Predictions

[XCountry285]

92.3-Flips to Dance or becomes simulcast of 880
92.7-Cumulus buys it and simulcasts WRRV on it
93.1-Flips to Dance
93.9-Alternative Rock/Rock Station/Country
94.7-Alternative Rock/Rock Station/Country
95.5-No changes
96.3-No changes
96.7-No changes
97.1-No changes
97.9-No changes
98.7-No changes
99.1-No changes
99.5-Alternative Rock/Rock Station/Country
100.3-No changes
101.1-No changes
101.9-Flips back to Alternative
102.7-No changes
103.5-Flips to Dance/Flips to Alternative
104.3-No changes
105.1-Flips to Dance/Country/Alternative
105.9-No changes
106.7-No changes
107.5-No changes

 

[DToTheJ]

And how many of these stations will be employing Lisa Paige? ;D

 

[AlNYRadio]

What I would love happen is bringing smooth jazz back. Sadly, it's revenue is the company's biggest enemy, and that is what caused the demise of WQCD. Quick note, WFAN's HD was off since the format change, and there is no longer any smooth jazz, except traditional jazz on WBGO.

93.9-Alternative Rock/Rock Station/Country

Never ever in a million years unless NYC Public Radio is gone (impossible) or if a dial change occurs like with WQXR and WCAA will WNYC FM (or AM) will be changed.

103.5-Flips to Dance/Flips to Alternative

No way KTU's name will be gone from NYC. Dance may be a little sprinkled into KTU, but nothing will change the station alot.

102.7-No changes

I have a feeling CBS will change Fresh instead of Now because Now is doing better in my opinion compared to Fresh and I think if Fresh switches, the audience would not go to Lite, but to the CHR stations.

 

[Steve Green NEPA]

Though not a fan of the music, I have to ask why 105.1 would want to change to another format ?

Starting over would place most of the disaffected, uh, smack onto 97.1, and imperil the success of the cluster. It was some ten years ago, but WQHT actually finished tops in the market for a book or so. Clear Channel won't want their huge-billing 106.7 market gem damaged again. Certainly, the audiences are different, but there is money in Top Five finishers irrespective.

Plus, except for the possible enthusiasm and support of the Dance community, the other two choices for 105.1 have not shown impact yet, either immediate or sustained.

Cool list, though. XCountry has the thinking cap on. Perhaps if it is Country on 94.7 come 1-1-13, splashy and eye-opening and going for the groin, then some of the reactive corporate position jockeying might re-think its vision of turning the FM dial into one big, quarrelsome, verbal tuneout. We need more music on FM, not less variety.

 

[JoeyBagODonuts]

101.9-Flips back to Alternative

101.9 will not be changing any time soon. They will be WFAN-FM, either carrying the local shows as they do now, or the CBS Sports Network.

 

[luperm]

I don't see any major FM changes (with the exception of 94.7).
Maybe 92.7 and 93.1 will get tweaked, and maybe 103.9 will complete its move to the Bronx -- but that's about it in my opinion.

There might be a couple of HD2 changes -- WOR to a HD2 or HD3, if 94.7 goes country maybe 106.7 HD2 changes to something else, maybe one of the three rock HD2 stations changes to something else...

On AM, I would expect Family Radio to surface somewhere, along with CBS Sports Radio.

 

[HHH]

WNYC is going to sell off 93.9?

What are you smoking?

 

[WNTIRadio]

92.7-Cumulus buys it and simulcasts WRRV on it

Right. They're going to buy an almost NYC property, with the no money they already have, and put a dink market station on it.

And second to the WNYC comment. What crack are you smoking?

 

[MoldaMania182]

93.9-Alternative Rock/Rock Station/Country

Never ever in a million years unless NYC Public Radio is gone (impossible) or if a dial change occurs like with WQXR and WCAA will WNYC FM (or AM) will be changed.

I would love to see a WQXR and WNYC dial flip flop, naturally odds of that happening are close to 0.

The rest of XCountry's list is comedic relief at best. What happens with 94.7 remains to be seen. Unless something happens (sale) of WBAI, or 660 splits to CBS Sports radio - 2013 should be quiet.

 

[d21ofnj]

And do we really need that many Alternative stations to begin with? There's a better chance we get 1 format per dial than this.

 

[kevinsealy]

XCountry285,

As far as your predictions for 92.3 flipping to Dance or simulcasting with WCBS 880,101.9 flipping back to Alternative and 103.5 making a switch sounds very remote.

99.1 is a frequency shared by two New York suburban stations.

What are your predictions for New York's AM stations?



Thanks,
Kevin L. Sealy

 

[TimeIsTight]

This seems more of a "Wish List" than "Predictions" based on something likely to happen for a real reason.

With the exception of 94.7 which apparently has a likelihood of going Country, the probability that five or six stations will flip to Alternative, Rock, or Country is more than close to zero. These are formats that just haven't done well enough in NYC to hang around, in the past, and since they all appeal to ethnic types with small fractions of the population in NYC, and the surrounding urban areas it would be marketing suicide to try and divide that small pie, while ignoring the bigger one. NYC is only 33% non-Hispanic white, and represents half the total radio market.

As others have said, WNYC flipping to Commercial Alternative ain't gonna happen, even if the list maker doesn't like the Public Radio talk format, lots of listeners with the money to support it do.

WBAI may become a forced sale, but the buyers will likely select a format that appeals to a larger chunk of the NYC population than Alternative/Rock/Country.

Ultimately, one, or both, of the all news formats will move over to FM, just as sports talk has done, And, it wouldn't be surprising to see some kind of talk format on FM in the next few years, but NOT a political talk format the draws suburban white males rapidly aging out of the advertiser desired demos, while also shrinking in numbers.

 

[Ai4i]

Please forgive my ignorance, but is WFUV-HD3 alternative rock?

 

[XCountry285]

Not ALL of those stations would flip to Alternative only one of those would, as would for country, dance, etc. They are not represented in the market at all. Don't tell me its the demographics of NYC, LA, Philly, DC, Houston have all these formats, why can't NYC? Oh wait i forgot it's a wasteland for radio. the #1 Market in the country does not have a Rock or Alternative Rock outlet or a country outlet? Unacceptable! Small town markets in this country like Wilkes-Barre or Portland, ME have more variety than we do!

 

[stationless listener]

Well, this has been a year of incredible change for the NY radio dial, by the standards of the NY radio dial:

WOR sold.

WFME being sold.

101.9 sold to CBS.

98.7 LMA'd to ESPN.

New call letters for 92.3

107.5 and 1190 taken over in a bankruptcy proceeding from Inner City by YMF Media

1050 changed to Spanish-language sports

There might be a sale of an AM station in the next few months, depending on how successful Family Radio's search goes.


I think 2013 will revert to a more stable situation that we were used to seeing the previous five years. We'll see how the experiment of going to older-leaning Latin music format at 92.7 will result in the next 12 months. Right now, I can only get that signal in the car. The mystery over where CBS Sports Radio will surface is another curious thing. Why hasn't CBS said anything up to now is baffling. Another issue is whether the feds would approve the argument from CBS lawyers of WLNY being separate from the NYC cluster of radio and TV stations and, thus, not applicable to the legal limit per market. I can't count anything out on that front.

But the coming of the new format on 94.7 is going to be, I think, the major story of the first three months of next year for this board. That's about as sure a prediction one can make here.