Remembering The Radio Battles Of The Past

[R.D.P.]

These are some of the radio battles, I remembered from years ago.

Bam 99 and Y-102 Montgomery.
That was a classic battle indeed. Bam went Oldies 98, in the late 80s, Then Country in the 90s. Back to Top 40 and now back to Country.
Y-102 tried Country in the 90s. That didn't work out too well. Went back to top 40, in the late 90s and hasn't looked back

Magic 95 and Hot 105.7
That was another classic battle indeed. Magic came on in 1982 and went Urban. They stayed with the format, for years. In 1989, they would file for a signal upgrade, call letter and frequency change. After 95.3 moved to 95.1, the station would stay with Urban, for a few more days. In May of 1989, the station started to make some changes. They did a stunt of jazz music, then became Rock WXFX 95.1 FM The Fox and never looked back.
Hot 105.7 started doing Urban on July 3 1988 and went on to become the dominate player in that field. After 20 plus years with the format, they show no signs of changing.

Magic 100 and Stereo 101 In Selma
Magic came on in 1984 and stayed AC till 1989. After 1989, they got a new owner and flipped to Country.
Stereo 101 stayed with top 40 till 1991. They changed their branding to Lazer 101 and went Hot AC/Classic Rock. After 2009, they became ALEX 100.9 FM and have yet to look back.
Over the years, these two stations have battled each other for the Top 4O and then Classic Pop crowd. WALX has always came out the winner those battles.

1-95 and Kicks 106.9
Both stations were battling each other, back in the late 80s. Kicks would fall off and become Classic Country, then Oldies, all 80s and now Classic Rock. 1-95 became Soft Rock, Top 40 for a spell again and now Sports. Neither station is duking it out with each other any longer. (I never understood the reasoning behind The New 94.5 FM brand.) (It made no sense to me.)

Dan <><

 

[JD36108]

These are some of the radio battles, I remembered from years ago.

Bam 99 and Y-102 Montgomery.
That was a classic battle indeed. Bam went Oldies 98, in the late 80s, Then Country in the 90s. Back to Top 40 and now back to Country.
Y-102 tried Country in the 90s. That didn't work out too well. Went back to top 40, in the late 90s and hasn't looked back

The Reason WHHY Failed as Cat Country 102 was due to the station being purchased by cumulus broadcasting, WLWI was already the #1 country station in the market and Cumulus at the time was wise enough to realize the WHHY calls were legendary in Top 40 / Hit parade formats, so they switched back to Top 40, but with an urban lean at first to try and catch some of the audience from Hot 105.

The sad thing and forgotten thing though is WBAM was doing quite well as Top 40 "Star 98.9" and was #1 during the Years WHHY tried the CHR/Rock leaning "live 101.9" and Country phase as "cat country".
once WHHY returned to Top 40, it put up quite a fun and interesting battle with Star 98.9, by bringing in former WHHY personalities like John Garrett and Karen Wright. Star 98.9 fired back by hiring The Iconic Larry Stevens and Leslie Bailey for mornings, then switched off to syndicated programming shortly before being sold off to Bluewater Broadcasting.

Had Bluewater invest time and built up Star 98.9 with better personalities, i know it would have been a stronger competitor instead of waiting 12 years to put hits 107.1 on the air.