That's a good point @seriousdrag. A lot of towns have one, and we don't outside small areas. I think Capital and OSU student radio are online only and even where I live, 97.5 is not the Otterbein station but rather WVNU from Greenfield with a surprisingly good signal.
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RIP CD 92.9
- Thread starter CbusRadio
- Start date
At the end, and the beginning of the day, as much as we shudder to think, commercial radio is a business, a profit-making concern. When an entity is in arrears and cannot make its payments, it is well within the rights of the owner, having reached an impasse to move on. This would not be the first time that the radio station has met with financial difficulties.
How this was handled and allowed to play out in public was simply abysmal. If the station (993X) is to be rebranded after being a truly alternative format to an oldies format in such a short space of time, it begs the question why not rebrand to the oldies format from the outset? and waste so much time and expense?
I enjoyed 93X because it was indeed playing progressive, alternative music from the 70s and 80's (punk, new wave, post-punk, etc.) and that was the alternative music of my youth, where I lived and where I grew up. And therein lies the crux, the term alternative is relative and taken out of context is meaningless. I perused the historical playlists and listened to "air checks" of 101.9 and I would never conceive of the station being an alternative format, given my geography, cultural sensibilities and personal tastes,
I'm not from Columbus, nor am I an Ohioan, and it didn't take me long to realize that something was indeed different, when a town with such a large University did not have a history of a counter-culture radio station playing all manner of formats. We can be thankful for being able to stream college radio stations over the Internet, but in my pre-Internet youth, my musical evolution would have been nothing without student radio and pirate radio stations.
I enjoyed 93X because it was indeed playing progressive, alternative music from the 70s and 80's (punk, new wave, post-punk, etc.) and that was the alternative music of my youth, where I lived and where I grew up. And therein lies the crux, the term alternative is relative and taken out of context is meaningless. I perused the historical playlists and listened to "air checks" of 101.9 and I would never conceive of the station being an alternative format, given my geography, cultural sensibilities and personal tastes,
I'm not from Columbus, nor am I an Ohioan, and it didn't take me long to realize that something was indeed different, when a town with such a large University did not have a history of a counter-culture radio station playing all manner of formats. We can be thankful for being able to stream college radio stations over the Internet, but in my pre-Internet youth, my musical evolution would have been nothing without student radio and pirate radio stations.
Perhaps it wasn't exactly the plan. More like a Plan B? (Guessing)
Regardless, of the period being so short, it makes one wonder how much of a grasp the station owner has on the Columbus radio demographic. And, if there was/is all this vociferous support for the "heritage" station for all these years, why could they not make a go of it financially? and how on earth did they manage to stay around for as long as they did?
Guessing here that the "heritage" audience was not buying the products/services being advertised on the station, and that upon realization of such advertisers migrated their commercials to other media outlets, both traditional and non-traditional.
It does feel like Delmar never had a Plan B, just simply co-opt the WWCD brand and operate it as their own. Which is even more mystifying because that would assume they never took even a cursory look at the contract they themselves signed with Malloy.
No one said otherwise. But it's possible to make huge errors in how one runs a business, and Delmar isn't exempt from criticism for how they've run theirs in the wake of dropping Malloy. Double standards just because some people don't like the previous format are intellectually dishonest.
Also, the WWCD brand was able to survive decades. That's no small feat, and it's also not something that would have happened if they had no grasp of business. Do you recall something called the pandemic? A lot of the revenue disappeared. If Delmar is so much smarter than the WWCD team, you'd think they'd have not needed to lease the station in the first place, and flip it twice in the span of a month and some change.
That would be granting Malloy far too much ... and if the plan were to co-opt, why bother relinquishing WWCD call letters? Unless someone has made such a contract/agreement public, nobody will ever know what if any stipulations existed. Anything surrounding such would be at best hearsay and most likely supposition.
Follow the money worked in the film and it works in this instance as well.
As for switching to an oldies format, it is tried and true one reckons that as the "heritage" station was not bringing in the money, the new 93X which WAS arguably MORE alternative than its predecessor, was still far TOO alternative for the local Columbus/Central Ohio business marketplace.
Then "experienced operators" should have figured that out before devoting a signal to it for five weeks. And the brand confusion of naming it the same thing as their other station, which plays a completely different set of songs.
