SICKofIT said:
The last few weeks took me from Boston to DC and beyond. What I noticed was in each city there were enough Hard Rock, Standards, Oldies and Country stations on the dial, mostly rim shots but listenable. I never put my Sirius system on. As soon as I returned to Philly and scanned this screwed up dial once again, I needed to use my Sirius. There were no Hard Rockers, Standards or good Oldies formats to be heard in the city limits. The dial was made up of only Urban formats and one Country outlet, no Standards, Hard Rock or Classic Gold. I was also shocked to find the NYC dial was plentyful with Rock and Standard formats, 92.3 was great when they were music and Q104 was good also, and there were many other formats drifting in on both bands. Q104 and 92.3 are the most listened to Rock stations in the country, don't let the numbers fool you. In Philly the dial truly sucks, there are no GOOD music formats sneaking in and the AM band is the worst, all talk crap, you need Satellite radio here or have to suffer through the wasteland.
Your bias is so obvious (and identified by all others above) that I won't address it here. But, the grass is not greener in these other places either. Being a relative newcomer to SE PA, and a frequent traveler, I might add a fresh perspective. About the markets that you've described:
Boston: Lacks ANY urban formatted station. Has lots of rock signals (too many) and none do very well in the ratings. Good oldies on rimshot WBOQ 104.9, otherwise WODS is ho hum and not as good as WOGL. CHR is covered by hip hop WJMN (which does very well, but is musically no better than Wired) and by female-leaning WXKS (which is not nearly as crisp as Q-102). No smooth jazz and lots of Hot AC. Better talkers than Phillly, though. So, if your only interest is rock - then Boston is great. If you like variety, it's not.
Providence: Completely lackluster market. Yeah, there's WHJY (AOR) for a blast of old fashioned rock radio - and no other truly noteworth stations. The once great oldies outlet (B-101.5) has gone classi hits and is dull as ditchwater.
Hartford/New Haven: A MUCH better market than it once was. Oldies WDRC-FM now offers a great playlist and I really enjoyed it. Power 104 is a lot like WUSL, only not quite as good. Hot 93.7 is a competent hip hop station and Kiss 95.7 plays the CHR road well. For AOR, there's WCCC and WPLR and both are good in a 70's sort of way. New Haven has a little urban/AC station (WYBC) that gets the job done. Good AC station in WRCH - though the once-great WHCN is now the River and is hard to pin down (AAA, Classic Rock?). WWYZ is a competent country station too. No real local talk in this market, nor is there SJ.
NY: I'll be brief. It's the #1 market, so station owners usually throw their best talent at it. That being said, there's NO country or oldies in the market. The urban AC's (Kiss and BLS) clear lots of syndicated programming and aren't as good as Philly's - IMO. The one CHR (Z100) is very good, of course - but there's a glut of 3 Spanish signals and lots of non-comm cluttering the FM dial. So, not as much space for variety. If you like rock, then you should thank your lucky stars that you live in Philly because NY has very little of it.
Baltimore: Another ho hum market (like Providence). A decent rocker and a good Urban and that's about it. No oldies, no CHR (unless you count 99.5 from DC).
DC: Not a lot of rock here either (certainly no more than Philly). DC-101 and classic rock on 94.7 and that's about it. Oh yeah, and the boring remains of what was once oldies WBIG. Oldies are gone. WPGC and WKYS are excellent urban contemporaries. Majic 102.3 has a lousy suburban signal and WHUR can be inconsistent. It's a good market, but not a great one.
Philly: Personally, I think that the "Big Talker" isn't what it could be (like WABC or WRKO) - but otherwise the market is pretty good. There's plenty of rock available from rimshots and we still have an ok oldies station here. I like all of the urbans here (even 100.3), and think that Q-102 is a really big-league sounding CHR. 94.1 should go back to playing more rock, but CBS radio has problems with all of it's "Free" formatted stations - that's not unique to Philly. The rhythmic AC "Philly 106.1" is pretty fluffy, but most stations in the format seem to be. B-101 is a solid AC and gets the ratings as a result. Not sure why we need to have "Rumba" here, but it's here and does add variety for when you're in the mood. At least it's only one non-English station and not 3 like New York or 8 like Houston.
So, before you whine again about how Philly radio sucks, take a look around. Because it is a better and more diverse radio market than any of the other big markets in the northeast corridor. Spend some real time in these places (once the novely wears out) and you'll find yourself going right back to satellite radio.
