Q-100 Atlanta - The Good And The Bad

[CHRles]

So we've been having a pretty intense discussion on another thread concerning the music mix, and other elements of WWWQ, better known as Q-100 Atlanta.

Let's start with what I consider to be the station's core strengths:
The Bert Show - clearly an entertaining and well-executed morning show that is enjoyed by many in the market
Q-100 vs. the mid to late 90s sound of Star 94 - Say what you will about the current music mix at Q-100 it's still light years better than what passed for a CHR in Atlanta during the mid to late 90s. Star 94 was a faux CHR/Pop station that leaned very heavily on Modern A/C, Recurrents, and added new music pretty late.
The Signal - It's nice to know there's a CHR/Pop station in Atlanta on a clear 100,000 watts signal. Compare that with the early 2 K signal of 95.5 The Beat, or when Q-100 was on 100.5
Other personalities: Brittany and Johnny O are fine with regards to their on-air delivery.

The Bad:
Music Programming - there's some good and bad here. I actually enjoy some of the mid-day Recurrent titles Q plays. I also like that they have no problem playing the big Pop/Rock hits.
What is annoying is that a major market like Atlanta has only one CHR/Pop station, and it's either very late on Rhythmic/Pop, or doesnt add certain mass-appeal Rhythmic hits at all (especially the Hip Hop ones, and to some extent the Dance ones).
Q-100 did play Edward Maya, but only at nights. Folks, "Stereo Love" is not a hardcore Techno track, but rather one that some Hot A/Cs and all the Hot Rhythmic ACs had no trouble playing. Major market CHRs have been playing it for months on end.
Also, Lupe Fiasco's "The Show Goes On" is a very crossover sounding Hip Hop title. In the past Q-100 had no problems playing Chamillionaire's "Rollin", or "Party Like A Rockstar" by the Shop Boyz.
Furthermore, this is Atlanta!!! A lot of the big Rhythmic artists are local heroes, not just to the Urban audience, but the Pop audience as well! I can't stress this enough.
We're talking about a major market with people from all over Georgia, all over the South, plenty of transplants from other parts of the country, and a big international community. It's a cosmopolitan city where Rhythm and Dance crossover titles tend to thrive the most!!!

Q-100 Nights: Billy Bush isn't a bad choice, but his show isn;t live and local. Interacting with a primarily 12-24 audience at night is essential! The music mix also isn't customized for Atlanta. We know this b/c the same exact music logs appear on a dozen or more Cumulus-owned CHRs between 7 to midnight. This is cheap programming, and a bad one as well.
If you're going to try and do a nightly semi-syndicated show at least try to make it more bigger than life, maybe even play the Top 20 hits of the day on Itunes, or the 30 most requested songs at night by the audience. They do this kind of thing every weeknight on radio stations in Australia, Ireland, even Singapore, and the results have been successful. It sure beats the current nighttime sound of Q, at least in my humble opinion.

Well, that's it from me for now. I know this was long post/rant. That's my view on things. Feel free to post yours.

 

[atlantaboy]

KIIS/KAMP don't play much pop/rock because of L. A. demographics, and musical taste.
Q100 doesn't play much dance because of Atlanta demographics, and musical taste.

Again, you seem to think that a "modern, cosmopolitan city" equates to a love of dance music, and I'm not sure where to go with that except that it seems unfathomable to you that some people out there actually might not like dance music - but you're so wrapped up in your own head that I'm not sure how to even explain that to you...

Do you understand that a lot of Q100's audience listens to Edward Maya and DOES NOT LIKE IT?? I don't think you do...

 

[CHRles]

Looks like I've touched a nerve.
Atlantaboy, kudos - you keep finding ways to stay blinded from the truth.

 

[atlantaboy]

Looks like I've touched a nerve.

Not really - I'm just sick of posting the same thing over and over

Hopefully new posters will join this board that can discuss these topics - this whole "Dance music rules man!" thing makes these threads completely meaningless, and so does this competitive thing you have (not sure if it's with me, or with Hot AC/Rock in general, but whatever...)

 

[electroboy73]

Good lord, boys...(lol) :

Totally agree on everything stated, CHRles. Atlanta Top-40 is in a 20+ year black-hole! Keep thinking, something's gotta give....(but, still the same all over again)

 

[travisl5678]

for the few times I've listened, I actully like Q-100

 

[the golden boy]

KIIS/KAMP don't play much pop/rock because of L. A. demographics, and musical taste.
Q100 doesn't play much dance because of Atlanta demographics, and musical taste.

Do you understand that a lot of Q100's audience listens to Edward Maya and DOES NOT LIKE IT?? I don't think you do...

