Those 1.1 shares and older demos won't cut it on a commercial station.
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Which radio station in Boston will be the first to change its format in 2026?
- Thread starter cartman2002
- Start date
WNNX in Atlanta has recorded shares as high as 3.0 (in December 2025), mainly because of the heritage branding. So, there's a good argument for iHeart flipping WBWL to a WFNX-branded classic alternative jukebox if they don't want to play second fiddle to WKLB anymore (WBWL recorded a 1.7 in December 2025 compared to WKLB's 3.4)
Maybe they could "brand" it as alternative WFNX for heritage, but the call letters are in use by a community LPFM on 101.3 in Scituate, MA.
Some have thought that their reason for WBWL was never to beat WKLB, they knew they couldn't, but just to take a small piece of WKLB's pie to weaken it in the overall ratings against some of their other stations, even if different formats.
Well, nothing's conceivably stopping iHeart from pulling a KCTV and approaching the LPFM with an offer to change their call sign so they can get the heritage call letters back (I mean, the LPFM identifies as "101.3 The Coast" - the WFNX calls are nowhere in its branding whatsoever, so it wouldn't harm much)
They also ran promos in its first few months as The Bull crowing about how WBWL had much more current country tracks than WKLB, but then the latter shafted most of its throwbacks to counter that, so The Bull had no chance even then.
They do a WFNX throwback show on the weekends and play classic alternative. It's called 'FNX After Dark. From their website; "FNX After Dark" - Alternative and modern rock after hours, continuing the WFNX legacy.
Well there'd be a slightly bigger wrench in the plans if iHM were to decide to bring back FNX themselves.
Also, funny that I bring this up, it seems WBWL's adult hits incarnation got the last laugh - WBGB, the current adult hits station in the market, scored a 3.7 rating in December 2025, while WBWL, as I said, is a 1.7
Would iHeart make more money with such a format as opposed to what they are billing a country station?
I was actually suggesting they try some kind of classic alternative format (with or without the WFNX callsign and/or branding, provided they try and get it back), since it's had some degree of success in other markets (WNNX in Atlanta is a good example, and in 2024 Corus in Canada flipped two of their stations in Calgary and Winnipeg to the format)
Why is no one here willing to accept the "flanker" strategy as an explanation for this format's longevity? iHeart has done this with its "Bull" stations in other markets, as have other chains that run country stations that trail established format leaders. The explanation that they're tapping into some of the ad dollars generated by country while simultaneously weakening competitors -- not only in country but in other young female-friendly formats in the market -- makes perfect sense to me, yet so many posters are obsessed with the 1.9s and 2.1s they see in the 6+ numbers and think the people running those stations are fools for not flipping to alt or dance or variety hits. Why?
Because they either don't understand what 6+ numbers mean in terms of the bigger picture or can't/don't understand how or why those formats aren't going to get better ratings.