What's up with Z96 and Coast 93.3?

[Rob]

Why am I hearing Coast 93.3 and Z 96 (they tried the Hit Music NOOOW branding, no more) kinda drifting their formats? Z is playing more girly songs from today, less urban rap crap.. and Coast is now playing 70s with the occasional 60s tune!

Do I sense Cumulus toying and a possible format switch for the two? As stated before, if they make 93.3 Oldies and Z to "Mix 96" and but their morning crew on 96.5, this would be a winning move for the area.

With the recent change of 92.1 to more of a dance format, this would give *** the edge. Coast 93.3 is a staple station but do feel it's ran it's course. Time to change to an older audience (their main demographic is Women..)

I'm not smoking or drinking or checking out the strobys™ (yes, it will be trademarked after I win the powerball..sarcastic grin)
But, as a listener while in the car, I have been seeing a trend and wanted to post here just to put some life to this board.

Any ideas??

-Rob

 

[Dr voicetrack]

Z96 is just floating with the format trend. There won't be a flip there.

 

[tomservo]

And anybody flipping anything to oldies would be ratings suicide. There's not enough of us sub-55 types listening to make it viable to advertisers.

 

[Poledo]

I've always thought that Coast should have gone to 105.5 and Country should have gotten the 93.3 frequency... but at the time Cumulus thought they were buying 100kw 98.1 for Country, so everything got screwed up. I can't see any reason to move top 40 off of 96.5. I believe that format is stuck there for the foreseeable future... until the kids stop listening to top 40 music.

Oldies is a dirty word in corporate radio. The only chance of Oldies showing up in the FWB market would be if 106.3 gave up on keeping smooth jazz alive. Or if WAAZ tried to mix oldies with classic country... which sounds like it could be a really good idea, glad I thought of it. Someone give Crestview a call and make the suggestion.

 

[trock]

Coast 933 sounds like the late Mix 103 with a little 70's throne in. Although outside of 80's weekend I don't really pay attention to that station. Zzzzz96 is going to be the same old boring chr for the foreseeable future. The station that has changed the most is definitely wwav. I heard Gotye, Lady Gaga and new maroon 5 on there the other day. I'm sure thats not going over well with the old farts.

 

[Poledo]

When I think of oldies I'm thinking of stations from the 1980's and 1990's playing music from the 1950's and 1960's. Now I suppose oldies would include songs from the 1970's, 80's and early 1990's... In other terms, Classic Hits/Variety Hits is the 2012 equivalent to Oldies... right? I mean Classic Rock stations have been playing groups like Pearl Jam for several years. How is it even possible to define Oldies and Classic Rock when we were all taught the definitions twenty years ago?

Where do Hendrix and the Grateful Dead fit in with oldies and classic? They don't! Most great bands over 20 years old are now regulated to rare AAA stations. There is a missing format between oldies/classic and modern AOR that is totally ignored by radio in most markets. Surely someone could figure out the right way to present and sell good AOR music radio from 1968 through 1998 and compete, right?

 

[Tibbs4]

Poledo - you might wanna check out the Hippie brand of "oldies." There are less than a handful of them at this juncture. Nashville's is fairly new. You get everything from Carpenters to Hendrix. Dead is gonna always be tough unless it's the Grateful Dead Hour. Sad, but true. As for mixing in all the years, I see your thought process and can appreciate it. There actually is a rhythm and beat that can tie those decades together. Truth is programming sucks in America and there's a lot of copy-cat illogic and not much creativity. It might be a tough sell all around, but done right....hmmm.

 

[Louis_009]

Speaking of AAA music type 92.9 Dave FM ATL (CBS Radio) is flip to Sports soon. I love that station when I was beging to listren to it for about an year and a half.

 

[Poledo]

I am familiar with one or two "Hippie" stations out on the west coast... but I also despise the west coast (unless someone's bringing packages of west coast green gold down to Alabama or North Florida, which doesn't happen often... another big hole in the commercial marketplace).

Tibbs, are you saying you could program a profitable classic/oldies station that includes "hippie" music while not drifting too far into the modern AAA category? (not the most profitable station in a market, but profitable enough to keep such a station afloat and on the air)

Could this be a "NEW FORMAT" that would work well on a 250 FM translator/fake FM radio station, since the majority of the audiences would be confined to smaller areas? Seabreeze 106.3.... are you reading this and brainstorming? Smooth Jazz is pretty much dead. I think the people in South Walton like the Dead.

Back in the day it wasn't uncommon for radio stations to "Stunt" with several days of Grateful Dead music to signify that the old format was "Dead" and a new format was on the way. Now I just don't hear the Dead on the radio more than a couple times a year. And if my memory is correct, the Grateful Dead have sold more records than any other band.... period.

While I'm on a similar topic, how is it possible for Clear Channel's "Foggy Mountain" classic country station to have such a small playlist? There are millions of songs to choose from when programming Classic Country, yet they play the same songs over and over enough to make me stop listening after a week or so ( 5-8 hours of listening and I've heard enough repeats to get sick of it).