I'll agree with you on the Los Angeles angle to a degree, but I'm not entirely convinced that pop/rock doesn't go over well out there. I'm not saying they should reduce the amount of rhythmic songs they play, but they should be open to more pop/rock.

On Q100, do we know that the audience doesn't like "Stereo Love"? With Cumulus pretty much deciding what their stations play, it's sorta hard to come to that conclusion. Cumulus has taken the localism away. Since "Stereo Love" is moving down the charts (if not completely falling off), it may be moot point now.

 

[atlantaboy]

KIIS/KAMP don't play much pop/rock because of L. A. demographics, and musical taste.
Q100 doesn't play much dance because of Atlanta demographics, and musical taste.

Do you understand that a lot of Q100's audience listens to Edward Maya and DOES NOT LIKE IT?? I don't think you do...

I'll agree with you on the Los Angeles angle to a degree, but I'm not entirely convinced that pop/rock doesn't go over well out there. I'm not saying they should reduce the amount of rhythmic songs they play, but they should be open to more pop/rock.

On Q100, do we know that the audience doesn't like "Stereo Love"? With Cumulus pretty much deciding what their stations play, it's sorta hard to come to that conclusion. Cumulus has taken the localism away. Since "Stereo Love" is moving down the charts (if not completely falling off), it may be moot point now.

From what I read, I think Q100 is probably the one Cumulus station that is localized for its market (since Cumulus is Atlanta-based, and Q's playlist seems to react to what happens at Star 94) - But yeah, there's no localism in any of the other Cumulus markets that clone Q100 - it has to be a cost-saving measure IMO - I just have no other idea why they'd possibly use central programming like that

As far as L. A., I'd love to see KIIS play more pop/rock, but I think they'd start losing listeners to their Rhythmic station - I think it's basically the same situation as Q100-Star, just with the genres of music reversed - financially, I just think KIIS needs to be careful of pop/rock, and Q100 needs to be careful of rap/rhythmic stuff

 

[Slinky]

From what I read, I think Q100 is probably the one Cumulus station that is localized for its market (since Cumulus is Atlanta-based, and Q's playlist seems to react to what happens at Star 94) - But yeah, there's no localism in any of the other Cumulus markets that clone Q100

Q100 is not the station being cloned.

Before Cumulus bought the Susquehanna stations (including KRBE and Q100), they were a radio company specializing in small markets. The company owned CHRs in various small markets like Montgomery, AL and Youngstown, OH. At some point, the company decided to centrally program their CHRs, giving full control of each station's playlist to Jan Jeffries, who decided to give the CHRs a Hot AC-ish sound. When Cumulus bought KRBE and Q100, they started applying this same small-market template to big market CHRs.

It would be more accurate to say that Q100 is a clone of the small market CHRs that have been owned by Cumulus for years.

 

[Slinky]

KIIS/KAMP don't play much pop/rock because of L. A. demographics, and musical taste.
Q100 doesn't play much dance because of Atlanta demographics, and musical taste.

The problem is we don't really know that about Atlanta musical taste.

KIIS in the early 2000s was more rock and pop leaning. They did OK, but when they adopted their current rhythmic sound, ratings shot up immediately.

For Atlanta, no one's ever tried a balanced CHR on a full-market signal. We also know that Cumulus programs their CHRs nationally, and so there hasn't been any recent local market research about what Atlanta CHR listeners actually want.

 

[CHRles]

Atlanta always had a full blown balanced, or youth friendly CHR/Pop station on a full-market signal till 1992. I have access to playlists from Z-93 in its Top 40 heyday, as well as Power 99. I can see exactly what these stations were playing every year in the 80s and 90s.

I suggest you take everything Atlantaboy writes with a grain of salt. David Eduardo schooled him real good on the Chicago board not too long ago with regards to Kiss FM's success and billing. And yes, I also have access to old playlists from WLS, B-96, and Z-95 (which was very youth friendly playing all the big Hip Hop hits, but also the big Hard Rock stuff. In fact, they were one of the few major CHRs to play Metallica's "One").

 

[the golden boy]

^^

Do you happen to have the ratings for Power 99 in the 90s? I was wondering if they were suffering the same drop in ratings like many CHR stations across the country did.

 

[atlantaboy]

I suggest you take everything Atlantaboy writes with a grain of salt. David Eduardo schooled him real good on the Chicago board not too long ago with regards to Kiss FM's success and billing.

I suggest you respond to the content of what I write, and leave it at that

Any more posts like this, and I'm PMing the board editor, and this thread will be closed

 

[atlantaboy]

Atlanta always had a full blown balanced, or youth friendly CHR/Pop station on a full-market signal till 1992.

