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Taking Bets Now - How long until Fresh is history?

TowerBuzz said:
Has anyone ever stopped to think that the reason that things are in some opinions so bad in radio is BECAUSE the second anyone tries anything new or different idiots crap on it immediately?. The station has not even been on the air for 24 hours and here some dope is predicting it's demise. Meantime everyone dumped all over Mix 102.7 on this board, calling for a format change. So they did it, and because it's not country, or whatever other format that people kept trying to promote here automatically it's no good?.

Why would anything change when people dump on everything FOR changing?.
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This format is very similar to "SoJO" in South Jersey; not in the presentation but definitely in the music. That being said, SoJO hasn't been doing too well in the ratings. Their new book will be out in 2 weeks, but I do question this.

At least with JACK, there was a record of semi-success in other markets.
 
CBS goofs once again! Replacing a doomed format with another winner. I think people looking for soft music have enough choices in the market (WLTW, WPLJ. WQCD, WPAT), and we really didn't need another station which plays largely the same type of music as the first two stations.

I've heard all the advertising, including the one that claims soft rock stations play songs like "You Light Up My Life". So much has been made about how Lite-FM plays so many songs that don't fit one's preconceived notion of "soft rock". Basically, there is little difference between the sounds of Lite and Fresh, except that Lite seems to have better variety while Fresh seems content to play a lot of the same songs over and over again - not exactly what I would call "Fresh". They seem to be targeting younger Females by having more of a contemporary focus and drawing much of their material from the '90s and today, but it's inevitable that the few listeners that the station garners will quickly bore of the repetition.

CBS made a very foolish move with 102.7. Really, what's the difference between Fresh and the second incarnation of Blink? None, and we all know what happened to Blink. If CBS wants to go ahead with eliminating rock music on Free-FM, the smart thing to do would have been to launch a Modern or Active Rocker on 102.7, done the right way as opposed to the huge debacle that was K-Rock. That station tried to target frat boys and dinosaur rock lovers and failed in its attempts to win over either group. Bring in someone who knows what they're doing and watch the ad revenue roll in. Instead we have three stations in the market that you have to listen to for an hour each to detect any differences. I predict another failure for CBS. Mal Karmazin was smart to get out when he did.
 
I do agree that someone should give a well-executed modern/active rocker a shot in NYC, especially with music going away on Free FM (for now). However, I wouldn't write Fresh off as a failure. There seem to be other areas where two or three similar-sounding ACish stations can co-exist quite well, such as in nearby Fairfield county with 99.9, 107.9 and 96.7 plus the out-of-market stations coming in.

All Fresh needs to do is nibble a little bit from Lite, and a little bit from the likes of PLJ, CD, Z100 and get into the mid 2's. If they can do that and push down a station like PLJ and perhaps make Lite FM's dominance on the market a bit less pronounced, I'd say they will be a success. Especially if they manage to bill as well or better than PLJ....which is what's kept PLJ afloat dispite mediocre numbers.
 
Does WLTW even play "You Light Up My Life"?

Fresh sounds exactly like Blink version 2. Lots of repetition of many of the exact same songs that Blink 2 played over and over again back in 2003. Dido's "White Flag", Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful", Luther Vandross "Dance With My Father".

But I think that they finally figured out that Christina has a newer 'fresher' song ("Hurt") since the days Blink was around. And now THAT gets played 6 times a day, instead of "Beautiful"
 
SoulCrusher said:
CBS goofs once again! Replacing a doomed format with another winner. I think people looking for soft music have enough choices in the market (WLTW, WPLJ. WQCD, WPAT), and we really didn't need another station which plays largely the same type of music as the first two stations.

I've heard all the advertising, including the one that claims soft rock stations play songs like "You Light Up My Life". So much has been made about how Lite-FM plays so many songs that don't fit one's preconceived notion of "soft rock". Basically, there is little difference between the sounds of Lite and Fresh, except that Lite seems to have better variety while Fresh seems content to play a lot of the same songs over and over again - not exactly what I would call "Fresh". They seem to be targeting younger Females by having more of a contemporary focus and drawing much of their material from the '90s and today, but it's inevitable that the few listeners that the station garners will quickly bore of the repetition.

