I'm listening to some 90s rock music and it made me think about how alternative rock radio, as a format, never set foot in the capitol city. The closest thing we had was when Z106 had its nightly Planet Z segment during the mid-90s. I wish we could've had our own 99X. Was it ever researched and if so, was it too negative to try here? I think it would've been really cool to have an alternative station here, rather than the dozen country stations we had.
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Why was alternative never formatted in Jackson?
- Thread starter the golden boy
- Start date
You are right i leave here on mississippi gulf coast now but in the 90's i leaved in hattiesburg we didnt have one at all it sicked at the time
I was in Hattiesburg during the mid-90s at USM. The only thing we had there was Rock 104 (which was classic rock) and Zoo 107, a satellite classic-rock station (though Zoo did have a Friday and Saturday night alternative show). At least on the coast, there was WCPR (while active rock, leaned alternative), the Zephyr from New Orleans and New Rock One Zero Seven from Pensacola.
Don't forget One Zero Seven's competitor that's still going strong today, Pensacola's TK 101.
CPR ought to be strong enough to make it into Hattiesburg regularly. We seem to get Rock 104, WFFX and SL 100 regularly down here so it stands to reason the Mobile/Gulfport stations should follow back up.
None of this helps Jackson, though.
Doesn't Jackson have a rock station now, or had one recently?
CPR ought to be strong enough to make it into Hattiesburg regularly. We seem to get Rock 104, WFFX and SL 100 regularly down here so it stands to reason the Mobile/Gulfport stations should follow back up.
None of this helps Jackson, though.
Doesn't Jackson have a rock station now, or had one recently?
Zach said:
We have Rock 93.9. Been around for about ten years now.
WCPR didn't really get into Hattiesburg. In fact, it would fade out around the 49/98 interchange. My guess is that it had to protect 97.9 out of Meridian and 98.1 from Laurel (even more now than then).
L
louisNatl
Guest
I have always found it interesting how Jackson never had an alternative station. The Gulf Coast could easily receive alternative stations from Mobile and New Orleans AND had their own alternative-leaning active rock station (WCPR). CPR did not just "survive" in this market, the station thrived by consistently ranking in the top 5 and occasionally beat country stations K99 and Kicker 108 in the male 18-34 demo. While CPR reported as an active rock station, the playlist included many alternative acts outside of the active rock format such as Tori Amos, Jewel, and Folk Implosion.
I was puzzled that a station owner in a different market didn't observe this and flip an under-performing station to this format. As I learned at the time, the alternative is not easily marketable to advertisers especially in a small Mississippi market. While the alternative fanbase comprised of loyal teens and 20s males, small businesses didn't consider this to be a lucrative demographic. CPR's ratings success meant that it was easily awarded national advertising contracts and did not have rely on attracting local advertising revenue.
Radio formats were marketable in this order: 1) Country 2) Urban AC 3) Hot AC 4) Classic Rock and everything else including CHR, gospel, active rock, talk, and sports talk scraping the bottom.
Another problem may have been the nature of the alternative format itself. Unlike other formats such as country, AC, and Top 40, the charts for the alternative format were more rigid. There were major inconsistencies among the alternative playlists across the country. Some stations played obscure and edgy tracks attempting to position themselves as a commercial version of a college station. Others opted for a more conservative playlist that only include "safe" tracks from established artists like Soundgarden and Alice In Chains. Also, it was a common practice for some stations to cherry-pick artists while ignoring selectively others that deemed to not be a "good fit" for the station or the listening audience. An example were Seven Mary Three that sounded too similar to Pearl Jam according to many station PDs.
This means that alternative stations required significant investments in program directors, music directors, and other human capital. Success could not be achieved by simply programming the top 20 songs in heavy rotation like a country or contemporary format. This lack of national playlist consistency may also explain why Westwood One and Jones never launched satellite-fed networks that some stations in Mississippi may have considered affiliating at the time.
Also, alternative stations had to invest in marketing to create a buzz (no pun intended) to build brand and listener loyalty. CPR, The Zephyr, and many other stations did this by hosting concerts and festivals like CPR-Fest. All of this investment and overhead meant that the alternative format was very expensive and the revenues were uncertain. Many station owners considered the format too risky and unproven.