Because pre-1992, Atlanta was a different market than it is today - the suburbs more than doubled in size in the 90s and 2000s, making a Hot AC-leaning approach extremely profitable to appeal to the huge influx of new money from Northern transplants

 

[atlantaboy]

From what I read, I think Q100 is probably the one Cumulus station that is localized for its market (since Cumulus is Atlanta-based, and Q's playlist seems to react to what happens at Star 94) - But yeah, there's no localism in any of the other Cumulus markets that clone Q100

Q100 is not the station being cloned.

Before Cumulus bought the Susquehanna stations (including KRBE and Q100), they were a radio company specializing in small markets. The company owned CHRs in various small markets like Montgomery, AL and Youngstown, OH. At some point, the company decided to centrally program their CHRs, giving full control of each station's playlist to Jan Jeffries, who decided to give the CHRs a Hot AC-ish sound. When Cumulus bought KRBE and Q100, they started applying this same small-market template to big market CHRs.

It would be more accurate to say that Q100 is a clone of the small market CHRs that have been owned by Cumulus for years.

To some extent, but there were many points in the last ten years where Q100 was playing songs the smaller market stations weren't playing, and vice-versa - the strict central programming by Jan Jeffries is only a few months old (before that the Dallas and Indy stations leaned rhythmic, KRBE leaned slightly more rhythmic than Q100, etc.)

Many musical decisions involving Q100 were a direct result of what Star 94 was playing and their ratings at the time - Cumulus might have already owned Hot AC-leaning stations in small markets, but their decision-making process directly involved Q100 and the Atlanta market

 

[CHRles]

Atlanta always had a full blown balanced, or youth friendly CHR/Pop station on a full-market signal till 1992.

Because pre-1992, Atlanta was a different market than it is today - the suburbs more than doubled in size in the 90s and 2000s, making a Hot AC-leaning approach extremely profitable to appeal to the huge influx of new money from Northern transplants

Actually, in metro Atlanta the suburbs have vastly been outnumbering the core city for decades now.
If anything, the suburbs became less homogenized, more populated, and those northern transplants you speak of make a Rhythmic friendly CHR even more feasible. So does the fact that Atlanta has a huge gay population, a growing Hispanic population, and especially the fact that 18-34 year old Pop-music loving females love the Rhythmic/Pop stuff.

Besides, there's a lot of markets where the suburban population is significantly larger than the core city. Examples: Miami, Boston, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Raleigh, Hartford, Salt Lake City, etc.

Goldenboy brought up a great point. In the early 90s many CHRs were seeing their ratings decline. We've discussed this in great detail in other threads in the past. Suffice to say that by the early 90s over half of America's commercial terrestrial radio stations were in the red and struggling. As such, this forced many CHRs to try targetting an older audience, or abandon the format altogether.
Additionally, Hip Hop and Modern Rock had gotten so huge with 12-24 year olds, but in many markets the over 25 year olds had a hard time digesting so many of these hit records at one time.
By the mid to late 90s this issue gradually resolved itself as the 25+ year olds of 1999 were much more accustomed and in tune with Hip Hop, Dance, and Modern Rock.

BTW, when Power 99 was transitioning from CHR/Pop to Modern Rock it was still posting ratings in the 4-5 shares. Yet during Power 99's heyday as a CHR it posted 9 shares or above.
Power 99 was a Dance friendly CHR. It somewhat took its musical programming cues from Houston's 93 Q and Power 104.

 

[atlantaboy]

If anything, the suburbs became less homogenized, more populated, and those northern transplants you speak of make a Rhythmic friendly CHR even more feasible. So does the fact that Atlanta has a huge gay population, a growing Hispanic population, and especially the fact that 18-34 year old Pop-music loving females love the Rhythmic/Pop stuff.

So by "Northern transplants", we're referring to young families in their late 20s and 30s relocating to Atlanta from the North, frequently because their white-collar businesses have relocated to an area where heating was less costly

The target demo here is 25-34 upper-income females, and that demo favors Hot AC-leaning music, not Rhythmic-leaning music (this is why G105/Raleigh almost went full-fledged Modern AC in the late 90s, and why Kiss/Charlotte almost did the same in the early 2000s)

In the "new money" suburbs like Alpharetta, Milton, East Cobb, John's Creek, etc., "the 18-34 year old Pop-music loving females" don't exclusively "love the Rhythmic/Pop stuff" (not sure how you would even know that) - that's why Star 94 places so high with 18-34 females, and why Star and Q100 are competing for a lot of the same listeners

If 18-34 females in Atlanta "loved the rhythmic/pop stuff," Star wouldn't be placing so high in that demo - and they'd be turning off Q100 and turning on Wild, since Wild comes in perfectly (in stereo) in all of these suburbs

 

[carolinaradio]

To some extent, but there were many points in the last ten years where Q100 was playing songs the smaller market stations weren't playing, and vice-versa - the strict central programming by Jan Jeffries is only a few months old (before that the Dallas and Indy stations leaned rhythmic, KRBE leaned slightly more rhythmic than Q100, etc.)

