WFOM

[MsMusicRadio]

Another board about Class 1V stations indicates that at one time WFOM was Atlanta's second TOP 40 behind WQXI and got good ratings. If this was the case, why did WPLO exit the format so early with a much better signal?

 

[trusty]

1965. WPLO saw a golden opportunity with what they called the "Town and Country" format.

There was an upscale "new" sound in country music emerging (even though the Grand Ole Opry still banned drums) that was quickly catching on (Think Kicks.), and all the country stations in Atlanta were "old" style hillbilly at the time. WPLO realized that WQXI was going to be the number 1 Top-40 station no matter what and decided to cash in on the new format.

It was a huge success for them; they never looked back. ('Twas a success for John Foxx, too, the only DJ to make the transistion (AM Drive).)

I used to listen to their "clear" FM simulcast at 103.3. It would have been interesting if it had stayed Top-40 and given Z93 some competition on the dial...

 

[MsMusicRadio]

Does this explain the end of 94.9 as AC and it's flip to country? I would think a city this size could support 2 AC stations, but guess not.

 

[jabba17]

Does this explain the end of 94.9 as AC and it's flip to country? I would think a city this size could support 2 AC stations, but guess not.

At one time in the mid-80s, ATL had 6 AC stations--Peach 95, B98.5, 94Q (more of a hot AC + jazz), WLTA/WARM 100, Fox 97 ("soft hits of the 60s, 70s, and 80s"), and Lite 106.

In reverse order:

Lite 106 was the result of Jacobs' (WDUN, WMJE) top 40 WWID Wide 107 being sold and moving in (at the same time that Fox moved in, in the mid-80s). They played with AC, oldies, and eventually settled on country as Y106, which went through the Eagle name change and flipping to oldies under Citadel's ownership.

Fox 97 was top 40 97 F-O-X "The Fox", and moved in and flipped to AC with an oldies-leaning playlist. Eventually, the newer material was dropped and they went straight oldies by the end of the 80s until the sale to Cox in the early 00s.

WLTA was the second of ATL's four big Beautiful Music stations to flip, around 1980 (the first was WKLS, flipping to AOR in 1974). They flipped in the early 80s to AC, and then took on Susquehanna's national "Warm" AC branding a few years later. They flipped to CHR Power 99 in 1986.

That left three AC stations in the late 1980s.

94Q started as the FM side to Quixie 790. After the simul of 790 ended, the music trended from a mix of softer AOR and harder top 40 in the 1970s to softer CHR in the early 80s, trending softer and softer and eventually becoming what amounted to a hot AC. They added "Jazz Flavours" (a modern jazz show). They rebranded as Star 94 in 1990, but stuck with hot AC until the flip of Power 99 to 99X in 1992 left Star as the only CHR or hot AC in town.

B98.5 was the third big Beautiful Music station to flip, shortly after WLTA did. They have remained AC ever since.

Peach was the last of the four big Beautiful Music stations to flip, around 1985. They remained AC until the flip to the Bull, taking CC's national "Lite" AC branding towards the end of their AC existence. Somebody would have to check the numbers for me, but I seem to remember Peach consistently beating B98.5 in the ratings back in the Jacor days in the 90s.

The only "traditional" AC station still standing is B98.5. Peach/Lite did hold their own against B98.5 until the end; the Bull has never matched Peach/Lite's numbers.

However, something that has changed since the Warm 100 and Peach days of the 1980s is the emergence of two urban AC stations (Kiss and Majic), a CCM AC station (Fish), and you could argue a couple of hot AC stations in Q100 (ironically, the same frequency as WLTA/Warm 100) and Star (if that's the case, you could argue that 94.1 hasn't changed formats since the late 1970s). Back in the day, the only urban station was V-103 (and "churban" Z-93, for a while), and they only CCM station was Love 86 on the AM dial.

 

[littlejohn]

>Lite 106 was the result of Jacobs' (WDUN, WMJE) top 40 WWID Wide 107 being sold and moving in (at the same time that Fox moved in, in the mid-80s). >They played with AC, oldies, and eventually settled on country as Y106, which went through the Eagle name change and flipping to oldies under Citadel's >ownership.

Actually, Jacobs - through their new manager Charles Giddens - was responsible for Lite 106. When they sold it to Katz, it turned to country as Y106, with Bob Bachman as manager and Doug Harvill as PD. Bachman moved on to ownership in St Louis and Bob Greene became manager. During this time, the station acquired a morning DJ from Montgomery, one Warren Jones. A few years later, the Ops Manager from Katz' Syracuse stations, one Bob Neil came in as Ops Manager. The station did well.