The situation in Jackson is even more interesting. A rumor circulated that an under-performing station (98.7 ?) was considering a flip to alternative. Since Jackson had a classic rock station called ARRO 94.7, Z106 saw this as an opportunity to position the station as the dominant active rock/alternative leader by launching Planet Z and adding alternative tracks into the regular playlist. This may have prevented this unknown station from launching.
Even though there was no full-time commercial alternative station in Mississippi, alternative music did receive a lot of airplay on many stations. See the list below:
Tupelo:
KZ 103 had a nighttime alternative show
Columbus
WSMS (The Storm and later The Fox) had a weekend alternative show and later added alternative hits into regular rotation after transitioning to The Fox
Starkville
WMXU (Mix 106) included alternative tracks into regular rotation
Jackson
Z106 had Planet Z as mentioned
Hattiesburg
SL 100 regularly included alternative hits in nighttime rotation and had a weekend alternative show
Zoo 107 had a weekend alternative show
Y 104 included alternative hits in regular rotation
Let's not forget our college stations...
WUMS (Ole Miss) and WMSV (MSU) were full time alternative stations
WUSM played underground alternative during the overnight hours
And then there are the stations from adjacent markets that covered large portions of the state like The Zephyr in New Orleans, New Rock 107 in Mobile, and 96X in Memphis.
Now the format is dead and any remaining alternative stations barely survive only by rotating the safe, overplayed alternative hits of the 90's from Oasis, Nirvana, and NIN with the occasional post-2000 song thrown in. This is a shame because many recent acts like Muse and Cage The Elephant receive very little airplay but could benefit the alternative format tremendously.
I was puzzled that a station owner in a different market didn't observe this and flip an under-performing station to this format. As I learned at the time, the alternative is not easily marketable to advertisers especially in a small Mississippi market. While the alternative fanbase comprised of loyal teens and 20s males, small businesses didn't consider this to be a lucrative demographic. CPR's ratings success meant that it was easily awarded national advertising contracts and did not have rely on attracting local advertising revenue.
Radio formats were marketable in this order: 1) Country 2) Urban AC 3) Hot AC 4) Classic Rock and everything else including CHR, gospel, active rock, talk, and sports talk scraping the bottom.
Another problem may have been the nature of the alternative format itself. Unlike other formats such as country, AC, and Top 40, the charts for the alternative format were more rigid. There were major inconsistencies among the alternative playlists across the country. Some stations played obscure and edgy tracks attempting to position themselves as a commercial version of a college station. Others opted for a more conservative playlist that only include "safe" tracks from established artists like Soundgarden and Alice In Chains. Also, it was a common practice for some stations to cherry-pick artists while ignoring selectively others that deemed to not be a "good fit" for the station or the listening audience. An example were Seven Mary Three that sounded too similar to Pearl Jam according to many station PDs.
This means that alternative stations required significant investments in program directors, music directors, and other human capital. Success could not be achieved by simply programming the top 20 songs in heavy rotation like a country or contemporary format. This lack of national playlist consistency may also explain why Westwood One and Jones never launched satellite-fed networks that some stations in Mississippi may have considered affiliating at the time.
Also, alternative stations had to invest in marketing to create a buzz (no pun intended) to build brand and listener loyalty. CPR, The Zephyr, and many other stations did this by hosting concerts and festivals like CPR-Fest. All of this investment and overhead meant that the alternative format was very expensive and the revenues were uncertain. Many station owners considered the format too risky and unproven.
The situation in Jackson is even more interesting. A rumor circulated that an under-performing station (98.7 ?) was considering a flip to alternative. Since Jackson had a classic rock station called ARRO 94.7, Z106 saw this as an opportunity to position the station as the dominant active rock/alternative leader by launching Planet Z and adding alternative tracks into the regular playlist. This may have prevented this unknown station from launching.
Even though there was no full-time commercial alternative station in Mississippi, alternative music did receive a lot of airplay on many stations. See the list below:
Tupelo:
KZ 103 had a nighttime alternative show
Columbus
WSMS (The Storm and later The Fox) had a weekend alternative show and later added alternative hits into regular rotation after transitioning to The Fox
Starkville
WMXU (Mix 106) included alternative tracks into regular rotation
Jackson
Z106 had Planet Z as mentioned
Hattiesburg
SL 100 regularly included alternative hits in nighttime rotation and had a weekend alternative show
Zoo 107 had a weekend alternative show
Y 104 included alternative hits in regular rotation
Let's not forget our college stations...