CBS made a very foolish move with 102.7. Really, what's the difference between Fresh and the second incarnation of Blink? None, and we all know what happened to Blink. If CBS wants to go ahead with eliminating rock music on Free-FM, the smart thing to do would have been to launch a Modern or Active Rocker on 102.7, done the right way as opposed to the huge debacle that was K-Rock. That station tried to target frat boys and dinosaur rock lovers and failed in its attempts to win over either group. Bring in someone who knows what they're doing and watch the ad revenue roll in. Instead we have three stations in the market that you have to listen to for an hour each to detect any differences. I predict another failure for CBS. Mal Karmazin was smart to get out when he did.
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Yeah that's the reason CBS fails time after time. They refuse to bring in someone that knows. Same old retreads with little or no experience and friends of the top brass. It's easier to bring in someone FRESH with no baggage. Hey i'll take someone with baggage or even someone who's known to be difficult. I WANT RESULTS!!!!!!!!

The music on Fresh STINKS!
 
Brooklyndon said:
Let's do some quick math:

Since '99 the format on WNEW has lasted 1204 day for one instance (Hot TalK),  359 days in another instance (Blink), and then 737 (Mix).  This means that mean shelf life for a format at 102.7 for the last 8 years is 766 days with a standard deviation of 345 days.

Which means, statistically speaking, that there is a 50% chance that 102.7 will have a new format in as soon as 283 days or as late as 1249 days. So, I'm willing to bet that sees 102.7 flip between September 2007 and June 2009.

***note I am using Chebyshev rules to determine the 50% probability, if this data is normally distributed (we'd need 102.7 to flip at least 50 times to see) then the odds shoot up to like 80%, in that case the 50/50 line gets much closer to Mid-february 2009.  In fact, I'd be willing to make a market where I have the timespand between November 2008 and June 2009.
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I'm skeptical about the whole CBS flip format chatter, but...pretty good forecast on my part if this comes true.

On an aside, I'd like to see CBS pursue a classic hip-hop format 81-01, light on the dirty south.
 
I think you're patting yourself on the back too soon.

Unlike the formats that preceded it recently (Blink, Mix 102.7, etc.), Fresh is actually doing pretty well. And certainly far, FAR better than K-Rock, even after its most recent ill-advised tweak into classic rock territory. K-Rock is the weakest link, by far, and it would be pretty silly for CBS to pull the plug on Fresh instead.

However, all this talk doesn't surprise me....the amount of "hate" Fresh gets on this board and the Dentist board seems to be rivaled only by Pulse.
 
Blink lasted from April 10, 2003 until November 13, 2003, when it flipped to all-Christmas. That's 217 days of Blink 102.7. I miss that station :-/
I bet if Mix 102.7 existed till now, 87.7 would be country.
With the CBS radio format change rumors, the original poster might be right, especially if 102.7 got better ratings as a stunting CHR than as AC now.
 
Nick said:
Blink lasted from April 10, 2003 until November 13, 2003, when it flipped to all-Christmas. That's 217 days of Blink 102.7. I miss that station :-/
I bet if Mix 102.7 existed till now, 87.7 would be country.
With the CBS radio format change rumors, the original poster might be right, especially if 102.7 got better ratings as a stunting CHR than as AC now.
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Is everyone losing their minds here? I don't think WNEW went above an 0.7 when they were stunting with CHR back in 2003. And what does that have to do with Fresh? It's amazing that Fresh is doing far, far better than K-Rock, yet everyone seems to be calling for Fresh to make the flip. Like I said...for some reason a lot of the radio board posters just seem to hate the station.

As for the other comment, I bet you that if Mix 102.7 was still around, Pulse 87 would still be doing what it's doing now. If anything Mix was even more classics based than KTU....much different from Pulse.
 
neo11 said:
Nick said:
Blink lasted from April 10, 2003 until November 13, 2003, when it flipped to all-Christmas. That's 217 days of Blink 102.7. I miss that station :-/
I bet if Mix 102.7 existed till now, 87.7 would be country.
With the CBS radio format change rumors, the original poster might be right, especially if 102.7 got better ratings as a stunting CHR than as AC now.
Click to expand...