 

[Tibbs4]

Poledo ~ always enjoy your thoughts and discussions! To kinda try to answer your question...yes on programming a crazy eclectic station. I think I absolutely would play the field of ear dreams and cross some of today's music in with the late 60's and early 70's music. Some of you guys on here (probably you in particular Poledo, RNR (and all your new monikers on here), Mark C-Breeze and of course Charles Hendrix Wooten, The Fifth) might recall the old days of the "baby that shouldn't have been born"...WXCR 98.1 when it was 98one Classic Rock back in the mid-90s. It wasn't your typical Classic Rock station. It had a huge signal, except where it mattered...oddly along, uh Highway 98 (what it is called today.) It slammed into the books at a nice #2/#3 (12+ and 25-54) after 99 Rock. It billed very well and I venture it never ever has billed as well since...it was about an 1,800 song playlist of everything from Aerosmith, Def Leppard, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Grateful Dead, Southern Rock, Neil Young, the Psychedelic Hippie groups (many never played on another radio station in twenty years) and things like the Mamas and Papas and even the Kingston Trio (mornings, but still good.) Response was strong. Tourists loved it and I have heard people talk about it in Nashville for a few years after. It was downright unique. It was a bit of a maverick and pirate, but still warm and inviting. Hurricanes are fun.

Now, as for Hippie Radio in Nashvegass...it's a pretty cool venture that is owned by my friend Tony Richards. A 5kw move-in that does a decent job of covering the western part of Nashville and it's vast suburbs, despite a rough terrain and adj. blaster to the east. It's hard to cover the area with a 50kw-er. Debuted in early-Feb. It's about 1,500 comfortable songs from Carpenters to Zeppelin. It sounds like a station in the late 70s and early to mid-80s, with tons of imaging, funny liners, goofy contests and fun-feel good music. Plays to the baby boomers that should, I guess, be dead or too whatever to buy anything. Truth be told, they do buy local and do try new and whoever says that's a lie is an absolute brainwashed corporate moron, who could see reality in about three hours with me proving it without saying a word. But, mainly, it's just real radio...imperfect, theatre of the mind and just the coolest thing for an elderly man like me (just turned 50) who believe people of all generations still want to connect with more than impersonal music at times.

Small signal with a combination of all this might just work down there! Now, let me tell ya I gotta stand up for Mark Carter at Seabreeze, cause he'd probably do that for this fool (me) typing these words now...he's got a magic formula and yeah, jazz has all but been destroyed by the corporate bs, but it's still loved by a loyal group and that group supports Mark's advertisers and although I haven't asked him how he's doing, other than personally, I'd say he's doing well and is pretty dang content to just be himself.

That bein' said, I wouldn't mind a little radio toy down there to play my weird stuff on and go broke...or is that broker.

Hope all this made a bit of sense.

 

[Groove1670]

WXCR 98.1 when it was 98one Classic Rock back in the mid-90s. It wasn't your typical Classic Rock station. It had a huge signal, except where it mattered...oddly along, uh Highway 98 (what it is called today.) It slammed into the books at a nice #2/#3 (12+ and 25-54) after 99 Rock.

We are approaching the twenty year mark on this station. Times have changed. Damn, no more Michael Bolton, and Celine Dion in gold rotation. :'( They sold millions of records ah... CD's

Today's listener might know truckin' Casey Jones, or Touch Of Grey. That's it. If you asked them to name 10 Dead song in 30 seconds. It would be tough.

Ask them to name a song by David Gates, Blackbirds or Al Wilson. You would probably get "Who are they".

Really, so you say you played music on this thing that went around in a circle called a record.

80's, Culture Club, Billy Idol, commodores?

Keep in mind, there is a generation that doesn't know that MTV played music around the clock, or listened to music on magnetic tape.

90's Boyz II men, En Vogue, Tori Amos?

Most of us listen to the radio everyday. Some of us know every song and rotation. The average listener doesn't. Average TSL now 15-18 minutes a day.

The 50's and 60's are now "standards" in the radio world. 70's and 80's oldies,and the 90's well old school.

There are probably some tweens that have never owned a CD.

The nice thing about technology, we can enjoy our Arlo Guthrie, Dead, Honeycomb, Livingston Taylor, and others, and we don't need a room of large boxes to house our collection.

Different times, different tastes, I'm am now my parents. ;D

 

[Poledo]

So all we have to do is convince Cumulus, Clear Channel, and Apex that they don't want to have anything to do with the Fort Walton and Pensacola markets and hold a fire sale. One creative geniuses pick up the stations for cheap they can start programming music that we actually want to hear.

Too bad it'll never happen. The only hope for the future of radio in North-West Florida is the Seabreeze and that little station in Crestview... and I can rarely get within range of the "Breeze".