Keep an eye on KQRC (98.9 The Rock) in Kansas City. It started cutting itself in June, and I've found myself listening to it less often than before. Apparently I'm not alone either, if their ratings in July and August are indicative of anything. I understand that the station used to rank 4th to 6th in most months, with ratings in the mid-5's to low 6's, and that they've had slow declines in recent years, ranking 7th to 9th in most months, with ratings in the mid-4's to low 5's, but their recent changes seem to have made everything much worse. They no longer rank in the top 10, and their ratings have instantly fallen into the high 3's.
Basically, they've eliminated all current rock music from their playlist, and added more 1970s and 1980s rock. Avenged Sevenfold, Five Finger Death Punch, Volbeat and The Pretty Reckless have been replaced by Lynyrd Skynyrd, Queen, ZZ Top and Joan Jett. Literally, the only songs from 2016 on their playlist right now are "The Sound Of Silence" by Disturbed, and "Hardwired" by Metallica. Otherwise, there's literally nothing since 2010 on their playlist, except for an hour of "extreme" metal late at night on The Pit -- which I actually heard play a song by Trapt last week, even though Trapt is not extreme metal. On weekends, they've eliminated Hard Drive with Lou Brutus in favor of Eddie Trunk Rocks, which has more of a classic rock focus. They also do "double shot" weekends, where they play two songs back to back by the same bands, but they've eliminated "BEER!!!" by Psychostick as a Friday afternoon staple. They still have Dee's House of Hair on Sunday mornings.
Basically, the station is going back in time, and has much more overlap with Classic Rock than ever before. The results haven't been pretty either. I honestly wonder if they're deliberately tanking the ratings to have an excuse to flip the format, because these days nobody believes that Active Rock is worth more than 10,000 watts of transmitter power, let alone a 98,500-watt flamethrower like KQRC has.
