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WCOS/WEZL sounding same

C

charlestondxman

I've noticed in the past few days that the "Premium Choice" automation that is on Clear Channel's AC stations has become prevalent on their country stations. I don't know how long this has been happening, but WCOS and WEZL, two Clear Channel country stations with big signals, sound almost exactly the same.

WCOS's huge signal can be heard here on the open 97.5 frequency, and they use the same voice guy as WEZL, with the same promos and the same songs about 15-30 seconds apart from WEZL.

Wonder how much alike they sound on weekdays.
 
They are running the same Premium Choice feeds on Asheville's WKSF 99.9, too. Was up in WNC the other day and could hear them and WCOS.
 
They are definitely all sounding the same. I was driving from Columbia to Greenville and was listening back and forth between WCOS and WSSL and they were playing the same songs within minutes of each other. What's even worse, I was then switching over the Sirius/XM Radio and the station that Simulcasts WSIX the BIG 98 out of Nashville, ALL CLEAR CHANNEL STATIONS, were also playing the same thing within about 1 minute of each other.

Even their websites are all identical with the same stories. Only thing different is the local advertisers that I'm sure are WAY over charged!
 
God bless corporate radio! It tailors it's stations to each individual market, recognizing that Sacramento is different from Grand Rapids is different from Houston is different from Providence! I don't know about you guys, but I LOVE what Clear Channel and Cumulus are doing to radio! And let's face it - they're making money hand over fis ---- oh, wait, in 2014, Clear Channel faces the maturation of 4 BILLION dollars in debt...hmm...and Cumulus, well, Cumulus is constantly one step ahead of the financial Grim Reaper. They can't run a profitable company, but they will acquire profits, borrow money, and slash overhead through the homogenization of over 500 radio stations nationwide so that they will at some point have about 50 on air people. It's sad, it really is.
 
Clear Channel has been scheduling music at the corporate level for quite some time. When I lived in Myrtle Beach and tropospheric ducting conditions were excellent, it was not uncommon to hear 5 or 6 CC classic rockers w/the same playlist.
 
With the lack of variety in the top so called country music songs listed on things like bill board each week if your a country station playing the top country hits then it doesn't much matter music wise if all the stations sound the same anyway, most of the time they are going to play the same songs over and over again after all their the top songs, right? After all who needs a local DJ that knows the area you live in and or what he or she is talking about. This is radio 2013 and that is a thing of the past, right? Who really needs a station that tells local events and really knows them or tells you about traffic or news but can't get the name right oh well just play the h**l out of the top 25 songs and you'll be ok, right? aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa maybe.
 
freqdev said:
hoping that once I retire that I don't become as bitter, negative, and jealous as those who post here.
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And what about my post was negative?
 
freqdev said:
your's excluded
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Oh, ok. I thought maybe you misread the context of how many CC CRs I could hear during certain conditions.
 
I've been doing this since I was a teenager, and what I've learned is it doesn't matter if stations in other markets sound the same. What matters is how you're doing in your own market. Only a small group of radio geeks have the time to listen to out of market stations and play "gotcha." The rest of the world has kids, real jobs, and mortgages to pay. They don't give awards or bonuses for originality in radio. Nobody cares as long as you get big numbers, and WCOS and WEZL are doing just fine. If you're not in the Top 5 in your market, perhaps you should be doing what they are.
 
TheBigA said:
I've been doing this since I was a teenager, and what I've learned is it doesn't matter if stations in other markets sound the same. What matters is how you're doing in your own market. Only a small group of radio geeks have the time to listen to out of market stations and play "gotcha." The rest of the world has kids, real jobs, and mortgages to pay. They don't give awards or bonuses for originality in radio. Nobody cares as long as you get big numbers, and WCOS and WEZL are doing just fine. If you're not in the Top 5 in your market, perhaps you should be doing what they are.
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I didn't say they are not doing well just how long will it last before it wear out.
 
Gatekeeper007 said:
I didn't say they are not doing well just how long will it last before it wear out.
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Every week, the chart changes, new songs are added and old ones dropped. That's the nature of the contemporary country format. So it's always evolving, and that evolution keeps it interesting.

Your previous post said there was a "lack of variety" in the Billboard chart, and I disagree, The wide variety of musical styles, from traditional to southern rock to pop to even a bit of rap gives country the most variety of any format on the radio, and has contributed, in my opinion, to its success. The biggest job of music programmers is to balance that mix of musical styles within the format.
 
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TheBigA said:
Only a small group of radio geeks have the time to listen to out of market stations and play "gotcha."
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No doubt. Long before I retired I noticed that our program directors had a strange tendency to think that their opinion, and those of their insider friends, were representative of the general population.
 
SaltyDog said:
No doubt. Long before I retired I noticed that our program directors had a strange tendency to think that their opinion, and those of their insider friends, were representative of the general population.
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a round of drinks to the program director who programs a station that meets the general populations tastes and has a 100 share
 
freqdev said:
a round of drinks to the program director who programs a station that meets the general populations tastes and has a 100 share
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Programming to the general population "tastes" would of course be a disaster, not a 100 share. A program director who bases decisions on the opinions (not tastes) of his industry friends has a skewed vision of the community.
 
I've seen one radio station with a 100 share. That's the station in Chester's Mill on "Under the Dome" on CBS. The dome covering the community blocks out all AM and FM stations but not military transmissions.
 
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