element9]

Talk of WPLJ flipping to Country is just so much wasted energy and time. Same for flipping to True Oldies. Given WPLJ's billing, it's highly unlikely that a flip to Country or Oldies will happen. The station needs a tune-up, not a format change. Country may be today's Adult CHR and successful in many major markets, but if research says country isn't going to work in Market #1, nobody, least of all Citadel which came up $800 million short in the last quarter of 2007, is going to roll the dice on it. No offense to Rocky Allen, talented as he may be, but successful Hot AC stations don't do morning shows in PM drive, they play the hits. Citadel will tweak 'PLJ's present format, tighten things up and move forward with Hot AC. Let's move on.

-9-

 

[steve63]

Here we go again with out of towners claiming that country would work in NY.

Well, I guess they're equivalent to the old-time WABC fans whose 1976 preferences ran to the Bellamy Brothers over Boston.

Another odd thing is their argument that today's country is no longer the "cowboy with straw in mouth" stereotype--well, hel-LO, in a post-Brokeback era, said stereotype probably carries more hip credibility among New Yorkers...

Joe Buck was trying to make a living on 42nd St 40 years ago in Midnight Cowboy. Ratzo was right about no one buying that schtick then and no one is buying country radio in NYC now either.

 

[adma]

Here we go again with out of towners claiming that country would work in NY.

Well, I guess they're equivalent to the old-time WABC fans whose 1976 preferences ran to the Bellamy Brothers over Boston.

Another odd thing is their argument that today's country is no longer the "cowboy with straw in mouth" stereotype--well, hel-LO, in a post-Brokeback era, said stereotype probably carries more hip credibility among New Yorkers...

Joe Buck was trying to make a living on 42nd St 40 years ago in Midnight Cowboy. Ratzo was right about no one buying that schtick then and no one is buying country radio in NYC now either.

Yes, but if so-called nobody bought that schtick, "Midnight Cowboy" wouldn't have been such a popular and critical and hipster-name-check success, would it?

Then again, you're right--it's got nothing to do with country radio in NYC now. But then again, today's ugly white suburban NASCAR dads are even more of an alien species relative to NYC than Joe Buck ever was...

 

[MCNDRWS]

If There Is A Flip I'm Betting On "Imus In The Morning / Scott Shannon's True Oldies", Just Like The Flips In

Washington,D.C. And Atlanta.

 

[board_manager]

Some posts have been relocated to Take It Outside

http://www.radio-info.com/smf/index.php/topic,94452.msg725234.html#msg725234

 

[adma]

But if I may pick up from the taken-outside posts...

People are mocking you because your beliefs and format preference don't represent New York which is precisely the reason there isn't a country station in New York.

Though at this time, I'm a little more more open about country's viability relative to something like the PLJ signal--but on reverse grounds. That is, it isn't a matter of country being too Red-America "unsophisticated" for NYC; but rather, given the way technology and culture has gone over the past generation, that the universe of Lite, Fresh, and especially present-day PLJ isn't much more "sophisticated"--and it's showing up in the realm of ad-buys. With commercial music radio at large being increasingly pigeonholed as a medium for backwoods bumpkins, 40-year-old grandparents, 60-year-old great-grandparents, overaged technophobic Peter Pans and never-married crazy ladies bawling their eyes out at the news of Patrick Swayze's cancer diagnosis, what have you got to lose with country anymore, even in NYC?

As superficially unviable and out-of-place as a country format might seem, to me it makes more sense than the dentist's cringeworthy fantasy of Scott Shannon "growing his beard back" and turning PLJ into a male-oriented CHR. Yeah, sure, real exciting if you're the sort to unironically sing aloud and play air guitar to "We Built This City".

All in all, country might be the best way to, at the very least, buy a little more time before 77 WABC becomes 95.5 WABC...

 

[UncleBozzle]

Adma makes total sense here. Might PLJ gradually slip in more and more country cuts, blending them in with the likes of Maroon 5, John Bon Jovi, even the occasional Tom Petty or John Mellancamp song. If it's such a stigma in NYC to call it what it is then just take Hot AC and give it a twist. Heck you could even take the name from PLJ's sister station in Dallas..."The Twister". Maybe the station doesn't forsake the female crowd, and in reality might chink away at Fresh and Lite. I think everyone agrees that in it's current form PLJ does not work. You gain no ground going with more rock, you would have a bloodbath if you take on Z-100 with CHR, Classic Hits wouldn't sustain PLJ and CBS FM. So reinvent the Hot AC format. Scott Shannon would be able to work his magic with it. At a time when everyone sounds the same this station would have a unique blend....."The Twister...95.5 WPLJ"....heck you could even call it "The Blend". Things can be marketed to be NY/NJ sophisticated.

 

[elvez]

Scott Shannon was an a$#^#!! le He dissed so many people he thought were "beneath" him.

All comes around. Like all radio now......................................



does anyone care? It's scary.

a failed morning guy in memphis talking c-r-a-p about shannon? bitterman party of one your tables ready.

 

[JustARadioFan]

Scott Shannon was an a$#^#!! le He dissed so many people he thought were "beneath" him.

All comes around. Like all radio now......................................



does anyone care? It's scary.

a failed morning guy in memphis talking c-r-a-p about shannon? bitterman party of one your tables ready.

A FAILED morning guy? Gee, I didn't realize over 20 years at one station, most of those years spent in the morning drive was considered a failure.