If you want me to believe they're making more money with this than if they'd settled with Randy Malloy, you might be interested in a lovely property in Arizona with ocean views.
If you want me to believe they're making more money with this than if they'd settled with Randy Malloy, you might be interested in a lovely property in Arizona with ocean views.
It's not like two high-band AMs in Columbus and Delaware (and their two translators) would be generating much of anything in the first place. But SOME money with a revenue stream via someone else paying for the programming is better than NO money at all.
I'm not saying Malloy and company were rolling in hundreds like Scrooge McDuck, but given the events that transpired, I'd have tried to find a happy medium.
What I suspect is that the guy who programmed the "X" talked the owners into believing they could make as much or more by cutting out Malloy. But he, being unprofessional, couldn't resist taking shots, playing his personal favorites and generally blowing the good will built up by CD in a way where even the limited alternative audience wasn't in reach because he angered them.
What I suspect is that the guy who programmed the "X" talked the owners into believing they could make as much or more by cutting out Malloy. But he, being unprofessional, couldn't resist taking shots, playing his personal favorites and generally blowing the good will built up by CD in a way where even the limited alternative audience wasn't in reach because he angered them.
The pandemic affected a lot of people and while it hurt a lot of businesses, and shut down more than a fair share, some were able to come out the other end of it all. As for double standards, as I stated in an earlier post, having reviewed WWCD's playlist over the years, from where I sit and grew up I would not consider it any way alternative radio station. Again, as I stated earlier, the degree to which a radio's format is alternative rests firmly in 'the ear of the beholder."
WWCD's ability in the past to make a go of it may indeed be a worthwhile achievement, but living in the present with bills/invoices needing to be paid, their contract was NOT renewed. There was an impasse, and it would appear that this was not some fairly recent occurrence. There were fruitless discussions resulting in the ownership deciding not to renew a contract where payments were either not timely, not being made or a combination of the two. Why bother signing/renewing a contract under these circumstances? Malloy wasn't cut out, he wasn't dropped. He (his management of WWCD) made it financially untenable for the station owners. Honestly, if one person alone makes or breaks a radio station, that is beyond problematic moving forward.
As for 93X, given the speed with which it has come and gone, one can only surmise that it was a "house" station and Delmar reading the writing on the wall, did not see the "truly" alternative format being viable and quickly saw to its demise. Perhaps, if Malloy had come clean with a "mea culpa" to the station's "loyal" audience, troops could have been mobilized on a grassroots level to attract advertisers and sponsors in advance of this all and the impasse could have been avoided. Nobody will ever know. And if I'm not mistaken a good number of years back there were financial misgivings which led to crowdfunding to support the station. One can only imagine that wasn't effective or it would have been repeated.
Even if the shots or playing personal favorites was not part of the equation in the change there seems to be a peculiar devotion to Malloy that likely wouldn’t changed much of the current landscape. From listeners to advertisers, he had created a deep and unwavering loyalty from them. Creating anger from mocking & presentation differences was just icing on the cake. Not the cake itself.
Not exactly loving listening so much anymore. Music now sounding largely like a typical "Cool Oldies" format circa late 90s or early 00s. Maybe hearing BB King's classic "The Thrill Is Gone" a few days ago was meant as predictive of the direction they were headed. Still nice to hear some of the 60s songs back on the radio, but I can only take so much Lesley Gore or Lobo... Air Talent starts Monday, BTW.
Based on a couple hours of listening this afternoon, 92.9 is back to a sound closer to what they had been doing prior to the last couple days -- but with more balance. Which is a positive to my personal tastes. Very listenable. I started to list a lot of specific examples, but I guess that doesn't make sense -- especially at this early stage -- because we don't know where things will head in coming hours, days, weeks and beyond.
WXGT -- aka My92.9 -- is now promoting the arrival of several on-air hosts beginning today, Monday, March 18. As an Oldies fan, I'm pleased to hear a good mix of Oldies on Columbus radio. It's been a long time....
Are they streaming anywhere?
Rob's heart was on a Christian format and his wife is carrying that on that legacy - I don't see 91.5 changing formats anytime soon as long as she can keep doing what she's doing with it.
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