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The Professor gives Burlington/Plattsburgh a holiday slap

T

the professor

Guest
Ho-Ho-Ho. Time for my special gift for the holidays! The rating is as follows:
* they suck the worst
**they don't suck quite as bad
***they are listenable
****they have some good stuff goin'
*****grand-slam baby!

Let's go to the important ones on the FM dial by frequency..........................................................................................................

106.7 WIZN
A former shadow of it's old self. Bob & Tom were a bomb now it's Mitch and company. He is mildly entertaining. His co-host sounds like a novice off the street. But she is rather easy on the eyes. Overall not much going on in mornings or any other part of the day. Rating **

105.1 WKOL
Are we Oldies or are we light Classic Rock? Let's try and be both! Mediocre station and mediocre presentation. This station needs an enema. Get some new jocks.
Rating *

104.7 WNCS
The music is actually quite listenable these days and presentation fits the format. This station suffers from an identity crisis of the past. It should do better than it does.
Rating ***1/2

103.3 WWMP
WHATEVER this station is it's worn out it's welcome. WHENEVER they are ready stick a fork in it. It's done. Needs to be blown up and started over again.
Rating *

101.3 WCPV
Interesting makeover. Corm/Coach were over and I like the new Rich and Mary. Corm sounds okay in middays. I happen to like Alice Cooper too. The music has changed some to more recent stuff. A pleasant change.
Rating ****

99.9 WBTZ
The Buzz is consistent and knows it's audience. The morning show has some irreverance and that's expected. Like the Guest DJ feature. This station knows what it is and who it caters to.
Rating ****

98.9 WOKO
Very consistent but not very earth-shattering. CJ and The Cowboy are irritating. Tons of heritage and you can't argue witht heir ratings success. But you gotta hate their holier-than-thou attitude.
Rating ***

97.5 WTNN
You've got to give them credit for trying. Music and imaging is good but the jock lounge has a reloving door on it. Don't think the morning show is live to this market either. Why not hurt WOKO by going after one of their premiere people and paying them alot to come across the street? Instant credibility. Good promotion stuff too. Hope they keep at it.
Rating ***1/2

96.7 WXZO
Why not WDOT? Couldn't pry loose from Northeast? Interesting station. Love hearing all the original DOT jocks on airshifts and in imaging. It's actually fun, though they could use more features. Like the hourly news updates. This one will be interesting to watch. I bet Kool is looking over their shoulder. Good jingles.
Rating ***

95.5 WXXX
Always consistent. Always on the money. Good imaging. Mike and Chantel get it done but not sure why they have to be so edgy with no CHR competition. I do miss Sweet Pete at night. He was the best.
Rating ****1/2


92.9 WEZF
Vox has given more life to this station. Lana and Nolan sound good in AM drive. Middays is now live with a real person and they moved out Tesh and brought back jenn Foxx. They even have a live request show Sat nites! They are trying to sound and be bigger and it shows. Anyone else notice they added barre/montpelier to the ID and took out Montreal?
Rating ****

92.1 WVTK
This rather tertiary station has completely changed to an Addison County focus. I don't live there so I find it difficult to listen to. It's not exactly a polished sound but probably makles more sense than going after Burlington. The weekends are all over the place with different shows. Worth watching.
Rating ** (for format purposes)

The Professor has spoken. Time for the rest of you to spout off.
 
Ooh, these are always fun...

WIZN might legitimately have the worst sweepers I have ever heard on a commercial radio station. It's as if they try to shock people for the sake of shocking people...but the jokes don't make any sense. As I'd expect from Hall Communications, the station is trying to be what a rock station was 20 years ago.

While we're on Hall, I have no idea why they hire jocks for Kool 105. All I hear on the weekends when I'm up there are frontsells and backsells. They don't talk to people.

How quickly did the novelty wear off of MP103? They have the same problem Mike FM has in Boston..."whatever" really isn't that interesting when the "what" can be heard everywhere else. "Life In The Fast Lane" is not a surprise in a market with the Wizard, Champ and Kool. CR, like most other radio companies, doesn't understand that you can't invent formats. Until a whole bunch of artists make records that sound like nothing we have now, the music is what it is.

No comment on the country stations or the Buzz...I never listen.

DOT outclasses Kool by a mile. It's not even close.

Triple X has been helped by strong records at CHR the last couple of years.

Seems to me the biggest hole in Burlington radio is 1990's gold titles. Triple X has moved on, and everybody else in town is stuck in the 70's and 80's. I don't feel like anybody in Burlington has a go-to station for "Waterfalls" or even "Mr. Jones."
 
Yeah I agree with much of what's been said. I do hear 90's stuff quite frequently on Star. They especially play heavy 80's and 90's every weekend on their flashback weekends. I heard a promo saying they go all Christmas the 24th. I think that is later than they have done it in the past.

Kool is one boring radio station. Compared to DOT it sounds like it's moving at slow speed. I heard Chip Hobart on DOT and he sounded like the drake-style jock of yesterday! Way to go!

Will, you have it so right about Hall doing rock radio. They should do what they normally do and put on safe records being played in a boring presentation.
 
Thanks for the upgrade Professor. I must admit my tender feelings were hurt by your last analysis of WNCS ("needs new blood"... ouch!), so I'm please you think we're getting on track.

Hey Will, you want Mr. Jones? We're all over THAT...

Zeb Norris, Program Directator, WNCS/WDOT/WRJT "The Point"
 
I find the professor comments to be pretty much on with just a few exceptions. I have listened to 92.1 and find it rather refreshing. I like the small-town feel of it and the morning show is nothing if it ain't local. While I think WTNN is trying they could have done a better job at being consistent out of the box---especially when going up against heritage on WOKO. I do want them to have success but feel they have made some errors as of late trying to get there. And being an older guy I will say it's nice to hear the older guys who still get it having fun on DOT-FM. I hope Vox will stick with it. They most likely will as Ken Barlow runs the place and he is the driving force behind it so I hear.
 
I completely disagree about WKOL. I think (as do MANY of my colleagues) that it sounds MUCH better then it had before and the jocks sound better with this format then they did with the past format
 
First off, the WYZY signal is not great in Burlington. You can get it most places in a car but it has no building penetration. It isn't, and never will be, a player in the market.

Secondly, I understand your thoughts about WKOL. It's my own opinion they jumped into an already crowded pond (Champ, WIZN, somewhat WNCS) when they were all alone in theirs. Time will tell. I never said I would be right on everything all the time. Just right on everything most of the time. :)
 
It all depends on where you are in Burlington. In my office downtown Y106.3 is one of the strongest stations, along with KOL, XZO, and Champ as are most of the New York based transmitter sites. MP103, EZF, VPR, and NCS are not listenable except in the car because of the tower locations.
 
It's really hard to get word out about all 7 of our signals, but WNCS has a very list enable repeater at 93.3. This fill in the downtown area (downhill from UVM) very nicely.
 
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