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Top 10 Market Jack/Bob Rants!!

P

PassDutch

Guest
NYC: Terrible move to Jack. Happened 2 years after Jack came to Toronto, replacing hiphop Kiss 92-5. Now T-Dot's only hiphop station is Flow 93-5. Wicked.
Los Angeles: Nice move to Jack, since it replaced its secondary classic rocker.
Chicago: Almost a terrible move, because it replaced oldies. Oldies remain on a commercial AM, BTW.
San Francisco: Why did it replace its ONLY COUNTRY STATION?!! New York (market #1) is WITHOUT a country station, so country only lasted 3 years on 95.7. So Bonneville flipped 95-7 The Bear to 95-7 Max FM. Expect Infinity to return country on 106.9 after the acquisition is final, not 97.3. Leave hot AC formatted Alice alone. KIOI 101.3 will shift to CHR.
Dallas: Last year, it was a nice move to ditch a secondary CHR in favour of a Jack format. Now 106.1 Kiss FM in Dallas gets stronger.
Philadelphia: Oldies does quite well, but the last-place FM, hot AC/CHR Mix 95-7 flipped to Ben FM. Awful move, since it was Philly's lone hot AC. Will Q102 follow its hot AC roots? Stay tuned.
Houston: Expect '80s 106-9 The Point to flip to Jack, not sister Oldies 107.5. Leave the oldies alone there. '80s is more dying than oldies.
Washington: Already, former hot AC Mix 107.3 FM has gone to a Jack format, but WHY NO NAME?! 107-3 Doug FM?? Listen to modern AC Z104 instead, since they're the lowest-rated FM in Washington (home of the Nationals, formerly the Montreal Expos).
Boston: Dance was sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo niche, because Boston's dance station Star 93-7 flipped to Mike FM. Quite a nice move. Boston couldn't support dance, BTW.
Detroit: See Dallas for details on how a secondary CHR was ditched, as Doug FM replaced 93-1 DRQ. I've listened to DRQ when I was in Detroit a couple of months before Doug arrived. Detroit had 2 CHRs, and they've still got 2 hot ACs (WDVD & CIDR), and 2 ACs (NIC & MGC). Many thought to flip DRQ. The most-speculated thingy was a Jack there.<P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by PassDutch on 06/05/05 02:26 AM.</FONT></P>
 
> Houston: Expect '80s 106-9 The Point to flip to Jack, not
> sister Oldies 107.5. Leave the oldies alone there. '80s is
> more dying than oldies.

If Houston's Point is working like its Birmingham, Dayton, and Jacksonville clones, it probably has far better billing than its ratings would indicate.

I don't see Cox blowing up any of the four. Maybe they'll start doing whatever weekends and spreading the playlist out a little, essentially becoming a de facto Variety Hits, but no huge, obvious changes.

I could be wrong, of course, and if one gets Jacked up, the others would be a lock to follow along.
 
> NYC: Terrible move to Jack.

Agreed... they should have flipped WNEW 102.7

> San Francisco: Why did it replace its ONLY COUNTRY
> STATION?!!

Because country wasn't making any money there.

> Philadelphia: Oldies does quite well, but the last-place FM,
> hot AC/CHR Mix 95-7 flipped to Ben FM. Awful move, since it
> was Philly's lone hot AC.

Again, Hot AC wasn't successful there. We're in a down cycle for Hot AC. Many stations in that format are doing poorly. 95.7 never made any headway with their AC variations.

> Houston: Expect '80s 106-9 The Point to flip to Jack, not
> sister Oldies 107.5.

How about this... Cox keeps the "Point" but flips oldies to classic hits as "The Eagle"... that exact same scenerio happend in Jacksonville, FL with very good results. Bottom line, Cox would choose "Eagle" over "Jack"

> Washington: Already, former hot AC Mix 107.3 FM has gone to
> a Jack format, but WHY NO NAME?! 107-3 Doug FM??

I like the fact that they kept "Mix"... after all "Mix" describes the format much better than "Doug"

> Boston: Dance was sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo niche,
> because Boston's dance station Star 93-7 flipped to Mike FM.
> Quite a nice move. Boston couldn't support dance, BTW.

Believe it or not, Star had a very vocal fan base. I believe there is a website out there with a grass roots effort to bring Star back.

> Detroit: See Dallas for details on how a secondary CHR was
> ditched, as Doug FM replaced 93-1 DRQ.

I was sad to see it go since I liked DRQ a lot better than 95.5, but evidently I was the only one.
 
