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What happened to 98.1 The Beat?

W

wastedtalent23

I haven't been in Huntsville for a couple of years, but I've tried to keep tabs on what is happening there.

I found that soon after 98.1 The Beat was launched, the format was a hit and they shot up in the ratings. If I remember correctly this station, WLOR-AM(and translator on 98.1 FM) had hit close to a 4 share, but then started to slide almost a quickly as they gained. Now it's not even showing up in the March 2020 ratings. How did this happen?

Is the station still on the air?

I would think the format would do well in this market considering there is only one Urban outlet, WEUP, and they have always had coverage issues. In fact I'm surprised no one has tried a Rhythmic CHR format there.

How can you go from nothing to a 4 share, and then to nothing again? Was it a fluke?
 
As with most of the "Classic Hip Hop" start up stations around the country, they had a big boom in the beginning but then tapered off. I think The Beat is no different here. The new has worn off and its not performing as well as it was at first launch. All those older songs people haven't heard in a long time aren't special anymore now they've been able to hear them on a regular basis again on The Beat for a while now. It may not be showing up because they have decided not to subscribe to the ratings which would exempt them from showing up on the publicized 12+ overall ratings, but I doubt they have completely disappeared from the ratings entirely. They still have listeners even if not as many as before.

Not long ago, there was an urban/rhythmic CHR in town as "Hot 103.5." The station didn't survive and was sold to K-Love. Those in house at the time sited the inability to sell the format for revenue as the main contributing factor for the stations demise. With WEUP holding the young urban audience, WHRP holding the older audience, and The Beat in-between, I just don't see enough audience left for urban formatted stations to warrant someone else launching a direct competitor for WEUP or even a Rhythmic to sandwich between WEUP and the two CHR/Top 40 stations in the market.
 
RollTide said:
It may not be showing up because they have decided not to subscribe to the ratings which would exempt them from showing up on the publicized 12+ overall ratings, but I doubt they have completely disappeared from the ratings entirely. They still have listeners even if not as many as before.
Click to expand...

Not in this case. Apparently, in April 2020 WLOR-AM showed up with a 0.2. They didn't show up AT ALL in March. The station had a 4.8 in Nov 2019 and a 4.1 in Dec 2019, then took a nose dive to ZERO. That's what I find bizarre. You don't just lose all of your listeners in 4 months unless you have major signal problems or turn your transmitter off.
 
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