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WHTK-FM

Q

qman

So 107.3 FM is launching a new format soon, shelving the sports simulcast with it's AM sister in place since sept 2009. Any guesses as to what the new format on the FM will be and when it will launch?
 
107.3 seems to be their "junk" location. Only The Fox survived it and moved to a better spot. Otherwise, its where they shoved The Nerve in its final days, Jammin Oldies, Country, simulcast of WHTK. Whatever it is, I don't expect much to come of it.
 
Maybe CC will make Bob1370 happy and do una formatica d'español.


No that wouldn't work, because the core of the Rochester Hispanic population is, at best, on the signal's fringe area. Besides, Scott Fybush has announced on his Facebook page that they are going to oldies. Going up against WLGZ?
 
I think WLGZ does a good job for the most part, they'll be hard to compete with. Maybe if a station leaned more towards the 60's instead of the 80's. A few gaping holes in WLGZ's playlist.
 
I don't think WLGZ has much to worry about. Even if this new format is slick there's no way a 600 watt rimshot competes with a 6,000 watt class A
 
They were due to change formats and ran out of ideas. Look for standards in 2014 and contemporary christian in 2016.
 
Once again, during a ratings period?
Guess they've given up on WHTK. I do know people that did listen to the FM. It may have small, but it was a dedicated audience.
 
"Don't change format during a book" was conventional wisdom at one time, but that time is past. It's still early in the Spring book. Each station and each market require individual assessment, but it might be that CC local or national looked at the stations in question and decided the change would attract needed attention. They may have done a risk assessment and determined the advantages outweighed the disadvantages. Then again, the deciders may have thought, "WTH, this sucks, we have to do something... anything!" (FX: spinning the wheel of formats.)
 
"Risk assessment?" WHTK is now on the AM-only island, a sports talk AM without an FM partner. CC isn't likely to invest money to improve the AM's night pattern, so where's the risk in simulcasting an AM sports talker on an FM signal that covered the nulls in the AM's night pattern.
 
how bot a AAA station in rochester? lots of copy cat formats in this town and still nobody with the stones to even bother to try the format. i guess 88.5 will continue to be the only fm channel i listen too.
 
Element9 said:
"Risk assessment?" WHTK is now on the AM-only island, a sports talk AM without an FM partner. CC isn't likely to invest money to improve the AM's night pattern, so where's the risk in simulcasting an AM sports talker on an FM signal that covered the nulls in the AM's night pattern.
Click to expand...

I have it on very good authority that Jacor looked carefully at the possibility of improving the 1280 signal way back when, and between WADO's upgrade to the southeast and WHLD's to the west, WHTK is as wedged in as wedged-in gets. (That's not true of every Rochester regional-channel AM, as it happens, but I've already said too much.)

As for AAA on Rochester radio, it's been done, and done well, once upon a time. In fact, that's where 107.3 started: it was the second fiddle to Rochester's first commercial AAA station, Auburn Cablevision's WMAX-FM 106.7, back in the mid-1990s. While the MAX was doing live AAA, 107.3 signed on in 1996 as WRCD with satellite-fed smooth jazz from Sony's short-lived SW syndication service. Neither format survived Jacor's purchase of WMAX/WRCD in 1997. WMAX was a great station, and it's one of the Rochester stations I really, really miss. WRCD? It was kind of irrelevant, even then.
 
Scott Fybush said:
As for AAA on Rochester radio, it's been done, and done well, once upon a time. In fact, that's where 107.3 started: it was the second fiddle to Rochester's first commercial AAA station, Auburn Cablevision's WMAX-FM 106.7, back in the mid-1990s. While the MAX was doing live AAA, 107.3 signed on in 1996 as WRCD with satellite-fed smooth jazz from Sony's short-lived SW syndication service. Neither format survived Jacor's purchase of WMAX/WRCD in 1997. WMAX was a great station, and it's one of the Rochester stations I really, really miss. WRCD? It was kind of irrelevant, even then.
Click to expand...

Back then 107.3 was licensed to Honeoye Falls and 95.1 to South Bristol with a translator in Rochester. Sometime in the late 90s Jacor did a license swap.

From what I recall, MAX had decent ratings. As for 107.3, it suffered what most NAC stations suffered without much promotion - low ratings. People listened to the station, but could never recall the name. That did not help in a diary-based Measurement system. I think they never cracked a 1 share. Then again, I don't think 107.3 ever cracked a 1 share at any time.

107.3's challenge with the Rochester market is that they do not put a city-grade signal far into the metro. With 600 watts on a mountain in South Bristol, it is impossible to get through buildings and noise in Rochester and nearby suburbs. For that reason, the only format that would work to target the Rochester market would be targeted at in-car listening. Basically going for Reach and not TSL. Definitely not AAA which is quite the opposite.

Should be interesting.....

Brian
 
bmcglynn said:
107.3's challenge with the Rochester market is that they do not put a city-grade signal far into the metro. With 600 watts on a mountain in South Bristol, it is impossible to get through buildings and noise in Rochester and nearby suburbs.
Click to expand...

Brian hit the nail on the head, but it is even worse. Not only does 107.3 not put a city grade signal (70dbu) far into the metro, it doesn't even reach Monroe county with a 60dbu signal (the red-circle on radio-locator which they call 'local.'). Radio-locator doesn't show city grade which is even further inside that red circle.

http://radio-locator.com/pats/WHTK_FM_LU.gif

107.3 was sacrificed solely for (then) The Nerve. Even though KGS upgraded when 106.9 Auburn downgraded it still would make a nice pair again with 107.3 (signal-wise that is).

Looking at the website it say Rochester's ONLY Oldies Station (how can they make that claim? Could be because LGZ is listed officially with Arb as 'Classic Hits.'). Interesting as well that the word Oldies no longer seems to be off-limits.

You have to wonder what CC is up to as only they know what LGZ got in the latest book; LGZ was on a downward trend, but that is 6+ only; they obviously can see something we can't (literally, lol).
 
"You have to wonder what CC is up to as only they know what LGZ got in the latest book; LGZ was on a downward trend, but that is 6+ only; they obviously can see something we can't (literally, lol)."

Using 107.3 to compete with Legends is a waste. It can't even be heard by most of the target audience. Good luck getting it on even a good table radio in Rochester (I've tried). It's a little better in Victor and Canandaigua but that's not going to help you a lot against local country and talk competition that's established.

Legends also seems to be making the same kind of adjustments that WCBS-FM has made in recent years in NYC to broaden its classic hits library to include more rock and more 80s cuts. They used to sound like they were programmed from vintage WBBF and WAXC playlists, but now they're picking up some of the tunes WPXY played back in its early days. Strategically it's a good move. They won't surge to #2 overall like WCBS-FM consistently does, because they'd need a full Class B signal to do that--but it would also take a full B signal to knock them off.
 
I was driving around today and noticed that they had changed over sometime this morning. (At 7am, it was all promos letting people know about the switch. By 10am it was playing Oldies.)

I only heard 70's tunes, save for 2 sixties songs. Its not bad, but once they add jocks and maybe a decent morning or speciality show, they'll be pretty good.
 
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