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WHBQ-FM Memphis Flips To Classic Hits
- Thread starter Y2kTheNewOldies
- Start date
Far as I can remember, oldies/classic hits has never done all that well in Memphis. When KMPZ 98.1 flipped from CHR "Z-98" to KPYR "Oldies 98, The Pyramid," it went from being the second place CHR with about a 5.5 12+ share (nipping on the heels of FM 100) to the first place oldies station with about a 3.8 12+ share. WODZ 680 took over WEZI 94.3 to simulcast its oldies format, and that lasted about two years after never even reaching a 2 share. KPYR/WPYR/WYKL was one of the first major oldies stations to abandon the 60's for a 70's-based format in 1994. WYKL itself was an attempt by Barnstable to revive the struggling oldies format after it bought WPYR off of Diamond, and it didn't work either. I don't think it quite made it 18 months. WOTO 95.7 and WKQK 94.1 fared poorly as well.
To address your other point, CHR has never done all that well in Memphis for roughly the last 30 years. The last time it had above a 10 share in the ratings was when Z-98 and FM 100 were battling it out. One could reasonably make the case that FM 100 isn't a true CHR. I haven't listed in quite awhile, but I always remember it being a very gold heavy and adult-focused CHR. Granted, that might have changed during Entercom's tenure running it as I haven't listened in a long time, though.
Even stranger, The guess FM folks lease 1430 and 97.7 from Flinn
What happened with the earlier Guess FM stations on 830 and 1180 on AM and 99.3 and 105.5 on FM? I had noticed the change in the past year or so to Spanish language formats on the AM stations and the shift to 1430 on AM and 97.7 on FM, although it looks like they kept 100.1.
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Why did they ever flip Z-98 away from CHR in the early 90s? I know the ratings were excellent. It was a great sounding station. Someone said awhile back it was due to low billings. There’s still Kiss 101.9 to fill the CHR format hole in Memphis. I recall FM100 being very adult leaning in the 80s before officially going Hot AC in 1992. Rebranding as “the greatest hits of the 70s, 80s and today.” It was a very small change to the format since Hot AC really is adult leaning CHR anyway. I recall listening to AT40 and WT40 on Sundays hearing some of the songs on the countdown and saying to myself, “that would never play on FM100.”
Z-98 was sold at a time when nobody wanted to be a CHR. CHR was a really tough sell at the time. The new owners took it oldies because Memphis didn’t have oldies on FM and thought it could make better money. I seem to remember Dittman filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy and sold KMPZ and WAPI AM/FM in Birmingham in order to keep WABB in Mobile. As I recall, Z-98 almost always ranked second to FM 100 and had a much younger audience. Of course, it was years before anything else on 98.1 rated anywhere near as high as Z-98 did, and Z-98 didn’t have nearly as good of a signal as 98.1 has now. It’s tower was located across the river in Arkansas and, while it covered most of the market, it wasn’t nearly as effective at covering the fast growing suburbs east of Memphis and in Mississippi. I believe 98.1 moved to Millington and the main tower farm in '92 as the theory was that the oldies format was struggling partially due to the signal. Turned out, the format was more marginal than the signal!
I'm thinking Kiss 101.9 is on the same tower KMPZ used to use, though it has half the power. I went to college in Memphis for one semester in '93, and FM 100 was barely even a hot AC. I'm thinking I even heard an occasional song from the 60’s on it, though, at the time, it was the only place in the market to hear “Runaway Train” by Soul Asylum. I don’t remember ever hearing it on WEGR, though that was usually the first place I'd tune. FM 100 was usually second by default. I wasn’t much of a top-40 listener after my freshman year in high school, but, unless you wanted urban or country, FM 100, The River, and WYKL were the only places to turn if WEGR played something you didn’t want to hear. With a stereo and a dipole antenna near the top of Richardson Towers, I had a few more options, but none were as good as the Memphis stations.
They're going to have to convert to digital TV by next July or go off the air, so it's no big surprise they're moving Sports 56 to a real translator. I can actually get 87.7 where I live in Alamo, TN at times (About 50 miles away in a straight line) which is a pretty good distance for an analog LPTV station.
With 3KW at 696 feet, 50 mile reception of 87.7 isnt surprising at all.
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