Is everyone losing their minds here? I don't think WNEW went above an 0.7 when they were stunting with CHR back in 2003. And what does that have to do with Fresh? It's amazing that Fresh is doing far, far better than K-Rock, yet everyone seems to be calling for Fresh to make the flip. Like I said...for some reason a lot of the radio board posters just seem to hate the station.

As for the other comment, I bet you that if Mix 102.7 was still around, Pulse 87 would still be doing what it's doing now. If anything Mix was even more classics based than KTU....much different from Pulse.
Click to expand...
Going off topic, my point was that when Mix 102.7 was around, KTU might have kept playing the currents and Mix sticks to the classics, and Mega Media doesn't see a format hole in dance music when they eventually decide to flip 87.7. Who knows, in a parallel universe, that might have occured.
 
Nick said:
neo11 said:
Nick said:
Blink lasted from April 10, 2003 until November 13, 2003, when it flipped to all-Christmas. That's 217 days of Blink 102.7. I miss that station :-/
I bet if Mix 102.7 existed till now, 87.7 would be country.
With the CBS radio format change rumors, the original poster might be right, especially if 102.7 got better ratings as a stunting CHR than as AC now.
Click to expand...

Is everyone losing their minds here? I don't think WNEW went above an 0.7 when they were stunting with CHR back in 2003. And what does that have to do with Fresh? It's amazing that Fresh is doing far, far better than K-Rock, yet everyone seems to be calling for Fresh to make the flip. Like I said...for some reason a lot of the radio board posters just seem to hate the station.

As for the other comment, I bet you that if Mix 102.7 was still around, Pulse 87 would still be doing what it's doing now. If anything Mix was even more classics based than KTU....much different from Pulse.
Click to expand...
Going off topic, my point was that when Mix 102.7 was around, KTU might have kept playing the currents and Mix sticks to the classics, and Mega Media doesn't see a format hole in dance music when they eventually decide to flip 87.7. Who knows, in a parallel universe, that might have occured.
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OK, fair enough. However, KTU never really focused primarily on the currents. The station was always heavy with the old disco, freestyle and recurrents...sometimes a little more and sometimes a little less, but currents were never the main focus of the station...let's not forget they did not want to tread too much on Z100's toes. KTU was also never as current-heavy as Pulse is. So I still think the format hole would have been there. But as you said, these are all "what ifs"...the truth is that Mix's numbers were never strong enough for the station to really last (and I say this as someone who thought it was actually a pretty good station).
 
The format failed...it has no core competancy. An AC station that can't pull above a 3 share is a dismal failure. Don't let the tragedy that Rock's ratings distract you from the two-year failure that is 102.7.
 
Brooklyndon said:
The format failed...it has no core competancy. An AC station that can't pull above a 3 share is a dismal failure. Don't let the tragedy that Rock's ratings distract you from the two-year failure that is 102.7.
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The station is top 5 in cume in NYC and has been fluctuating between the mid 2's and the mid 3's. Not lighting the world on fire, but hardly a failure, especially when compared to some other losing formats on the dial.

How about a rock station that can't pull above a 2 share, despite having name recognition that goes back many years and a "high profile" morning show in O&A. That's the real failure, and CBS would be foolish not to make the switch there first.
 
lalumia said:
Fresh is done, the hits are coming......
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http://www.rbr.com/radio/12972.html RBR would agree with you. Read the last line in the article.
 
yeah but wait a sec here - I thought that 92.3 was the one flopping on its you-know-what and that Fresh was starting to FINALLY build some up numbers in this market...

Andrea
 
That's an odd choice...flipping 102.7. 102.7 is starting to build a following. Their cume was actually decent. How do you expect someone to take 102.7 seriously when they can't seem to stick with a format??

Obviously 92.3 should be the choice...it's a flop.

I'd actually go with 101.1 before 102.7!! 101.1's demos are not that good...and getting worse (sorry, fans).

But, regarding Fresh...KSLX was not a disaster either. But the CHR format is certainly cheaper to run than a hot talker.

:-\
 
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