WUMS (Ole Miss) and WMSV (MSU) were full time alternative stations
WUSM played underground alternative during the overnight hours
And then there are the stations from adjacent markets that covered large portions of the state like The Zephyr in New Orleans, New Rock 107 in Mobile, and 96X in Memphis.
Now the format is dead and any remaining alternative stations barely survive only by rotating the safe, overplayed alternative hits of the 90's from Oasis, Nirvana, and NIN with the occasional post-2000 song thrown in. This is a shame because many recent acts like Muse and Cage The Elephant receive very little airplay but could benefit the alternative format tremendously.
Golden: WCPR does not "protect" the stations you mentioned. WCPR's signal is non-directional. As a C2 it is allowed 50 kw @ 150 meters (492 ft) HAAT. According to radio-locator, their facility is only 20 ft shy of the max, so assume it's fully developed for its classification. A C2 will put a city-grade signal (3.16 mv/m) out 20 miles, and its protected contour (1.0 mv/m) goes about 31 miles. Hattiesburg is shown to be beyond that contour, but within the fringe contour. Co- or adjacent-channel interference may make listening difficult there.
I lived in Jackson 1971 to 1983, and was in ownership/management of a station. I would hate to think Jackson hasn't changed after 30 years, but around 1981, Keymarket bought WJDX/WZZQ 102.9. That FM was pulling a consistent 13 (!) share, but the new owners discarded the format in favor of "Miss 103" country, which in no time also had double-digit shares. The conventional wisdom at the time was that the type of people who listened to WZZQ weren't the type of people advertisers were trying to reach. Other stations in the market told advertisers that yes, Q had a lot of listeners, but they had limited consumer spendable income and only bought motorcycles, bluejeans, beer, record albums, and marijaweenie.
(You know, them hippies.)
Bystanders couldn't believe a new owner would walk away from a double-digit share, but I believe it's accurate to say that the Miss103 format vastly increased the billing in short order. Surely 3 decades later, it cannot be said that an alternative format in Jackson is not saleable on the street!
(You know, them hippies.)
Bystanders couldn't believe a new owner would walk away from a double-digit share, but I believe it's accurate to say that the Miss103 format vastly increased the billing in short order. Surely 3 decades later, it cannot be said that an alternative format in Jackson is not saleable on the street!
louisNatl said:
Could this have been around the time the 98.7 flipped from country to R&B (or back to country a year later)? This, too, was around the time that Planet Z took to the air. 98.7 going back to country in 1995 wasn't needed because there were already a handful of other country stations. If not alternative, then CHR, hot AC or staying R&B/urban could've been a better option. But back to an earlier point of alternative not selling here, maybe it wouldn't have lasted that long, but I would've liked to have seen tried here.
BTW, Louis, Q101 in Meridian had an alternative show on the weekends, but it went away after the station went in a hot AC direction.
L
louisNatl
Guest
the golden boy said:
That's right. I forgot about the show on Q101.
Given the facts that several stations across Mississippi flirted with the alternative format, I would speculate that one of the stations would have flipped if the advertising response was high. I think that the owners jumped on this bandwagon to remain relevant with the younger demographic but did not produce a business case to go alternative full time.
When Planet Z launched, the listener response was so overwhelmingly positive that the station expanded the show from 10 PM to start at 8 PM. Then, when the ratings became somewhat erratic, a knee-jerk reaction was made to scale it back to 10 PM (and eventually cancel it).
I recall that 98.7 went through many formats around that time including hard rock/metal (98 Rock) with moderate success. I am not sure what was going on with that station. Again, this was a rumor but 98.7 was a likely candidate to flip.
louisNatl said:
WUSM was a unique station. Back in the day WBHY 88.5 in Mobile would sign off at midnight, I guess that was Jesus' bedtime. For some strange reason Hattisburg's WUSM (a little old class A) would boom into the market and take Jesus' place on the dial... entertaining the kids in Pensacola with true College Alternative radio for a few hours every single night... pretty cool for a little class A station 150 miles away. Pensacola also had good reception of New Orleans' "Zephyr" from Picayune, MS back in the early 90's.
What's my point? Before "New Rock One Zero Seven" hit the air Pensacola, Florida, the kids relied on two small Mississippi radio stations for a little taste of Modern Rock. When One Zero Seven left the air (TK-101's owners bought it before the real Alt-rock boom started) things had changed and Pensacola was never again graced with local or DX Alternative rock again (with the small exception of a few tiny pirate stations.)
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