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Rock Radio Boston

P

Power91

Guest
While it's been said numerous times in many areas, that rock radio right now is on the decline, I'm just wondering if one can find another major market that is about at the level Boston is at. Whether one likes or dislikes the way the stations present themselves, there's no denying that Boston is one of the heaviest major markets in terms of rock/alternative left. Obviously a large part of this has to do with its demographics, but still:

WBCN
WZLX
WFNX

and if you add from the suburbs: WGIR & WHEB (to the north), WAAF (to the west), WHJY (to the South)....hell AAA formatted stations like WBOS and WXRV could also be included. That's a lot of stations in the area to cover various rock formats. Compare that to the sister city to the south in the great NYC, which after the flip of K-Rock will be down to ONE: 104.3 WAXQ (Classic Rock): no alternative, no active rock, no AAA...

or Philly: TWO: 93.3 WMMR (Rock) and 102.9 WMGK (Classic Rock), and maybe WTHK (Classic Rock) from Trenton if you want to add that

Boston rock radio may not be perfect, but it's still better than most major markets...

~RM
 
> While it's been said numerous times in many areas, that rock
> radio right now is on the decline, I'm just wondering if one
> can find another major market that is about at the level
> Boston is at. Whether one likes or dislikes the way the
> stations present themselves, there's no denying that Boston
> is one of the heaviest major markets in terms of
> rock/alternative left. Obviously a large part of this has to
> do with its demographics, but still:
>
> WBCN
> WZLX
> WFNX
>
> and if you add from the suburbs: WGIR & WHEB (to the north),
> WAAF (to the west), WHJY (to the South)....hell AAA
> formatted stations like WBOS and WXRV could also be
> included. That's a lot of stations in the area to cover
> various rock formats. Compare that to the sister city to the
> south in the great NYC, which after the flip of K-Rock will
> be down to ONE: 104.3 WAXQ (Classic Rock): no alternative,
> no active rock, no AAA...
>
> or Philly: TWO: 93.3 WMMR (Rock) and 102.9 WMGK (Classic
> Rock), and maybe WTHK (Classic Rock) from Trenton if you
> want to add that
>
> Boston rock radio may not be perfect, but it's still better
> than most major markets...
>
> ~RM
>

Agreed. I think us rock radio listeners have it pretty good, especially like you said in the suburbs. I am from the Lowell Area and my presets are all rock.
I got

107.3 WAAF
106.9 WFNQ
105.7 WROR
104.1 WBCN
101.7 WFNX
101.1 WGIR
100.7 WZLX
100.3 WHEB
96.5 WMLL
92.9 WBOS

These are all some form of rock, be it classic rock, alterntative rock, classic hits, etc etc. I could also include stations that i can sometimes (on good days) pick up on my radio which include 102.9 WBLM, 102.1 the shark, 100.1 WWFX The pike, and 94.1 WHJY.

Now I know you cannot come even close to getting all of these in the city of boston, but it does leave us out in the northwest suburbs with quite the selection, and I don't know if that kind of selection exists in other parts of the country.
 
Personally, I think Boston has too much rock, and many of the stations overlap eachother musically. WZLX and WROR share a lot of titles. WBOS and WXRV cover a lot of the same ground. So do WBCN and WAAF, especially with BCN adding more older, mainstream titles to their "alternative mix." If you look at the ratings, it's becoming more and more apparent that this market can no longer support so many rock-formatted stations.

The problem is, there's not a lot of other format options for these stations. Unlike New York and Philly, there aren't huge minority populations to target with urban or Hispanic programming. Plus, rock formats, particularly classic rock, are easy to sell. Many ad buyers, business owners, and other decisionmakers personally like the format. Selling spots on rock stations is like shooting fish in a barrel. That's also why so many of the suburban signals--particularly Worcester and Southern New Hampshire, program rock. However, with the ratings starting to tumble some owners may find it harder and harder to market these stations over time.

If these trends continue, I'd imagine someone will take a chance and flip one of the Boston rock stations to something else. FM Talk, Urban and Hispanic are the fastest growing formats in the country. I think it's just a matter of time before it happens but it may not be right away.

Mike Thomas

> While it's been said numerous times in many areas, that rock
> radio right now is on the decline, I'm just wondering if one
> can find another major market that is about at the level
> Boston is at. Whether one likes or dislikes the way the
> stations present themselves, there's no denying that Boston
> is one of the heaviest major markets in terms of
> rock/alternative left. Obviously a large part of this has to
> do with its demographics, but still:
>
> WBCN
> WZLX
> WFNX
>
> and if you add from the suburbs: WGIR & WHEB (to the north),
> WAAF (to the west), WHJY (to the South)....hell AAA
> formatted stations like WBOS and WXRV could also be
> included. That's a lot of stations in the area to cover
> various rock formats. Compare that to the sister city to the
> south in the great NYC, which after the flip of K-Rock will
> be down to ONE: 104.3 WAXQ (Classic Rock): no alternative,
> no active rock, no AAA...
>
> or Philly: TWO: 93.3 WMMR (Rock) and 102.9 WMGK (Classic
> Rock), and maybe WTHK (Classic Rock) from Trenton if you
> want to add that
>
> Boston rock radio may not be perfect, but it's still better
> than most major markets...
>
> ~RM
>
 
> Now I know you cannot come even close to getting all of
> these in the city of boston, but it does leave us out in the
> northwest suburbs with quite the selection, and I don't know
> if that kind of selection exists in other parts of the
> country.

The Albany, NY area also has a lot of rock stations, let's see if I can remember them all:

94.5 WRCZ (Classic Rock)
99.5 WRVE (Rock AC)
102.7 WEQX (Alternative from Manchester, VT, put covers parts of the market)
103.1 WHRL (Alternative)
103.5/103.9 The Edge (Active Rock)
106.5 WPYX (Classic Rock)

Also, rumor is that 103.5/103.9 may be flipping to classic rock soon. Hmmm...

Jacko
<P ID="signature">______________
I live for my dream,
And a pocket full of gold.
</P>
 
Dumb owners, programmers and consultants in NY

Compare that to the sister city to the
> south in the great NYC, which after the flip of K-Rock will
> be down to ONE: 104.3 WAXQ (Classic Rock): no alternative,
> no active rock, no AAA...




If Stern takes his legions of loyal NY followers with him, which may happen in large #s because there is no longer a rock outlet in NYC, not counting classic rock, to slow the bleeding....Then it may be a long time before you see any type of rock station start up. After all, who would you target? All the rockers that will have signed up for Satillite and its 15-20 channels of unedited rock radio?

Meanwhile brilliant genius owners ponder country and oldies formats. What happen? They all miss that big "no rock' opening in the market come the first week in January? How did the consultants miss that one?

Well, the sales staff should be happy, oldies will be a polite sell to local business.
 
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