Many musical decisions involving Q100 were a direct result of what Star 94 was playing and their ratings at the time - Cumulus might have already owned Hot AC-leaning stations in small markets, but their decision-making process directly involved Q100 and the Atlanta market

That's what I keep saying. I remember reading about how Q100 was sounding like a Hot AC a couple of years ago (if memory serves correctly, they were playing a lot of Rob Thomas/Matchbox 20, and I remember Smashing Pumpkins even). This was around the time i94, i93, i106, etc. were launched, and those were rhythmic/younger-skewing. 95.7 The Vibe/KC was rhythmic leaning. KRBE was more mainstream. I don't know about the smaller markets, but the bigger market CHRs they had were definitely more unique, the way they should be.

 

[CHRles]

If anything, the suburbs became less homogenized, more populated, and those northern transplants you speak of make a Rhythmic friendly CHR even more feasible. So does the fact that Atlanta has a huge gay population, a growing Hispanic population, and especially the fact that 18-34 year old Pop-music loving females love the Rhythmic/Pop stuff.

So by "Northern transplants", we're referring to young families in their late 20s and 30s relocating to Atlanta from the North, frequently because their white-collar businesses have relocated to an area where heating was less costly

The target demo here is 25-34 upper-income females, and that demo favors Hot AC-leaning music, not Rhythmic-leaning music (this is why G105/Raleigh almost went full-fledged Modern AC in the late 90s, and why Kiss/Charlotte almost did the same in the early 2000s)

In the "new money" suburbs like Alpharetta, Milton, East Cobb, John's Creek, etc., "the 18-34 year old Pop-music loving females" don't exclusively "love the Rhythmic/Pop stuff" (not sure how you would even know that) - that's why Star 94 places so high with 18-34 females, and why Star and Q100 are competing for a lot of the same listeners

If 18-34 females in Atlanta "loved the rhythmic/pop stuff," Star wouldn't be placing so high in that demo - and they'd be turning off Q100 and turning on Wild, since Wild comes in perfectly (in stereo) in all of these suburbs

Raleigh? Where G-105 tapped into the fact that the market had no Modern Rocker and no Hot A/C in the mid 90s? Or the fact that Raleigh is much more of a college town where a lot of live and local Rock was huge at the time with the vast college crowd?
Anyways, the Modern A/C lean was gradually phased out by the early 2 K. On Star 94, not so much.

How about the fact that nowadays there's a successful Rhythmic AC in Raleigh, G-105 plays all the big Rhythmic/pop hits I'd been listing, and its new competitor (first direct competitor in ages) doesn't have a full market signal yet already has a 3 share?

And Charlotte? Kiss 95.1 had huge ratings in the mid 90s with a pure Pop sound. When exactly did the station go nearly Modern AC in the early 2000s? If it did, they sure didn't stay the course long, now did they? Nope. Hell, if Q-100 sounded anything remotely like Kiss 95.1 you'd seen a lot fewer of us dissing it.

BTW, 18-34 year olds in the "new money" suburbs of northern Atlanta are tuning into the new Wild 105.7 by the droves. This despite the fact that they may not be able to pick it up properly when they commute to work closer to downtown ATL.

Oh, FYI you can be feel free to report me on this or any other thread to any and all moderators, even twice. Won't change the facts that it's usually the Rhythmic/Pop and Dance/Pop hits that CHR is able to own, and thus able to thrive on. These records help CHR/Pop stations sustain high ratings, especially in the major markets. Don't believe me that's your problem, not mine.

Thread closed as far as I'm concerned.

 

[carolinaradio]

I don't want to get involved in the debate, but I did want to comment about Kiss 95.1. When I can get them, they really sound good. Very good balance and sound.

I don't really care for the way they pitch the music, though - the other 2 CHR's I listen to, Channel 96.1 and B93.7 (as well as my media player) don't, and it sounds kind of weird when switching over to them.

Oh, and G105/Kiss 93.9; Kiss is pretty much a rhythmic CHR now, not rhythmic AC. There has been some discussion on the Raleigh board about overlap between the two. Raleigh always seemed like a Hot AC market, potentially, to me....WRAL did it for a while, I think, but then they went AC. They don't even have a new rock station!