> > Houston: Expect '80s 106-9 The Point to flip to Jack, not
> > sister Oldies 107.5.

How 'bout THIS! The Eagle would go on 106.9, while a Jack clone would end up on 97.1, dumping classic country.<P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by PassDutch on 06/05/05 09:06 PM.</FONT></P>
 
> > Boston: Dance was sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo niche,
> > because Boston's dance station Star 93-7 flipped to Mike
> FM.
> > Quite a nice move. Boston couldn't support dance, BTW.
>
> Believe it or not, Star had a very vocal fan base. I
> believe there is a website out there with a grass roots
> effort to bring Star back.

<a target="_blank" href=http://www.savestar.org>http://www.savestar.org</a> is the group trying to bring back Star 93.7.

However, 93.7 Mike FM has a big problem. Entercom, in an attempt to retain former Star listeners, has put far too many rhythmic hits into the playlist. Like other Jack station, Mike will play Aerosmith and .38 Special. However, they dab far too much on songs by Cher, Prince, etc. that were played heavily on Star.

It appears that other stations have noticed this. One post on the Boston board remarked that WROR is planning to head more to a Jack approach. And it's not clear whether Infinity could still bring Jack to Boston: Mix 98.5 is still doing it's Whatever Weekends from before Mike FM got started; additionally, it's ratings are still in a downward slump. I'm pretty sure that the format at Oldies 103.3 is not cheap to produce, with all of the well-known talent in the building, and with Infinity's recent moves on Oldies stations in Chicago and New York, there's also a fuzzy spot there. WBCN has been rumored for change for quite some time, and knowing that Infinity doesn't care about heritage anymore, could this go?

Add to this to how Boston despirately needs both an Urban AC/Classic Soul station on the FM dial, and how we're about to lose our only Spanish station in 29 days, and there will likely be some interesting changes on the way.
 
> Add to this to how Boston despirately needs both an Urban
> AC/Classic Soul station on the FM dial, and how we're about
> to lose our only Spanish station in 29 days, and there will
> likely be some interesting changes on the way.

Boston has a small black population compared to other cities of similar size. So I wouldn't say they desperately need an adult urban. Actually, if it wasn't for the fact that Radio One owns 97.7, I doubt there would be an urban FM in Boston.
 
> Boston has a small black population compared to other cities
> of similar size. So I wouldn't say they desperately need an
> adult urban. Actually, if it wasn't for the fact that Radio
> One owns 97.7, I doubt there would be an urban FM in Boston.

True, before Radio One came, there was only, and still is only, Clear Channel's WJMN-94.5, which is an R/CHR targeted at suburban youth. But, if you look at the ratings for WILD-1090, they are crazy. The station, owned by Radio One, gets incredible ratings although it is an AM station, and, at that, it is a daytimer. Yet earlier this year it was pulling almost a 2 share, ratings comparable to WBOS, which is an FM signal with full market coverage.

I assure you: the formats we need right now are Spanish Tropical (as Boston's only Spanish station is about to be replaced by ESPN next month) and Urban AC. WILD wouldn't work all that well on the 97.7 signal, which is a Class A rimshot with coverage problems in some of the most densely urban areas of the Boston metro (Roxbury, Dorchester, etc.). We're also lacking Smooth Jazz, but that is not a niche likely to be filled anytime soon.
 
> Philadelphia: Oldies does quite well,
Yup....but let's say Infinity hadn't been beaten to the punch on this one (if nothing else, Greater Media can smell a competing a format change a mile a way and beat someone to the flip) and WOGL had become Jack. Even still, I wager no one would listen to WPEN's oldies.

>but the last-place FM,
> hot AC/CHR Mix 95-7 flipped to Ben FM. Awful move, since it
> was Philly's lone hot AC.

It was the only hot AC for a reason. The Point, Alice, Star, the first version of Z/Y100....all dead and buried with better numbers than Mix was getting, even as the competition faded away. Star in its first incarnation was the only one to ever really make a go of hot AC; once they moved to the wretched "New Sound of Philadelphia" approach, they never got back to where they had been. I may have been one of only three people in the area who ever listened to WMWX, and in its final months I had bailed because of their change in musical direction. Now Ben is my number 2 preset.

>Will Q102 follow its hot AC
> roots? Stay tuned.

What hot AC roots? If we're talking about its current life, post Solid Gold 102, it's been a variation of dance/CHR/urban or some combination thereof for what, something like 15 years or so? It's never even steered close to just being hot AC.
 
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